Me, myself and the Other: Self-reflexivity in Travel Writing

Abstract

This dissertation will explore self-reflexivity in travel writing. Specifically, I will present an 18th and a 20th century travel text and demonstrate that the authors undertake similar self-reflexive practices within the parameters of published travel literature, despite their different historical contexts. Hester Thrale Piozzi (Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey Through France, Italy and Germany, 1789) and Jan Morris (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, 2001) both produced travel works on Italy and in doing so, I will argue, they also wrote about themselves in ways that are not immediately apparent. The observations they present to their reader about the “Other” requires first an examination of self or the selves that inhabit both an “insider” and “outsider” world. Within their travel works, both authors are particularly self-reflective with regards to being an insider/outsider. Within this framework they present impressions covertly, bound by their perceived reader and the parameters of genre. Although self-reflexive, their texts must still be subservient to a readership that is interested in place and the escapism offered by travel literature. My own collection of short stories, All Autostrade Lead to Rome, reflects this act of confronting the Other whilst travelling as a catalyst for self-exploration and self-revelation. I have created a set of characters and stories that reflect the ambivalent experience of selfdiscovery and the intense examination of self and relationships triggered by the act of locating that self in a foreign place and culture. The ten stories in the collection chart a literal journey from the North of Italy to the South, as well as an existential journey from order and routine, to disruption and chaos. The fictional travellers, taken out of their home context, are forced to reconsider and reassess themselves – their actions, their decisions, their relationships and their futures – and most of them find themselves straddling tropes of being an insider and outsider, similarly to the nonfiction of Piozzi and Morris. This exegesis will first present an overview of self-reflexivity, particularly within the context of travel writing. Following that, I will provide a brief overview of Piozzi and Morris and their respective works (Observations and Trieste). Next, I will demonstrate how Piozzi and Morris “perform” self-reflexivity in remarkably similar ways with regard to portraying insider status, and then I will do the same regarding notions of being an outsider. In the next section, I will discuss self-reflexivity and self-exploration in my own work, and the conclusion will be presented in last section.