ENGL6080 – Travel Writing and Culture
Notes, Reading and Exercises for Week 8
Gendering the Other – Lady Mary Montagu Wortley (Mary Montagu), and Mary Kingsley
"... as a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is
the whole world." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas.
"Historically, the discourse of absence is carried on by the Woman: Woman is sedentary, Man
hunts, journeys; Woman is faithful (she waits), man is fickle (he sails away, he cruises). " Roland
Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
Who travels?
In Western culture, from the Odyssey onwards, it is the man who sets out on voyages while the
woman waits, as Penelope waits for Odysseus. What happens to the idea of female identity when
women travel? How are domesticity and home reconfigured when the female presence goes
away? How is the (masculine) yearning for home reconfigured when the female is abroad?
The male crosses boundaries and penetrates spaces, while the female is mapped - a topos, a place
on man's itinerary. Home is the safe, domesticated and feminized space.
1. Suppression.
In Paul Fussell's, The Norton Book of Travel, there are extracts from FIFTY SIX writers of whom
FOUR are women, and one of these women (Jan Morris) spent half her life as a man. This underrepresentation of women writers (and for that matter, black and Asian writers) is fairly typical of
the history of western literary production in general, and of travel writing in particular. Fussell's
anthology was first published in 1987, and this was when gender studies and post-colonial studies
shifted the focus in travel writing studies towards black, Asian and female travel writers.
Barbara Korte, in English Travel Writing (2000), citing the Cambridge History of English
Literature (1916), notes that in the past it has been taken for granted that travel narratives "are
aimed primarily at a male audience", and "are normally also written by men". Little attention has
been given to women's travel writing and only very recently have anthologies on women's travel
writing appeared. Mary Kingsley's travel writing was published in her own time, but this was an
exception. Otherwise, the publishing industry, which for travel writing meant short articles in
‘gentleman’s magazines’ (such as the Edinburgh Review, and the Gentleman’s Magazine) as well
as full-length books, largely ignored women's travel memoirs.
2. Conditions of Travel
Throughout history, obstacles have been placed in the way of women travelling – only recently
have these started to come down. Mary Kingsley, a celebrated woman traveller, stayed at home
looking after her parents until they both died. A spinster in her thirties, she then set off for West
Africa, largely to complete work her father had begun. Her fame initially might have been due to
her status as a 'curiosity' - a woman in what had been considered a man's world. Later she would
be adopted by groups campaigning for women's rights, but she was much more interested in the
tribes of West Africa and their customs than in the campaign for equality at home. She was, as far
as gender was concerned (and also, unfortunately, as far as colonialism was concerned) a
conformist. She put her domestic duties first, and marriage having passed her by, she was then
'free' to travel. But she did insist on remaining conventionally feminine in appearance. She wore
full Victorian women's garb, although she once admitted to wearing her brother's trousers
beneath. (It was common for women travellers to disguise themselves as men so they could travel
with less hindrance and less attention, especially in Middle East and Asia - cross-dressing in some
ways enforces the idea of travel as a man's world, but it also hints at transgression of gender
boundaries.
In the nineteenth century, it was common for women to accompany their husbands on overseas
postings to European colonies in Asia and Africa. Such women often wrote diaries and letters,
some of which have been published (e.g. Mary Montagu's letters). Relatively few women had the
means or the inclination to travel independently. Travel may have been an important part of a
young man's education, but it was decidedly not recommended for (most) women. It was assumed
that women would be at risk of moral corruption and unchaste behaviour when in contact with
foreign cultures. But Mary Montagu was at pains to show that women in an Islamic culture could
enjoy more freedom than western women. For respectable European women (the only ones who
could afford to travel), constraints at home were considerable – Montagu uses the metaphor of the
whale-bone corset to stand for these constraints.
It suits the pattern of patriarchy in European society for women to 'stay at home' - this was
considered to be their rightful sphere. Women stayed at home, men travelled and came home to
their wives, or at least this was the official story. Unofficially, men frequently had relations with
other women on their travels (and sometimes with men). William Dalrymple, in White Mughals,
has shown, for example, that many European men in India in the eighteenth century decided to
‘cross-over’ into Islamic culture where they were allowed more than one legal wife.
Objections to women travelling gradually eased in the twentieth century, but the idea of women
travelling alone even now is still not quite acceptable in some parts of the world.
3. 'Feminine' and 'Masculine' Travel Writing - a very problematic question.
Moving on from a moment to women travelling to women
writing, we might consider whether, apart from obviously
different points of view, access to places and so on, women
produce a different kind of travel writing, or at least offer a
different style. As with other forms of writing, the question of
whether there is a distinct 'feminine' style in travel writing is
interesting, although perhaps the answer is bound to be
inconclusive. For example, we could say that 'masculine' travel
writing is exemplified by the controlled, unemotional and plain
explorers' narratives such as The Journals of Captain Cook.
The style here is predominantly objective, factual, 'scientific',
impersonal and understated. Such writing is certainly written
by men, it is written for men, and it is concerned with
masculinist heroic adventures. Cook's undoubted achievements
and the manner of his death made him a national hero, and he
is conscious that he is making history, a position women
travellers would rarely find themselves in. Writing style is
always in part determined by circumstances like these.
At the other end of the spectrum, 'feminine' travel writing might be defined by the writing of
domestic scenes, as in Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans, or the intimate
and 'sisterly' letters of Mary Montagu. But then again, might Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental
Journey be considered ‘feminine’ in style? Montagu’s letters were not intended to be read by
anyone but her female friends and relatives, and are, as we might expect, mainly focused on the
domestic lives of women, and written in a more intimate, personal, emotional style. But perhaps it
is the content more than the style, and the narrative authority (or lack of it) that determines
whether the adjectives ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ can usefully be applied.
Today, women's travel writing is studied for its insights into feminine identity and genderspecific aspects of travelling at different times. This is perhaps of more interest to us at the
moment precisely because it has been suppressed and so offers potentially new perspectives on
peoples and places. There are numerous examples of women’s travel writings putting quite
different perspectives on places and people – Montagu and Kingsley both offer these, and at the
same time critique the preceding and prevailing male perspective. But as Barbara Korte says,
"Women ... travel not only as representatives of their gender, but also as members of their
particular society and culture"; we should not restrict our readings of women's travel writing only
to questions of gender, as this would be very reductive.
4. Features of Women's Travel Writing
"I am only a woman and we ladies - though great on details and concrete conceptions - are never
capable of feeling devotion to things I know well enough are really greater namely abstract
things" (Mary Kingsley, 1898 – ‘Letter to Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary’).
Mary Kingsley's comment that as a woman she is limited to recording the details and concrete
ideas, but unable to deal with abstract things, such as political and economic theory, conforms to,
and seems to confirm, a 19th century prejudice that women were not capable of the kind of
thinking needed to act in the wider world. This was why they were restricted to the domestic
sphere, or perhaps they were restricted to the domestic sphere deliberately to exclude them from
the circle so power. If society does not educate women, or give them the vote, then they remain
excluded, and this was a deliberate policy in England until the early 20th century. But selfeducation was always possible, and Mary Kingsley is one woman writer who shows she can quite
easily and effectively write about abstract things.
Barbara Korte notes that Anthony Trollope was critical of his mother's (Frances Trollope's)
description of the "social absurdities" she encountered in America because she was unable to put
these into the wider context of American political life. Anthony Trollope considered that
understanding the context of the American political system was "work .. fitter for a man than a
woman".
Whether in genuine recognition of such "failings" or whether added later by editors or publishers,
or whether given 'tongue in cheek', it was common to find an apology, such as that by Mary
Kingsley prefacing accounts of women’s travels. As if conscious that they were entering a 'man's
world', in which 'being manly' was the accepted code of behaviour, women travel writers were
often forcibly made aware of a gender ambiguity. To travel, especially in the early days, often
required so-called 'manly' qualities of endurance, resilience and physical strength, and yet these
women travellers, conditioned by the gender division of their home societies, might also feel
compelled to defend their femininity and denounce their 'manliness'.
5. Men's Journeys and Women's Journeys.
"A man, when he undertakes a journey, has, in general, the end in view; a woman thinks more of
incidental occurrences, the strange things that may possibly occur on the road" (Mary
Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792))
This statement might of course be read in a positive or a negative light. At the time, it was
probably aimed at the superficiality and relative unimportance that Wollstonecraft attached to
women's travel writing. But perhaps the prime example of not keeping the end in view and
thinking only of incidental occurrences is Lawrence Sterne's sentimental traveller - a man, if a
somewhat effeminate one (so proving the point?).
Womens' journeys, because they are different from those of men, may be of great interest for this
very reason. They may give insight into 'other' experiences which men could never be privy to.
The best example of this is perhaps Mary Montagu's letters from Turkey, which give insight into
the domestic arrangements in Islamic society which men would never have the chance to see.
In studying womens' travel writing you might notice a greater willingness, in general, to cross
cultural boundaries and meet with 'the other' rather than describe and shape him. Montagu
certainly shows this among the women of Turkey. Perhaps women are used to seeing their own
culture in relative terms. They have not been used to shaping their own culture, and are less
defensive of it (certainly less than someone like Smollett). In other words, they might feel less
affinity towards, and less ownership of, their
'home' culture as it is determined mainly by
men.
6. Women travellers as eccentrics
Women's travel writing during the period of
British imperialism (Victorian period: mid 19th
to early 20th century) was generally received as
'eccentric' discourse. That is it had little to do
with the dominant colonial discourse, which at
the time was constructing British identity
through a masculine and patriarchal matrix.
Women travellers who did publish their writings
were celebrated for struggling against social
convention. They were exceptional women, but
not taken altogether seriously. Sarah Mills
suggests that "the writing they produced tended
to be more tentative than male writing, less able
to assert the 'truths' of British rule." (Mills, 1991: 3) They wrote about individuals rather than
generalising about whole races (as did much (male) colonialist writing). There is a "textual
unease" in women's travel writing that contrasts markedly with the the assurance and confidence
of masculinist imperialist travel writing. This unease can be related to constructions of feminine
identity and fitting or rather not fitting within these, as well as unease about imperialism.
7. Women readers
If, as appears to be the case, travel writing as a genre has been produced largely by and for men
(due in part to the suppression of women's travel writing and in part to less opportunities for
women to travel), what happens when women read travel writing. If the 'hero' is usually male, do
women identify with that hero? What ideas of escape and adventure might travel writing awaken
in female readers? How might these differ from those for male readers?
8. The masculine logic of travel
Historically specific modes of travel have reinforced the ideologies of their time and in Europe,
these ideologies have invariably been linked to different kinds of masculinity. Indeed, we might
say that the history of European travel and travel narratives is linked to a history of masculinity.
In the early, premodern days of travel, there were crusaders, pilgrims, missionaries and
merchants. In the West, the Christian church sent men to foreign lands to convert, cajole or
otherwise violently coerce the non-Christian world. The men were armed pilgrims, heroic
knights, on a quest. The masculine quest, celebrated in medieval literature, had an emblematic
and a practical function. The heroic calling provided a practical means for getting rid of the
unruly and unattached 'surplus' masculinity at home - "Crusader journeys channeled itinerant
masculinity, whether that of common soldier or of knight, into its most socially useful shapes and
curbed its destabilizing excesses" (Smith, 2001: 2).
During the early modern period, pilgrimage gave way to exploration and conquest - young men
would follow the bold adventurers who sailed off into uncharted territories, relying on their own
wit and courage. A new heroic code was formed, and again it was exclusively male. Although
women were often found on board ships, and occasionally captained them, this was not
commonly known until quite recently - the voyage of discovery was an exclusively male
preserve.
During the long period of European imperialism (from the 15th to the early 20th century),
Europeans re-imagined the world as forged in the image of a continuously expanding Europe. It
was with an imperialist gaze that Europeans came, saw and conquered. The acquisitive
(masculine) gaze also saw profit in the lands Europeans settled. People and products were turned
into commodities and the capitalist entrepreneur, together with the adventurous missionaries
made their mark on the colonies.
During the Enlightenment period, the raw masculinity that had set forth to conquer and dominate
was tempered by science and reason. A new kind of masculinity emerged - the idea of men
pursuing knowledge - the scientists and botanists, who nevertheless imposed themselves and their
taxonomies on the rest of the world. Another kind of masculinity was produced in the idea of The
Grand Tour of the 18th century: the aristocratic (and later the bourgeois) gentleman. "'The
traveller' has remained endurably 'masculine' - one who stands in awe, supplicates, survives,
conquers, claims, penetrates, surveys, colonizes, studies, catalogs, organizes, civilizes, critiques,
celebrates, absorbs, goes "native". (Smith, 2001: 10-11)
9. So where were the women?
Women have always travelled, but this ideological gendering of travel makes travel difficult for
women and makes problematic responses to women travellers and their narratives. Women have
not, despite travelling extensively and writing about their travels, creating a category of women's
travel writing - or at least no one so far, has formulated such a category. Women's travel
narratives, though they might be specifically about feminine experience, have too often (until the
late 20th century) been regarded as in opposition to, or inferior to, the long tradition of men's
travel writing.
Women pilgrims were not crusaders and they did write about their experiences, but only in the
20th century has Egeria's 5th century narrative of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Margery
Kempe's The Book of Margery Kempe (1436) been 're-discovered'. Margery Kempe's book was
probably suppressed because it showed too much worldliness in a woman - this would have been
regarded either as a threat to the masculine order of the Christian church, or just suspect because
it came from a woman contaminated by this worldliness. The implication is anyway clear women are not supposed to be travelling and communicating knowledge about the world.
Women were not explorers and colonizers, but they did follow the men and help establish the
settlements. Some had no choice, of course - they were slaves, or wives or daughters of the
colonizers. In 1682, Mary White Rowlandson wrote the first American captivity narrative
describing her forced journey with the Indians who kidnapped her.
Further Reading:
Alison Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa
Karen R. Lawrence, Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition
Sarah Mills, Discourses of Difference
Sidonie Smith, Moving Lives: 20th-Century Women's Travel Writing
Robinson (ed.) Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers
Frederick and McLeod, Women and the Journey: The Female Travel Experience
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 'To The Lady ... ', 'To the Countess of Mar' and 'To Mrs.
Thistlethwayte' from Letters (1717)
Mary Montagu, an early 'feminist', was very well connected in English society. She was a friend
of the Royal family, politicians and literary figures. She is now recognised as one of the most
important writers of her generation, although only recently have most of her poetry, essays and
letters been published. This huge body of work gives us an insight into female perspectives of
England and Europe in the 18th century, previously not available. She wrote hundreds of letters
home to her friends and family while she was living in Turkey with her husband who had been
appointed ambassador there. Although there were a few independent women travellers at this
time who wrote about their travels (Montagu was to become one herself later) this was the
exception, and it was rare for women's travel writing to be published. Much European travel
writing by women in the 18th and 19th century is by women accompanying their husbands sent
abroad as diplomats, ambassadors and later colonial administrators.
'To The Lady ... '
This is a wonderful sketch of the scene in the women's baths at Sophia. Note how this scene of
naked women enjoying their freedom from men is presented as 'from one woman to another'. If
this had been written by a man, it would of course be voyeuristic, but such a thing would be
impossible we are told, because this is a scene out of bounds to men, on punishment of death.
This lack of men, both in the scene and in the correspondence, suggest rare freedom and pleasure.
Mary Montagu is repeatedly offered the chance to partake of this freedom and pleasure and at one
point the women of the baths try to undress her, but finding her tightly bound by her English stays
(corset), they give up, assuming her husband has designed some contraption for locking up her
body. Could those stays be some kind of metaphor for the constraints of English patriarchal
authority?
'To The Countess of Mar'
Another very 'painterly' sketch - the writer is clearly at pains to paint a detailed picture here for
her reader, and it is a kind of self-portrait, although the subject is involved in a kind of cultural
cross-dressing, as it were, trying on the clothes of another culture. A very feminine sketch, we
could say, concerning women and women's clothing, but it can also be read as a comment on
women's freedoms. From today's perspective, praising the Islamic dress code for women as a
freedom may seem odd, and yet Mary Montagu conveys a sense of sisterhood and concealment, a
kind of female secret society which goes on beneath the surface of male society. Note also how
she takes on writers who have 'got it wrong' - in the last paragraph she refers to "our voyage
writers" - i.e. that generation of male travel writers who have failed to convey accurate accounts
of Islam.
'To Mrs. Thistlethwayte'
Another letter designed to correct the mistakes of "the common voyage-writers, who are very
fond of speaking of what they don't know". Here, it is Turkish domestic architecture which is the
subject of Mary Montagu's 'corrective re-visioning'. As in her letter 'To The Lady', Mary
Montagu again presents a very fine and detailed picture of the house, and again this is given to us
as from a 'privileged female position'. This is a view from within the Turkish house which in this
case could literally never be gained by men, because they do not have access to the female
quarters, but perhaps, this is another sly dig at (male) travel writers who fail to see the deeper
realities of social life, and focus too much either on externals (as with Smollett) or their own finer
feelings (as with Sterne).
A Lady an explorer? a traveller in skirts?
The notions just a trifle too seraphic:
Let them stay and mind the babies, or mend our ragged shirts;
But they mustn't, can't, and shan't be geographic.
'To the Royal Geographic Society', Punch, 10 June 1893
Mary Kingsley (1862-1900)
Mary Kingsley was the daughter of a doctor and traveller/explorer,
George Kingsley, who travelled extensively around the world and
gathered huge amounts of data on native customs, plants and animals but
failed to organise it for publication. Mary assisted her father in this task, and when her father
died, decided to continue his work in West Africa. She set off on two trips, one in 1893, the other
1894-1895. On return to England in 1895, this paradoxical figure of a Victorian lady engaged in
adventure among primitive tribes and savage beasts, achieved immediate fame. Unlike her father,
she published her account two years after returning to England. Her book was an immediate
success, but when the Boer War broke out she went to South Africa to nurse the Boer prisoners of
war and died of fever in June, 1900.
Kingsley had devoted her life to her parents, and when they both died in 1892, she was suddenly
released. But at nearly thirty, a spinster with little education and no particular skills, her freedom
was limited. Her decision to go to West Africa seems like complete folly. She could hardly have
been less prepared for the rigours and dangers of exploration, at least this is what the male
explorers would like us to believe. It seemed a miracle that this middle-class spinster of ordinary
physique with no experience of Africa and for the most part without protection should survive.
She travelled mostly on foot, wearing standard Victorian dress, alone into areas inhabited by
cannibals, hostile natives and lethal diseases, and emerged more or less unscathed.
Her strategy for survival seems to have been to appear among the natives as a small trader,
learning trade English and the prices of various goods. She survived financially through trading in
rubber and ivory, believing that by engaging the natives in the business of buying and selling she
would bridge the gap between her world and theirs and earn some respect through her knowledge
of their business. To some extent, this strategy is born of the necessity of being a woman - i.e.
being a woman she was unlikely to get finance form the African Association or the British
Government for an expedition. But perhaps, as a woman, she might have preferred this method of
finding acceptance by getting respect as a local trader anyway. Other women travellers at the time
often dressed as men to gain acceptance and protect themselves from being regarded as 'Only a
woman ...'.
Travels in West Africa (1897) - "Only a Woman ..."
"I am only a woman and we ladies - though great on details and concrete conceptions - are never
capable of feeling devotion to things I know well enough are really greater namely abstract
things" (Mary Kingsley, 1898 - letter to Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary).
Taking this claim at face value and assuming that there is no hint of irony (which there may well
be), how might we assess Kingsley's narrative?
Note the style of the narrative. This is not simply a record of events and observations, but a
studied and self-reflective response to her experiences. Kingsley seems more conscious than
many travel writers of the time of the problem of slipping into stereotypical descriptions of 'the
natives' and their customs. The idea that there is no key to the native customs - each may have its
own reasons - not a system (166). She values living with the natives, and experiencing daily life
without imposing preconceived ideas on what she sees. She is particularly sensitive to the
problem of altering the behaviour of the natives by her presence among them. This is the
anthropologists dilemma, how to observe other people without inducing different forms of
behaviour by their very presence. She also distinguishes carefully between different native groups
and individuals.
Chapter Two - Libreville to Lambarene
Consider the dark forest here as a metaphor for 'not seeing'. This chapter has a number of
references to learning to see through the forest - to see not only the physical world, but also to see
into the minds of the native: "Unless you live among the natives you never get to know them; if
you do this you gradually get a light into the true state of their mind-forest" (35). This is a
complex position which both uses the idea of the natives as 'other', but at the same time tries to
glimpse their 'other world' through familiarity with it. Does this represent a crossing over into the
world of the other, or is it merely a strategy for more informed othering?
The problem of crossing over, or 'going native' as it was sometimes described, is something
Kingsley seems conscious of and guards against - it is necessary, she says to protect your own
mind from the 'savage idea' - the darkness, tangled forests, swamps and fogs of Africa (166).
Consider the comic picture of the government officials (36). To what extent would you say this
was an accurate observation and to what extent a deliberately satirical vignette designed to
present the (male/French) colonial officers as ridiculous and out of place?
Chapter Nine - 'Stalking the Wild West African Idea'
Kingsley's declared purpose for the visit is to study 'the African form of thought'. The difficulties
of such a study are likened to those of Big Game hunting - again she is using the language of the
adventure hero to describe her approach to 'tracking down' native customs, (160-1). But note how
she turns the metaphor around, suggesting that the Big Game hunting approach is not the way to
discover more about Africa or the natives. Furthermore, she may be criticising imperialist method
more generally, through the metaphor of 'flag-waving'. (164)
Note how much attention Kingsley gives to learning to communicate with the natives. But again,
the language she uses 'Trade English' (162) is of course a language imposed on the natives to
allow them to trade with Europeans - the presence of this language is already an indication of the
influence of British Empire, and her communication is surely limited by this.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Find examples of some of the following:
a) feminine style (how strongly can this be differentiated from masculine or neutral style?)
b) a woman’s perspective (does this limit the travel writing or extend it into different areas?)
c) gender ambivalence/transgression (is this of necessity or voluntary, and where might it
lead?)
d) women’s issues (are these presented to women in a mark of solidarity/sisterlyness, or
presented to men as a critique of male society?)
Paul Smethurst – 9 October 2012