"I Am Monarch of All I Survey": The Discourse of Imperialism and Three Victorian Travel Writings

• Main Authors: Wei-ching Lai, 賴維菁
• Other Authors: Lee Yu-cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23636448849887825597

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 88 === "I AM Monarch of All I Survey": The Discourse of Imperialism and Three Victorian Travel Writings Abstract This dissertation aims to read three Victorian travel writings within the context of imperialist discourse. The three works chosen are Anthony Trollope''s The West Indies and the Spanish Main, Harriet Martineau''s Eastern Life, Present and Past, and Robert Louis Stevenson''s In the South Seas. All the three authors had been full-fledged and well-known writers before the publication of the three works, and their literary skills distinguished their travel accounts from those written by amateur writers like explorers, scientists, and "professional" travellers. All of them-especially the two male writers-had extensive experience of travel, through which they composed more than one travel account. Each of their travel accounts discussed in the dissertation depicts how a nineteenth-century English traveller-a subject of Queen Victoria-encountered the people, culture, and nature of a certain "uncivilized" locality. At the apex of Western imperialism, such an uncivilized place represented a colony of British Empire, a protectorate of a Great Power, or an "independent" underdeveloped country with many competitive Powers within it. These travel accounts may well serve as the texts for investigating the relationship between imperialism and travel writing, and the relationship proves to be less unanimous than some post-colonialist critics attempt to suggest. The "Introduction" to this dissertation, purporting to set up the terms for the whole discussion, deals with two issues: a synoptic introduction to British travel writing in the nineteenth century and a theorization of the discourse of imperialism. I explicate why I would like to apply the notion of imperialist discourse to the Victorian travel writings about the uncivilized localities, what was called the Third World during the Cold War. In regard to the definition and application of the imperialist discourse, I challenge Foucault''s concept of discourse and turn to a more Saidian concept of imperialist discourse. The dissertation proper comprises three chapters, each chapter dealing with a travel account. The central idea throughout the three chapters is that social identities have much to do with the "interpellation" of the imperialist discourse-because of the different identities assumed by the writers, their travel accounts demonstrate different degrees, shapes, and colors of imperialist discourse. The varieties are not merely a range of differences between two extremes; they sometimes even transgress the boundary of the discourse of imperialism. The three chapters discuss Britishness in Anthony Trollope''s The West Indies and the Spanish Main, femininity in Harriet Martineau''s Eastern Life: Present and Past, and exile in Robert Louis Stevenson''s In the South Seas, respectively. Trollope was a civil servant and through-and-through bourgeois. Even in a less political and more amusing travel account like The West Indies, he reproduced the statements of imperialist discourse. Martineau was a radical woman writer who had concerned herself with women''s status in the Victorian society. Eastern Life manifests an intricate intertwining of the discourses of femininity and of imperialism. The two discourses sometimes contradict and sometimes converge with each other. Generally speaking, however, the text demonstrates that the travelling subject tends to challenge the discourse of femininity and assume the role of a male imperial dominator. Stevenson, as a Scot and exile, was less "interpellated" by the discourse of imperialism than the other two Victorians. Consequently In the South Seas-despite that all the three travel accounts favor humanistic rather than patriotic or jingoistic perspectives-is the single work that can be labeled "anti-imperialism." Nevertheless, "anti-imperialism" can merely serve as the dominant reading of the text, and there are other conflicting elements in the text which are by no means anti-imperialist. A conclusion is appended at the end of the dissertation to summarize the findings.