Women's Travel Narratives in The

NAVIGATING IDENTITIES: WOMEN’S TRAVEL NARRATIVES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by Heather Lynn Sprong Bachelor of Arts, Washington and Jefferson College, 2001 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Heather Lynn Sprong It was defended on July 23, 2013 and approved by Neepa Majumdar, PhD, Associate Professor of English and Film Studies Philip Smith, PhD, Associate Professor of Literature Joshua Ellenbogen, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History Dissertation Director: Troy Boone, PhD, Associate Professor of Literature ii Copyright © by Heather Lynn Sprong 2013 iii NAVIGATING IDENTITIES: WOMEN’S TRAVEL NARRATIVES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Heather Lynn Sprong, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2013 This dissertation argues that diurnal travel narratives written and published in the nineteenth century participated in the discourse of imperialism by articulating empire’s influence in terms that readers outside of the realm of politics could understand: impact on daily life. Working primarily with texts written by women such as Emily Eden, Fanny Eden, and Emily Innes who traveled with governing members of the British colonial ruling class, this dissertation asserts that the minutiae included in their narratives—everything from the food writers ate and the people they met to worries about their inkstands and which furniture their pets favored—expose, but also act upon, the discourse of imperialism. Writing functions both as a product and as an activity in these journals, and I contend that its double role constitutes the crux of their power as agents of imperial discourse. Scholars of travel writing such as Indira Ghose, Susan Morgan, and Susan Schoenbauer have introduced us to the notion that we need to consider genre, gender, and place when situating texts in a tradition of writing. In another vein, Dierdre David focuses on the rhetorical functions of epistolary travel writing. By combining those approaches, and identifying a sub-genre consisting of diurnal of travel writing, I illuminate the particular varieties of writing produced because of those contexts. Coupling contextual and rhetorical elements of creation as I do accomplishes two iv things. First, by noting traces of the discursive process in diurnal travel narratives, I expand the notion of what writing entails, and, thus, what constitutes writing (and defining) imperial discourse. Secondly, recognizing the diurnal nature of the texts calls our attention to two phases of invention: initial composition and editing for publication. Because the narratives I study were privately written, but published for public consumption, they straddle the line between private correspondence and public media, a location that creates a perception of intimacy with the author and ignores the influential practice of constructing colonial impressions that they carry out. Thus, I investigate the link between the shared personal experiences recorded in these journals and the greater political significances they both reflect and enact. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... ix 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 2.0 CHAPTER 1: NAVIGATING IDENTITY: WOMEN’S TRAVEL NARRATIVES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .................................................................................... 19 2.1 GENRE .................................................................................................................23 2.1.1 Including Aristocratic Details .................................................................. 27 2.1.2 Invisible Anxiety ...................................................................................... 28 2.1.3 Constructing Walls of Personality ........................................................... 32 2.1.4 Getting Down and Dirty ........................................................................... 35 2.2 IDENTITY ........................................................................................................... 39 2.2.1 National Interests ..................................................................................... 41 2.2.2 Interpreting Subjects: Owning Identity .................................................... 45 2.2.3 Getting Lost in the Chaos ........................................................................ 52 2.3 THE SUBJECT OF NARRATION ..................................................................... 58 2.3.1 Flaunting the Instability of Identity ......................................................... 59 2.3.2 Covering British Subjects ........................................................................ 65 2.3.3 Telling about Writing: Diurnal Travel Narratives ................................... 71 2.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 76 vi 3.0 CHAPTER 2: THE MATERIALITY OF THE JOURNAL AND THE MISSING INK .90 3.1 OBJECTS AND NARRATING PROCESS ........................................................ 94 3.1.1 Recognizing Context ................................................................................ 95 3.1.2 Ethos and Inkstands ............................................................................... 104 3.1.3 A Passage from India ............................................................................. 115 3.1.4 Gertrude Jekyll: Narrativizing Process .................................................. 120 3.1.5 The Majesty in Failure ............................................................................124 3.2 NOTING IMPERFECTIONS .............................................................................126 3.2.1 Imperfections and Innovations ............................................................... 128 3.2.2 Personal as Political: Forming a Sense of “Shared” Experience and Identity ................................................................................................... 130 3.2.3 Žižek’s Missing Ink ............................................................................... 139 3.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 144 3.3.1 What’s at stake in Emily Eden’s Writing .............................................. 145 3.3.2 What’s at stake in Fanny Eden’s Writing .............................................. 146 3.3.3 What’s at Stake in Emily Innes’s Writing ............................................. 147 4.0 CHAPTER 3: THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE RAJ ................................................. 161 4.1 CONSUMERS AND PRODUCERS ................................................................. 165 4.1.1 Practicing English Life .......................................................................... 167 4.1.2 Appropriating Postcards ......................................................................... 171 4.1.3 Consumers .............................................................................................. 178 4.2 CONSUMERS OF OBJECTS: THE PRICE OF THE PRODUCT .................. 181 4.2.1 Journal as Media .................................................................................... 181 vii 4.2.2 Creating Rhetorical Space Through Form ............................................. 186 4.2.3 Multiple Sites of Invention .................................................................... 190 4.2.4 Collocating and Collecting .................................................................... 193 4.3 CONSUMING PRESENCE .............................................................................. 202 4.3.1 Literal Presence ...................................................................................... 204 4.3.2 Textualization ........................................................................................ 209 4.3.3 Fleeting Photographic Presence ............................................................. 212 4.4 MATERIALITY ................................................................................................ 215 4.4.1 Privacy ................................................................................................... 215 4.4.2 Absence .................................................................................................. 219 5.0 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 234 viii PREFACE This dissertation is the product of years of intellectual support and hard work from my committee. I thank you all for your enthusiastic guidance in researching, writing, and thinking through a project that (thankfully) continues to intrigue and delight me. I thank Troy Boone for promptly and patiently reading versions of this dissertation that, true to the spirit it hopes to invoke, embodied process, messiness, and a fragmented collection of subject matter through many drafts. Thank you for the space and time you gave me to write and explore, for introducing me to the concept of “things

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