Abstract:
This thesis explores the inner, spiritual journey inherent in any outward,
physical voyage and seeks to examine the reflection of the introspected on
the observed, usually found in travel writing, in the fictional genre of the
novel. It also proposes the label “travel novel” to categorize novels that
rely on trips and whose characters travel largely in the course of the
narrative. Resting on the premises that travel writing which is
autobiographical and often takes the form of diaries and memoirs is
generally a pretext for self-exploration in parallel with the discovery of
other vistas in trips, it subsumes that travel which permits knowledge of
the outside world and of the other equally fosters self-knowledge. This
assumption is extended to fictional novels about travels wherein the
traveller-character epitomizes the same process of self-discovery in
parallel with outer voyages and understanding of the other. It is further
generalized to third-person narratives by demonstrating that the
surrounding scenery and the geographical spaces of travel novels
reverberate the psychological states of the characters and that their
spiritual questioning is echoed and projected onto the moving setting
without being voiced in the first person. To encompass as broad a range
of travel novels and narrative patterns as possible, the selection of the
corpus under study includes the sea travel novels of Joseph Conrad, the
transatlantic ones of Henry James and the global, worldwide works of
Graham Greene. Lord Jim, The Ambassadors and The Power and the Glory
are respectively chosen for their heterodiegetic narratives and various and
wide topoi as well as their epitome of the different forms of trips such as
navigation, tourism and escape. The three travel novelists are hence
showed to avail themselves of psychogeography, heterotopias and even
heteroglossia to substantiate metaphysical journeys and enhance both
outer and inner knowledge.
