Abstract:

In Western cultural tradition, travel is usually supposed as the privilege of men and a ritual journey of cultivating masculinity. Ancient epics, legends and colonial writings tend to display the hero′s physical, cultural and psychical masculinity in the narrative of his adventure and struggle in an exotic world. According to this general cultural disposition, travel makes a man a man. However, what does it mean for a woman? Female British writers in the 19^th century, who left their domestic sphere and travelled in unfamiliar foreign countries, subverted the conventional prescription of their femininity, and thus reshaped the self-representation of women. Within this trend, they played a role in the imperial knowledge production and in the construction of the culture Other. This paper is concerned with the 19^th-century British women′s travel writings in the context of colonialism, and argues that the gender perspective sheds some lights on the complicated relationship between gender liberation and imperial enterprise and between the woman as an individual and the state.

Key words: travel writings, gender perspective, masculinity, femininity