Representations of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in Travel Narratives: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and A.W. Kinglake’s Eothen
Representations of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in Travel Narratives: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and A.W. Kinglake’s Eothen

Summary/Abstract: As travel and travel accounts are as old as history of mankind. With the beginnings of firstexamples of literary writings, it is hard to separate travelling and writing within each other. Lookingat the 18th century travel literature and its tendencies, this paper explores the argument that thenarrative of travel allows the writer to imagine and disseminate images of the self. Defoe andKinglake, through the discourse of the travel narrative, portray idealised images of the”self” in theconstruction of the central character and that this is based on social ideals of the time. This paper alsoshows briefly the idea in both works that is important to the representation of”self” is therepresentation of the home culture. The main question for this essay could be, to what extent that thenarrative of travel allows the writer to imagine and disseminate images of the Self?

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