Bechir Chaabane
Majmaah University,
Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Travel is not unsusceptible to
the ideology in force since its journey and focal incidents are shaped by the
spirit of the era. During the Victorian age, travel writing sponsored the
imperial expansion by providing new markets for the British products especially
in sub-Saharan Africa. In this aura, Africans
are often presented as primitive,
lacking history and culture. Unconventionally, Mary Kingsley gives the lie to
this representation by exposing Africa as a land of cultural diversity and
Africans as heterogeneous people with cultural specificities. The eminence of
the cultural difference in the African society is strategically placed by
Kingsley to point at the static and second-class identity imposed on Victorian
women in 19th century. Approaching the native African culture
differently can be read as a hedge against the static identity imposed on
Victorian women at home.
Keywords: travel writing,
Africa, Victorian age, cultural diversity, religion, spirituality, identity
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