-- Kathie Zemke Worrell

When the colonizing nations of the old world began to capture and settle new lands, they saw the indigenous peoples through the eyes of their own cultures. In comparison, the colonized generally were seen as underdeveloped and backward. This perception led the colonizers to stereotype these Others as primitive, savage, unintelligible and, in some cases, barely human. At the same time, the colonizers came to see themselves as vastly superior. Edward Said declares that this altered sense of reality became an integral part of the empire’s culture, so much so that it became "a structure of attitude and reference" in written texts (qtd. in Duncan 298). Although it is sometimes blatant, Said contends that it can primarily be seen though the "style, figures of speech, setting, narrative devices, historical and social circumstances" of the work. (21).

David Spurr states that, although this "rhetoric of empire" was once interpreted merely as the expression of traditional Western ideals, it is now recognized as the means by which authors "served in the historical process of colonization" (1). Said labeled this type of rhetoric "Orientalism" when he first exposed it as "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient" (3). Spurr states that this colonial discourse was used in virtually all forms of writing including "imaginative literature, journalism, travel writing, ethnographic description, historiography, political speeches, administrative documents and statutes of law" (5). This discourse illuminated and perpetuated the idea of the unfamiliar, unusual, and ultimately inferior Other. It served to give legitimacy to the process of colonization and enhance the perceived superior/inferior relationship between "us" and "them."

The idea of "us" and "them" has become so pervasive that, today, it can be seen not only in terms of Western and Oriental (colonizer and colonized), but also between any cultures and peoples who are considered different by any standard. The rhetoric of empire has become so embedded in thought and language that it is now used to describe any Other, showing the prejudicial views of the author and his/her culture. It is not limited to ethnicity but includes gender, religion, family, age, and other categories used to separate people into common groups. As Said contends, no one can escape dealing with the division of East/West nor with similar divisions such as North/South, haves/have nots, imperialist/anti-imperialist, and white/colored (327). This idea of "neo-colonialism" is supported by Michael Kowalewski, who states that "the vestiges of imperialism continue to linger [in 1990]: less in the narrow sense of militant jingoism or explicit advocacy for annexing new territory than in a more ingrained and nebulous confidence about being culturally and racially superior" (11).

In this paper I will analyze the portrayal of the Other in Sea and Sardinia by D.H. Lawrence and Nothing to Declare by Mary Morris in an effort to investigate the extent to which colonial rhetoric continues to be embedded in twentieth century texts. These books and authors were chosen with their distinct differences in mind. Lawrence was an early Twentieth Century male British writer living in Italy and traveling for one week to the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. Morris is a late Twentieth Century female American writer visiting Central America for an extended amount of time. I specifically choose travel literature in keeping with the idea that it is expected to be more objective than the fiction of the novel. In The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux states that "that difference between travel writing and fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows" (379). Yet, a travel writer shares what he/she perceives through his/her culture’s eyes, and readers must carefully weigh the words in order to determine what the eye really sees and what the culture’s imagination produces. Various tropes of colonial discourse identified by David Spurr in The Rhetoric of Empire will be used to examine the texts, as will various elements of discourse described by Edward Said in Orientalism.

Sea and Sardinia, published in 1921, recounts Lawrence’s one week trip to that island. He chooses Sardinia as his destination because it "has no history, no date, no race, no offering" and because it lies "outside the circuit of civilization" (3). Obviously both Lawrence and his readers know that Sardinia has a past and a civilization of contributing members of society, but in labeling Sardinia as he does, Lawrence shows his destination to be as an empty sheet of paper that he will be able to write upon. Spur defines negation as the rhetoric which serves to erase what one sees in order to clear "a space for the expansion of the colonial imagination and for the pursuit of desire" (92-3). Lawrence negates Sardinia’s reality so that he can become a conqueror and construct the land as he would like it to be. Lawrence’s expectations of Sardinia are that of beauty and a sense of primitive perfection in which he expects to find a place of spiritual connection. When the ship he and his wife are traveling on comes into the port of Cagliari, Lawrence surveys the town, aestheticizes it into a work of art, and writes:

It is strange and rather wonderful . . .The city piles up lofty and almost miniature, and makes me think of Jerusalem . . . remote as if back in history, like a town in a monkish, illuminated missal. One wonders how it ever got there . . . It is . . . rather jewel-like: like a sudden rose-cut amber jewel naked at the depth of the vast indenture. . . . It has that curious look, as if it could be seen, but not entered. It is like some vision, some memory, something that has passed away. Impossible that one can actually walk in that city: set foot there and eat and laugh there. (52)

Spurr would define this as aestheticization, which "functions as a form of colonization itself, regulating [a locale] to the status of an object to be appreciated for its beauty, pathos, and passion" (57). Lawrence objectifies the city, seeing it not as it is, but as if it were something he admires and desires. He resists the displayed reality and prefers fantasizing it into the primitive perfection that he seeks.

American Mary Morris has similar expectations as she begins her travels in Mexico. She expects to find a perfect place, one in which "the land and the people and the time in which they lived were somehow connected—where life would begin to make sense . . . again" (4). As she begins her story in Nothing to Declare (1988), she tells readers that when you come to Mexico "you enter a different world." She describes a "lawless land" whose landscape could be used for a classic Western. The desert terrain gives it a dramatic solitude and scenic beauty, where life is primitive and "everything slows down" (3).

Lawrence and Morris both seek a kind of spiritual reawakening in the land of the Other. This motivation for their journeys is consistent with what Said has observed—that the Orient is a place of pilgrimage where the subject expects to find "restorative reconstruction" through the "natural supernaturalism" that he/she believes exists there (168). As a result of these similar quests, both authors idealize their location, seeing in them a way to recapture some elemental good in civilization. Sardinia and Mexico represent imaginary wish fulfillment for Lawrence and Morris respectively. The authors portray their locales as places far different from their native lands and as symbols of possible transformation for their cold, technologically advanced, disconnected societies. The primitive beauty and spiritual connectedness that each seeks is the reverse of British and American life as Lawrence and Morris know it, and represents the dream that is in the heart of all who experience their own countries as cold and disconnected. Both authors also use what Spurr refers to as insubstantialization to some extent as they view their respective locales as mere backdrops for these personal, inner journeys. This serves to place the Other in a position of less importance, as the author is more concerned withrelating his/her personal quest than seeing and appreciating the Other.

Lawrence and Morris each find initial disillusionment as a result of their expectations. Morris relates, "What I saw as we drove into San Miguel bore little relation to what I’d thought I’d find." She saw a dusty town, blind beggars, naked children, and starving dogs. In panic she declares, "I only saw . . . a place that seemed so distant from anything I thought I could ever call home." She adds, "I was missing the fine points. Expectation does that to you. I missed the bougainvillea, the colonial buildings, the cobblestone streets" (5). In this revelation she serves to debase Mexico, and subsequently affirm colonialism by indicating that all the good things in the city were those that conquerors had brought to it. Spurr suggests that debasement and affirmation go hand in hand in colonial discourse; the debasement of the Other shows the negative end of the spectrum, while colonial affirmation shows the extreme positive point. Spurr indicates that "colonial discourse requires the constant reproduction of these images in various forms . . . both as a justification for . . . intervention and as the necessary iteration of a fundamental difference between colonizer and colonized" (78).

Lawrence begins his stay on Sardinia seeing only its charm. The unselfconscious peasants, the abundance of food at the meat and poultry and bread market, the colorful costumes, and the landscape that appears much like Cornwall and seems to be liberty itself, all serve to create what Lawrence calls "the strange magic of Sardinia" (71). Yet it is not long before the sought-after primitive character begins to wear thin. Lawrence encounters people in filthy clothes, dirty lodgings with insufficient food, and a street which was used as the public lavatory. The primitive wonder turns sour, and the enraged Lawrence declares, "I cursed the degenerate aborigines, the dirty-breasted host who dared to keep such an inn, the sordid villagers who had the baseness to squat their beastly human nastiness in this upland valley. All my praise of the long stocking-cap [peasant]—you remember?— vanished from my mouth. I cursed them all . . ." (99-100). This response is consistent with Said’s statement that "the Orient is overvalued for its pantheism, its spirituality, its stability, its longevity, its primitivity . . . Yet almost without exception such overesteem was followed by a counterresponse: the Orient suddenly appeared lamentably underhumanized, . . . backward, barbaric, and so forth" (150). The land which Lawrence saw as a magical place that would give him a spiritual connection has now been lowered to an inferior, barbaric location. Lawrence has now classified the Other far down on the ladder of human societies. Spurr indicates that this hierarchical scale puts various cultures at different levels by measuring social and scientific progress. This classification system is employed by the colonizer in the processes of debasement and affirmation.

In contrast, Mary Morris states the undesirable aspects of Mexico without appearing to classify the Mexicans. In an essay entitled "Women and Journeys: Inner and Outer," Morris relates that "what began as an experience, an adventure, turned into a love affair with a culture, a language, a people. . . " (28). This love for Mexico and its people is reflected in Nothing to Declare as she weaves the various realities of Mexico together using resistance. Spurr identifies resistance as a positive way in which Western writers construct the non-Western world. It is in this strategy that an author attempts to avoid the more negative ways to portray a location by concentrating on objectivity. Early in the book Morris shows herself getting acquainted with Lupe, her Mexican neighbor. This woman has never known her parents and knows no family or personal history beyond the one she has invented. Instead of using this as an example of negation, Morris puts herself on equal footing with Lupe by making up stories about her own past. Morris states, "Like Lupe I exist here in the present," thus putting emphasis on the current reality instead of a nonexistent past (42).

To help readers gain a better understanding of Mexico, Morris tells about the history of the great Indian civilizations that lived there before the conquistadors’ invasion, and about many of their achievements. Morris further exposes the various ways in which Mexico has been colonized in the past and the effects that has had on the country. She relates the history of Cortes and his eventual destruction of the Aztec capital, over which was built the present day Mexico City. She reminds her readers that, although they may see a Mexico influenced by others, "the language, the culture, the artwork, the sense of time, the spiritual beliefs, the connections to earth and sky, remain beneath the structure of Western values and Christianity" (107).

Morris shows how Americans have negatively effected Mexico as her new friend, Alejandro, declares,

The history of my people has been a history of conquest. . . . You see all these tourists, all these visitors running around. Gringos mainly. No matter how hard we try, Mexico can never be Mexico. We had a revolution and got rid of the Spanish. Now we have the United States. No matter how hard we try, it will never be enough. We will never catch up. The U.S. is always there, making us feel we are not good enough. (112)

Readers believe what he says because Morris has given evidence of American expatriates exploiting Mexico, using the same standard to judge her own Western country as she has used to judge Mexico.

During World War I, Lawrence was treated as the "Other" by his own country; he was seen as an inferior outsider, to be feared and hated. Because he refused to take up the patriotic war stance of Britain and because he was married to a German, he and his wife were seen as potential spies and were poorly treated by official Britains, and eventually the British public. This mistreatment continued for many years during which he was hounded by the military and the police, lost family friends, was forced to move away from his Cornwall home, and was subjected to three military physical examinations although he was clearly unfit for military service. Lawrence wrote about this ordeal in "The Nightmare" chapter of his novel Kangaroo. It is here that Lawrence recalls himself longing for a better place, "back into the blood-sacrificial, pre-world . . . away from his own white world, his own white, conscious day. . . . Back into semi-dark, the half-conscious . . . where consciousness pulsed as a passional vibration, not as mind-knowledge" (243). Although preceding his visit to Australia by more than a year, his trip to Sardinia was an attempt to find such a place of healing and inner renewal.

England was his home, but he had grown to hate it over the course of the war. When he is categorized as an Englishman on his trip to Sardinia, he realizes that the people there are stereotyping him as a typical British subject, a position in which he definitely does not wish to be seen. This classification of himself irritates Lawrence, and he states, "I might as well be a place on a map, or a piece of goods with a trade-mark. So little perception of the actual me! so much going by labels!" (169). Yet, he has been playing the same label game, with the islanders as "it," and has not seen the harm. Later, after boarding the ship back to Italy, Lawrence is confronted by another Italian who believes that England is holding Italy and Germany down so that it can keep itself up. During this conversation, he realizes that the Other hates the English, seeing them as objects of envy and malice. It is interesting that a man who has been treated as an outsider by his own country and who sees himself being stereotyped and hated by foreigners in their country, cannot recognize his own colonial rhetoric about the Other. In the end, even though the English mistreated him and he grew to hate them, he has internalized the English colonial rhetoric, thus remaining an Englishman at heart.

I would like to believe that Lawrence was using colonial rhetoric to point to the unintelligible Englishman of his time period. I’m not sure whether that is the case, or whether the established rhetoric of Empire is so ingrained in his thought process that he cannot escape it. I do think that Morris intentionally tries to overcome the rhetoric of Empire and report her experiences objectively, but she cannot escape the power of the indoctrinated imperial word either. In the end both Lawrence and Morris can be seen to use the ultimate tropes of authors: surveillance and appropriating. They go virtually wherever they please and see everything with the eye of the colonizing, appropriating author as they use the various landscapes, interiors, and bodies to create products for their personal and professional gain.

The end of colonialism did not see the end of colonial rhetoric. Indeed, through the years, the rhetoric of empire inspired a strong sense of Otherness which has spread to a universal level. The two travel books discussed in this paper show the pervasiveness of this attitude. Sea and Sardinia, published in 1921, was written by a young Englishman sensitive to Imperial power, a man who had been treated as an Other in his own country during World War I and later in Italy as demonstrated in this paper. Nothing to Declare, first published in its entirety in 1988, was written by a young American woman who admittedly loved Mexico and its people and was sensitive to its history of abuse by colonizers. Yet, each author still used the various negative tropes identified by Spurr and succumbed to the elements of colonial discourse described by Said. These texts demonstrate the degree to which the rhetoric of empire is embedded in our language and the power it has held over time, creating a perceived reality that diminishes those who are not exactly like ourselves. To become free of this influence, it is important for both writers and readers to be able to recognize the stereotypes and biases our cultures have set up for Others and to consciously attempt to live beyond them.

At our current time in history, when the cities and towns of the world are becoming composites of global diversity, and the global community is coming closer together via computer networks, it is imperative that we discontinue our attempts to limit the independence and validity of the Others whom we see as different from ourselves. The first step to eliminating neo-colonialism is to be able to recognize it and acknowledge it. Only then can true resistance be enacted. Some people say that our world needs to become color blind. Perhaps what we really need to become is Other blind.

Kathie Zemke Worrell
Western Illinois University

Works Cited

Duncan, Ian. "The Moonstone, The Victorian Novel, and Imperialist Panic." Modern Language Quarterly 55.3 (September 1994): 297-319.

Kowalewski, Michael. "Introduction: The Modern Literature of Travel." Temperamental Journeys: Essays on the Modern Literature of Travel. Ed. M. Kowalewski. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1992. 1-16.

Lawrence, D. H. Kangaroo. 1923. New York: Viking, 1963.

- - -. Sea and Sardinia. 1921. USA: Thomas Seltzer. D. H. Lawrence in Italy. 1972. New York: Viking; New York: Penguin, 1997.

Morris, Mary. Nothing to Declare. 1988. New York: Houghton; New York: Penguin, 1989.

- - -. "Women and Journeys: Inner and Outer." Temperamental Journeys: Essays on the Modern Literature of Travel. Ed. M. Kowalewski. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1992. 25-32.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.

Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire. Durham: Duke UP, 1993.

Theroux, Paul. The Great Railway Bazaar. 1975. N.p.: Hamish Hamilton; New York: Penguin, 1977.