Text-Type: Travel Writing

After studying a variety of different fiction and non-fiction text-types, you may decide to write a WT1 assignment using travel writing genre. Understanding the conventions of this text-type will therefore be important.

What exactly is travel writing? Here is one definition:

“Writing of a non-fiction type, typically recording the experiences of travellers in some interesting places and circumstances. It includes vivid descriptions, illustrations, historical background, and

possibly maps and diagrams."

Though an accurate description of the genre, how helpful is it for distinguishing this genre from other, very similar ones? Memoir, for example is a personal account which may feature travel or life in a particular location. Many journalistic essays feature interesting circumstances and vivid description.

There is indeed, a "grab-bag" quality to travel writing, which makes it difficult to define but which makes it a very rich one to write in. Let's have a look at a rather more detailed and perceptive description of this genre in an effort to tease out what makes it a distinct category:


“The travel book [....] incorporates the characters and plot line of a novel, the descriptive power of poetry, the substance of a history lesson, the discursiveness of an essay, and the–often inadvertent–self-revelation of a memoir. It revels in the particular while occasionally illuminating the universal. It colors and shapes and fills in gaps. Because it results from displacement, it is frequently funny. It takes readers for a spin (and shows them, usually, how lucky they are). It humanizes the alien. More often than not it celebrates the unsung. It uncovers truths that are stranger than fiction. It gives eyewitness proof of life’s infinite possibilities.” (Thomas Swick, “Not a Tourist.” The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2010)


Note three words: "alien", "displacement" and "revels in the particular". There is a distinct sense in all travel writing of encountering "the other", a key element of the genre and also one of the main sources of enjoyment for many readers. Three important ideas are beginning to emerge:

Voice, narrative, and the ‘other’ or alien.

Travel, journey or displacement of one kind or another is usually the most obvious feature of travel narrative — though, by itself, not a defining one. Other, closely-allied genres like memoir, narrative-journalism, personal essay, descriptive storytelling can involve travel, displacement or life in foreign or interesting circumstances. What makes travel lit distinct will become more apparent when we consider aspects and purpose of this genre.

Travel is undertaken for many purposes and many of these journeys end up being recorded in journals, diaries, and short accounts, as well as long narratives that the writers want to share with a wider audience. Of all purposes, the writing impulse may be the strongest force of all. Here are a few more reasons for writing in this genre:

• to find oneself. As Iyer notes in the epigraph above, some journeys are about finding something about oneself, or ‘finding oneself’. Very often, the writer will reveal that the journey has elicited or pushed them to some new perception about their own life, choices and history. Paradoxically, the self is treated and discussed as 'the other'.

• curiosity. Very early in the history of travel narratives, a great many accounts were driven simply by curiousity and fascination with places not yet experienced by outsiders or even described. Wanting to know, or even to understand, the ‘other’ certainly produces as vast an array of travel accounts as does the search for the self.

• religion. Spiritual journeys also account for a good many travel narratives. Whether to the Christian Shrine of Compostela or on the Islamic haj to Mecca, travellers follow their devotional impulses and often record them. 

• the search for family roots. Another for travel and for accounts of them arises from the desire to search out the roots of one’s family and origins. Often, this search is allied with genealogical research, the study of family connections and beginnings. Allied to this form is the ‘return to roots’ account, such as can be found in Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta

• to write in an informed way. This is writing which involves travel and (in many cases) emerges from a political angle on the place visited. A good example of this is Elisabeth Hardwick’s ‘Sad Brazil’ from Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays, which combines vivid and concrete impressions of place with acute political analysis.

One central feature of travel-writing is voice. Most often the travel narrative will be told by the ‘I’ who makes the journey. This univocal voice can sometimes be joined by another. Sometimes the voice takes on a persona. In The Adventures of Geoffrey Crayon (1835) Washington Irving employs the persona of Mr Crayon to describe a 19th century American travelling in Europe. Mark Twain does much the same in A Tramp Abroad, but goes one step further and combines his persona with a companion by the name of Joseph Harris. Together they explore the continent, presenting their views of the people and cultures they meet.

As we saw from the extracts, travel-writing can be presented in something as short as an essay or as long as a substantial novel. Longer examples of travel lit can usually be described as having a defined beginning, middle, and end. These narratives tend to be circular: they begin at home, embark on and pursue an itinerary which may be highly organized or somewhat spontaneous, and are completed by a return home. It can entail an ongoing journey with stops and descriptions or reflections along the way — or one that involves a journey to a particular place in which the bulk of the work is centered.

Finally, the issue of subjectivity, objectivity, and whether an account is a mix of fact or fiction is also likely to arise when looking at this genre. Whereas a tourist brochure or guide concentrates on the factually accurate and true, travel lit is not bound by such convention.

Below is a passage taken from a popular travelogue. Which of the elements discussed so far can you discern?

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

‘Our village was famous for its sweets,’ said Punjab Singh. ‘People would come for miles to taste the jalebis our sweet-wallahs prepared. There were none better in the whole of the Punjab.’
     We were sitting on a charpoy at International Backside Taxi Stand. For weeks I had been begging Balvinder’s father to tell me the story of how he had come to Delhi in 1947. A stern and sombre man, Punjab would alsways knit his eyebrows and change the subject. It was as if Partition were a closed subject, something embarrassing that shouldn’t be raised in polite conversation.
      It was only after a particularly persistent bout of badgering , in which Balvinder took my side, that Punjab had agreed to relent. But once started, he soon got into the swing of his story.
     ‘Samundra was a small and beautiful village in District Lyallpur,’ he said. ‘It was one of the most lovely parts of the whole of Punjab. We had a good climate and very fertile land. The village stood within the ruins of an old fort and was surrounded on four sides by high walls. It was like this.’
      With his hands, the old man built four castle walls. From the details that he sketched with his fingers you could see he remembered every bastion, every battlement, every loophole.
      ‘Our village was all Sikh apart from a few Hindu sweepers. Our neighbours were Mahommedan peoples. We owned most of the land but before 1947 we lived like brothers. There were no differences between us …’ Punjab stroked his beard. He smiled as he recalled his childhood.
      ‘On the 15th August 1947 the Government announced Partition. We were not afraid. We had heard about the idea of Pakistan, but we thought it would make no difference to us. We realized a Mahommedan government would take over from the Britishers. But in our Punjab governments often come and go. Usually such things make no difference to the poor man in his village.
      ‘Then, quite suddenly, on the 10th of September, we got a message from the Deputy Commissioner in Lyallpur. It said: ‘”You people cannot stay. You must leave your house and your village and go to India.” Everyone was miserable but what could we do? All the villagers began loading their goods into bullock carts. The old men were especially sad: they had lived their whole lives in the village. But we were young and could not understand why our grandfathers were crying.

                                                                  — William Dalrymple (1993)

Notice the use of setting, narrative, dialogue and voice to convey a vivid sense of the ‘other’. The sense of the new and exotic is both explicit and implicit -- from the foreign-sounding words to Punjab himself (a rather Marlowe-like figure, would you not say?) and the sense that we readers in the rest of the world are being introduced to another time and place, remote from our everyday lives and concerns. We are also learning some history of a place (India just at the moment of Partition, and more particularly, Delhi) conveyed through the eyes of others, doubly so, as this is a frame-narrative. In this way, Dalrymple maintains his authorial presence (a voice and perspective) as he gives Punjab the floor. 

Toward Assessment

You will need to demonstrate a good grasp of this text-type in your WT1 as well as a clear purpose for using it -- you are, after all, demonstrating knowledge and understanding of a particular topic learnt from the course. Here are some practical considerations as you write:

- Travel literature includes the traditional trio found in all narratives: plot, character and setting. The plot in many of these works is the story of movement and then of discovery. Is the discovery of a place, a people or a deeper sense of the self, is something else?

- Who are the characters of the narrative? How many are there? Do the characters hope to explore the landscape, the people and their ways, architecture, the influence of colonialism or imperialism and the possibilities for trade? There can be a multitude of such purposes, giving a frame or structure to the writing.

- Will the voice be singular, univocal? Will more than one voice be heard? There are many opportunities in travel writing. 

- Tone, tense. Tone, so much a part of voice, will have a significant role in any travel narrative. There is a great range of possibilities here, and the traveller’s attitudes toward what he experiences will critically affect the reader’s impressions and judgments both of the voice and of the treatment of the ‘other’. Such tones, conveying these attitudes, can cover a whole spectrum from admiration and wonder, to irony, self-deprecation and even dismissiveness. Through tone the writer may well convey a desire to identify, or at least empathize, with people they encounter, or they may objectify them. In addition, whether the narrative is in the present or the past tense can affect the reception of the travel tale.

- Travel takes people places and so, of course, the handling of setting will be a crucial element to such narratives, whether the travel is to a single place or a succession of places. Within the place, will the self be foregrounded? Or will the speaker recede into the background and give way to the presentation of people and/or setting? Different people will also foreground different aspects.

Tips for writing

• center on a key event. 
• use background information that builds up to this event.
• incorporate research to enhance the background information
• describe vividly the location and focuses on elements that are key to the story or experience.
• describe clearly any important people so that readers feel as if they know them a little.
• use dialogue where possible to help the story “happen” for the reader.
• mix reflections on the experience with the retelling to help the reader see the importance of the experience.

If you need more guidance in this convention or for your assignment, contact us.

Text-Type: Memoir

As you read a variety of texts you may be intrigued by memoirs. For the WT 1, memoirs work very well. You may decide to write the memoirs of a character from a literary work that you read for Part 3 or 4. You may also come across a memoir or autobiographical piece on the Paper 1 exam. For these reasons, it is good to familiarise yourself with the conventions of memoir writing.

Memoirs are easily confused with autobiographies. While all memoirs are autobiographical, not all autobiographies are memoirs. Memoirs are reflections upon one’s life, including the life lessons that can be gleaned from a section of one’s life. They are story-like and anecdotal, while autobiographies are the retelling of one’s own history.

William Zinsser in Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of a Memoir offers this definition:

"Unlike autobiography, which moves in a dutiful line from birth to fame, memoir narrows the lens, focusing on a time in the writer's life that was unusually vivid, such a childhood or adolescence, or that was framed by war or travel or public service or some other special circumstance."  

Here are several characteristics that you will want to consider when analysing or writing memoir.

• Writing that is focused on either a certain event, time or place

• Writing that consists mainly of feelings or revealing truths

• Written in first person perspective 

• Writing that makes the subject come alive

Try to identify these four elements of in the two passages below, both taken from memoirs. The first is from Lorna Sage's Bad Blood.

So the playground was hell: Chinese burns, pinches, slaps and kicks and horrible games. I can still hear the noise of a thick wet skipping rope slapping the ground. There's be a big girl at each end and you had to leap through without tripping. Joining in was only marginally less awful than being left out. It is said (truly) that most women forget the pain of childbirth; I think that we all forget the pain of being a child at school for the first time, the sheer ineptitude, as though you'll never learn to mark out your own space. It's doubly shaming -- shaming to remember as well, to feel so sorry for your scabby little self back there in small people's purgatory. 

Comment: We see all four defining elements of this text-type:

* narration in the first-person perspective;
* the revelation of feelings and personal truths (with hints of more to come)
* evocation of a specific time and place in the past which will be the main focus of the book (her childhood and school years which had a formative impact on her);
* use of literary-rhetorical techniques to make the subject "come alive" (e.g. sensory imagery, artful parallelisms, hyperbole, caesura, onomatopoeia - and plenty of drama and black humour!) similar to literary fiction.


This next excerpt is from Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee

That was the day we came to the village, in the summer of the last year of the First World War. To a cottage that stood in a half-acre of garden on a steep bank above a lake; a cottage with three floors and a cellar and a treasure in the walls, with a pump and apple trees, syringa and strawberries, rooks in the chimneys, frogs in the cellar, mushrooms on the ceiling, and all for three and sixpence a week.

I don’t know where I lived before then. My life began on the carrier’s cart which brought me up the long slow hills to the village, and dumped me in the high grass, and lost me. I had ridden wrapped up in a Union Jack to protect me from the sun, and when I rolled out of it, and stood piping loud among the buzzing jungle of that summer bank, then, I feel, was I born. And to all the rest of us, the whole family of eight, it was the beginning of a life.

But on that first day we were all lost. Chaos was come in cartloads of furniture, and I crawled the kitchen floor through forests of upturned chair-legs and crystal fields of glass. We were washed up in a new land, and began to spread out searching its springs and treasures. The sisters spent the light of that first day stripping the fruit bushes in the garden. The currants were at their prime, clusters of red, black, and yellow berries all tangled up with wild roses. Here was bounty the girls had never known before, and they darted squawking from bush to bush, clawing the fruit like sparrows.

Comment: Here again the perspective is that of a child. The narrating voice, though, is that of an adult. Note the retrospective stance (achieved through the narrative style, and the more obvious cues That was the day we came to the village; My life began...; first day). Feelings and impressions dominate. Lee is writing about his earliest encounter with his new home -- a house in a village in the Cotswolds at the turn of the century. We will understand the full significance of the village on his life after reading the whole book; but already, in these early pages, we sense that this place holds much in store for the young family, as the children excitedly explore their surroundings. An otherwise mundane move turns into high adventure and literary magic: we are transported along with the children into a wonderful whole new world of possibilities and promises. There are invocations of the exotic and marvellous (washed up in a new land; treasure; buzzing jungle), an abundance of sensory imagery (buzzing; high grass; clawing; clusters of red, black, blue), evocative comparisons (at one point the girls are transformed into hungry birds --metaphor). This is an important moment ("...it was the beginning of a life"; "then, I feel, was I born") and the rest of the book confirms this early impression. The village leaves an indelible mark on the author's life.

These are some of the elements that will important to your attempt at reproducing this this genre for your WT1.


Find more discussions and resources

Guardian
Masters Review
Powerpoint 
Memoir - a snapshot in time
slideshare
slideshare characteristics of memoir
characteristics of 1
pdf
writers write


If you need help with any aspect of your WT1, contact us.  First sessions are free!

Text-Types: Diary

“Diary” is a popular genre choice for the WT1; it is also one where unwary candidates tend to lose points in the final assessment. A precise understanding of the genre and its potential will help you avoid the most common blunders.
 

This is an excellent option for the written task, provided you have a good understanding of what is required!

Discussion

Before the age of Twitter and Facebook, the best way to keep track of your life was through a diary or journal. For most, a diary is a place of private introspection where one can transfer thoughts and feelings onto paper. In some cases, diaries are interesting documents that reveal a story of a certain time or place, like the diaries of Anne Frank and Samuel Pepys. 

Candidates should be forewarned: the diary is not the soft, generic, all-purpose option for your written assignment. A diary is not the same as a blog; nor is it a mere exercise in flow of consciousness!  Your choice of genre should be grounded on the same two questions that examiners will be asking themselves as they peruse your written task:

1) is the candidate familiar with the chosen text-type?
2) does the text-type matches purpose?  

The observations by examiners in their yearly report confirm the relevance of these two questions:

Candidates frequently lost marks as a result not only of choosing an unsuitable text type to fulfil their objectives (for example a private diary entry is hardly the best way of drawing the attention of the world to burning issues) but also because they assumed they were familiar with the conventions of a type when, actually, they were not.

Candidates should be aware that while some adolescents adopt the ‘Dear diary’ form of address, the vast majority of adults do not. The candidate who chooses to write the diary entry of an adult should be encouraged to read some diaries or at least an anthology of diary entries rather than make assumptions about this type of text.

It can be observed that the more inauthentic a task is, the more unsuitable it is.

The last point is worth noting. In practical terms: "Take care when matching your text-type with character or situation!" Characters known for their physical presence or highly active nature are unlikely to to keep a diary (e.g. Stanley in A Streetcar Called Desire). Likewise, not all characters will be introspective or capable of deep thought (e.g. Nelly in Wuthering Heights) and thus will be unsuitable for articulating complexities. Candidates also tend to forget, or ignore, some of the most obvious factors that disqualify a character from writing a diary. Huckleberry Finn, though intelligent and observant, is illiterate. The factory children in Oliver Twist could not possibly have the time or leisure to keep a diary: the environment militates against such activity. And so on and so forth.  Examiners will be sure to note these discrepancies, even if you do not.

These are just a few considerations, but you will notice already that some care is needed when matching purpose, genre and character.

Defining characteristics of the genre

A diary ...

• will use a generally informal register

• will include the date and/or day

• will use first person narration

• will have a closing statement to round off the entry

• will avoid self-evident explanatory phrases or sentences, e.g. will use “I saw Alicia”, not “I saw Alicia, my best friend”

• will employ stylistic features such as rhetorical questions, phatic communication, hyperbole, a personal, often intimate and even confessional tone. 

Some or all of these features will appear in the sample entry below. The extract is followed by a short commentary.

Thursday, 19 November 1942

Dearest Kitty,

Just as we thought, Mr Dussel is a very nice man. 

[...]

Mr. Dussel has told us much about the outside world we’ve missed for so long. He had sad news. Countless friends and acquaintances have been taken off to a dreadful fate. Night after night, green and grey military vehicles cruise the streets. They knock on every door, asking whether any Jews live there. If so, the whole family is immediately taken away. If not, they proceed to the next house. It’s impossible to escape their clutches unless you go into hiding. They often go around with lists, knocking only on those doors where they know there’s a big haul to be made. They frequently offer a bounty, so much per head. It’s like the slave hunts of the olden days… I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion or being knocked to the ground. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruellest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they’re Jews.  

--  Yours, Anne


Comment:  In her (here, abridged) entry, Anne Frank starts conventionally with a date, but also addresses her diary by name (Kitty). This would be unusual for an older, more mature diary writer. Anne, however, is a young adolescent writer, and justifies her choice in an earlier entry, explaining that she is alone in the world and has no friend in which to confide. Her diary serves as a surrogate friend. Note the tone, which is confiding and intimate -- even confessional. This is most evident in the last few lines, starting with "I feel wicked...". Her entry is based in what she learns that day about the outside world from a newcomer to the annex, Dussel.  Anne records the news of the day and shares her reactions.
This is entirely in keeping with the genre, where events are recorded as they come to pass and serve as a basis for intimate reflection. We see from her reactions that Anne is a very conscientious and engaging character.  She is also a very adept writer. This piece reveals a lot in a short space. Right from the start, we are privy to her isolation ("...the outside world we've missed for so long") and her yearning for news. Her confinement is real. We are also given a detailed account of historical events of World War 2 Holland, with the rounding up of Jews. Note in particular the literary qualities of this highly-worked passage, which makes Anne the accomplished and engaging writer that she is. The evocative Countless friends..dreadful fate; balanced repetition combined with alliteration night after night, green and grey ...; parallel structure If so .. If not ....; powerful metaphors cruellest monsters... ever to stalk the earth; escape their clutches; allusions/fruitful comparisons It's like the slave hunts of the olden days. A sense of dread pervades this passage; the precariousness of Anne's situation as a Jew in occupied Holland is palpable. The entry ends with a coda: "And all because they are Jews." which is normally sufficient for a diary, but here we note the final salutation, as in a letter. Here again, there is good reason for this writer to sign off this way. In an earlier entry, Anne explains that it is easier for her to write if she envisions her entries as letters to a dear friend. 

If you are in any way unsure about how to use this form within the context of the WT1, contact us.

A selection of diaries of famous people

Historical

The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of Leningrad 

Conversations with Myself (Nelson Mandela)

The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 

A Journal of the Plague Year (Daniel Defoe)

Anne Frank: Den Achterhuis / Diary of a Young Girl

The Diaries of Nella Last.

Literary 

A Writer's Diary - Virginia Woolf

Diaries, 1910 to 1923 - Franz Kafka

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 - Susan Sontag

The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 - Anais Nin