Mobility And Identity In The Travel Writings Of Shirley Hazzard And Michelle De Kretser

Both Shirley Hazzard(1931-2016)and Michelle De Kretser(1957-)are Miles Franklin Award winners.As Hazzard is regarded as “one of Australia's most attentive postwar literary cartographers”,De Kretser challenges “Australia's malfunctioning multiculturalism with humanist alternatives leading to constructive cosmopolitan cultural interchange”.They express the cosmopolitan visions of travel writing in contemporary Australian literature.On the one hand,they draw upon the art of literary imagination and creation resulting from their travel experiences and vividly depict the mobility of Australians' contacts with the world through literary works;and on the other hand,they reveal in their travel writings Australians' encounter of identity dilemma and highlight the reflections on and pursuit of a typically unique Australian identity.Hazzard,who left Australia at the age of 16,is generally regarded as a diaspora writer,while De Kretser is taken as an immigrant one,since she immigrated to Australia from Sri Lanka at the age of 14.The research and analysis of their works focus mostly upon their expressed themes of diaspora,immigration,race,and identity,but less upon their literary interpretations of relationship between mobility and identity,which provides an opportunity for further exploration and revelation.This dissertation examines the interrelated connection of mobility and identity in the travel writings by Hazzard and De Kretser to show the multiple representations of mobility and the social-cultural implications of identity.Due to their personal experiences of immigration and travel,together with their resulting changes in identity that come with them,Hazzard and De Kretser show a keen interest in identity that loom large in travelling.Their novels touch upon various forms of travel experience in relation to war,tourism,and migration after the end of the Second World War.Through these itinerant experiences of travel,Hazzard and De Kretser reveal not only the vast geographic landscape,but also the mobility of identity on the road.They embed Australian cultural background in the travel of their characters,and present the instability,variability,and agency of identity through their space-time mobility,thus emphasizing the social,cultural,and practical significance of an understanding of Australian identity.In the novels of Hazzard and De Kretser,the mobility evoked by travel presupposes the dissolution of boundaries,which enables the travelers to move from territorialization to deterritorialization,and from a rigid identity to an escape from confinement and rigid social and cultural norms during travel,thereby showing the mobility of identity.Since the end of World War II,Australia has witnessed the death of the white Australia policy and the implementation of a multiculturalism policy.The travels of European Australian whites and Australian colored immigrants in Hazzard's and De Kretser's traveling writing are the results of shifting political,economic,social,and cultural contexts,which reflect the anxiety regarding Australian identity and a desire to feel a sense of belonging.Through various travels,they confront against the prevailing identity norms,and endeavor to negotiate and reconstruct the understanding and knowledge of identity.Within the framework of travel writing,this dissertation draws upon the paradigm of mobility and identity research.By synthesizing the relevant viewpoints of travel,mobility,and identity of Zygmunt Bauman and other theorists,it points out that identity is a modern invention,and travel,as an important modern life strategy,serves as a stage for identity construction.The traveler travels in order to seek new experiences.During such mobility,the concept of home is gradually blurred,and identity is constantly shifting and being reconstructed.The image of the traveler thus offers a metaphor for a postmodern strategy,which is moved by the horror of being bound and fixed.This dissertation consists of an introduction,the main body,and a conclusion.The Introduction briefly introduces the writing life of Hazzard and De Kretser and offers a literature review of their works as well as the rationale for the selection of this research subject.The research objectives and its significance are presented before the framework of this dissertation is introduced.The reasons for studying mobility and identity in Hazzard's and De Kretser's travel writing lie in the fact that their works not only center upon themes of travel and identity and reflect many Australians' senses of identity anxiety,but also demonstrate the mobility of identity.Due to the lack of any comparative study of their works and the scant attention given to the themes of travel writing and identity mobility,this dissertation will study their works in the context of travel writing to elaborate the trajectory of mobility of their characters with an effort to map the route of their identity construction,namely,from the disposition as homeless travelers,through the transformation as nomadic artists,to the reformation of cosmopolitan citizens.Chapter One “Dwelling in-motion as Homeless Traveler” focuses upon the white women's travels to Europe in search of their origins and spiritual homes.It expounds upon the sense of fragmentation,instability and lack of belonging of the heroines' home and the homesickness as a result.Hazzard's two Italy-based novels,The Evening of the Holiday and The Bay of Noon and De Kretser's Questions of Travel,reveal how the heroines search for their imaginary dwelling through the spatial mobility of travel,and why they fail;but finally,how they construct and confirm an identity as a homeless dwelling-in-motion.Mainly in light of the theoretical ideas of Hungarian literary theorist Gy?rgy Lukács,British historian David Crouch,and Australian scholar Paul Carter,it is argued that a “loss of totality” causes an unbridgeable gulf between subjectivity and totality,and that modern people thus live in a state of“transcendental homelessness”.Though the experience of dwelling balances the ideas of mobility and stability as well as the anxiety of not belonging,the sense of rootlessness and the fragile relationship between Australian settlers and the land makes it difficult to form a stable and solid dwelling experience.But a dynamic and flexible mode of “dwelling-in-motion” is compatible with both mobility and stability and alleviates anxieties about not belonging.Thus,an identity of Australian “homeless dwelling-in-motion” can be constructed.This chapter analyzes two types of homeless travelers.First,due to the brokenness of their original home(which symbolizes totality or wholeness),Sophie in The Evening of the Holiday and Jenny in The Bay of Noon lose their identities and become a homeless without a “home”.They try to seek spiritual homes and build social relationships while travelling in Italy,but cannot resist the division caused by modernity,and become transcendentally homeless,crossing the boundary between public and private space.Second,the white Australian woman Laura in Questions of Travel cannot make a real connection between home and the land,thus losing her solid foundation of identity,and thereby becomes homeless,without “roots”.She travels to her dreamy home London in search of her origin and place of belonging,but is unable to truly fit in,eventually shuttling between home and abroad.Chapter Two “Living in-between as Nomad Artist” analyzes how the protagonists in Hazzard 's Transit of Venus and De Kretser's The Lost Dog escape from their identity norms by their respective travel mobility,which highlight the vitality of nomad identity in the context of white Australian women's traveling in European and American,and the colored immigrant's traveling in Australia.According to the nomadism ideology and philosophy put forward by theorists such as French postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze and French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari,a nomad is affirmative,dynamic,and outward-bound,while nomadism is rooted in diversity,multiplicity,and dynamics,which aims to challenge and resist totalitarian power,hegemony,and manipulation.With no stable,fixed,or perpetual home,the nomad moves between a “smooth space” having diversity and heterogeneity,and a “striated space”,characterized by manipulation,centralization,and homogeneity.S/he endeavors to exercise deterritorialization,flight/escape and becoming in order to realize the productivity of the subject's desire.This chapter explores two practices of the nomadic artists living in-between.For one thing,the white Australian woman Caro's entry into the “striated space” of Europe and America(London as a particular example)in The Transit of Venus exposes her to imperial centralization of power and the identity norms of Australia.Through spatial(including discourse and gender)transgressions,she challenges the norms of Australian identity and the gender attributes imposed by imperial authority and shows the unique charm of the identity of Australian nomad.For another,the colored immigrant Tom in The Lost Dog faces manipulation in an Australian city,a “striated space”.He is deeply affected by racism and feels identity anxiety.His transgression of the social space in the city does not break down these racial divisions.It is in the symbolically “smooth space” of the bush that he acquires his affirmation of life and identity,finally rebelling against racist discipline and embracing his own unique identity.Chapter Three “Transcending Race and Nation as Cosmopolitan Citizen” centers upon the protagonists in Hazzard's The Great Fire and De Kretser's Questions of Travel and The Life to Come and follows their choices and actions in the face of both visible and hidden rigid racial discrimination,revealing their aspiration and potential for becoming a cosmopolitan person with a sense of equality,openness,and caring.This chapter is mainly guided by the theoretical views of British sociologist Gerard Delanty,British philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah,and British cultural scholar Paul Gilroy in terms of cosmopolitanism.It is argued that cosmopolitanism is an open-ended approach without a fixed standard of values.It is not homogenization,polarization,or a simple form of hybridization,but it is one marked by the creative interaction of cultures and an exploration of shared worlds,which suggests a heightened reflexivity and seeks “a unity in diversity”.The cosmopolitan is thus a subject with feelings,memory,and imagination.Characterized by “openness”,s/he holds the belief and ethics of respecting “diversity” and portrays a picture of “conviviality” involving different nationalities,races,and ethnicities.This chapter focuses upon the becoming a cosmopolitan citizen transcending race and nation.When the white Australia policy is prevalent,the white Australian man Peter in The Great Fire also suffers from identity and a spiritual crisis caused by local racial discrimination.Peter(and his friend Leith)demonstrates a cosmopolitan ethic and a sense of identity through communication and dialogue with other races,granting them equality and respect and showing the ethics and identity consciousness of cosmopolitan.In Australia where multiculturalism dominates,the non-European colored immigrants in Questions of Travel and The Life to Come still face the deep-rooted racial discrimination as they travel around the country.In Sydney,a hyper-diverse city split between a white European/urban center and the immigrants of the color/western suburbs,the picture of“conviviality” is divisive.By conducting conversations,non-European immigrants embrace openness and respect diversity.They satirize and warn against racists disguised by naivete,hypocrisy,and insincerity,and thus demonstrate the meaning of being a cosmopolitan citizen.The Conclusion reviews and summarizes the dissertation and unveils the implications of Hazzard's and De Kretser's mobility trajectory in their travel writing from a homeless traveler,a nomadic artist,to a cosmopolitan citizen.It is proposed that this perception of identity mobility has a positive significance in the socio-cultural context of Australia.Firstly,the identity of a homeless traveler does not refer to a traveler in general sense.It is an abstract and representative identity of an Australian because of the country's special colonial and immigration history.In other words,Australians' rootlessness in relation to the land leads to a sense of unbelonging and anxiety and inevitable transcendental state of homelessness,promoting the mobility of travel and the reconstruction of identity.Secondly,the nomadic artist is an Australian with another unique identity in terms of its antipodean position away from the center of Europe and the United States,and in relation to its own special landscape,with the bush connecting the center of the coastal region and the inland outback,challenging space division and isolation.The nomadic artist has the agency,resistance,and flexibility to challenge the division and isolation of space and break the shackles of social and cultural hierarchy.Finally,a cosmopolitan citizen is a person with an identity orientation and is an ideal blueprint for an Australian,whose society has been transitioning from monotony to pluralistic integration.The cosmopolitan citizen aims to counter entrenched notions of racism and caste privilege,alleviate any sense of unbelonging and anxiety,and embrace openness,diversity,and equality in order to promote the harmonious,convivial coexistence of a multicultural society.To summarize,Hazzard's and De Kretser's comprehension of Australian identity is open and flexible.Through travel writing,they show the mobility of identity as demonstrated by travel,with the intention of breaking the traditional boundaries imposed upon identity and highlighting the freedom of the individual life and the possibility for the mobility of identity itself.