Finding the Self through Travel: A Psychoanalytic Analysis of Self-Discovery and Transformation in Travel Writing

Abstract

My thesis addresses the themes of self-discovery and transformation in travel literature. The travel writing narrative reinforces a cultural and personal consciousness in which mobility, observation, curiosity, accuracy, and imagination become qualities fundamental to understanding oneself. Journeys of self-discovery are a popular form of narrative in travel literature. Using Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways: A Journey into America, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, I argue that the combination of the characters being in a foreign environment and searching for their identities reflects the reader’s dreams and desire for exploration and self-discovery. The characters in these novels go on a journey where they not only discover new parts of the world but also something new about themselves. I will address these themes using the reader theory from psychoanalytic criticism as well as look at how writing and reading materialize unconscious thoughts. Understanding these theories allows for a study of the reader’s response, reaction, and interpretation of the text. In the end, change and transformation in travel literature are both physical and mental, affecting not only the places visited but also the characters and the reader’s mind. This transformation can sometimes be difficult to accept but travel narratives encourage us not to resist change but to adapt to it.