Kirsti Clapsadle

Essay #1

How have the different travel-writings contributed to the attitudes of society today? Where can we see this in the examples and in present-day examples? As humans, we constantly compare ourselves to others. In athletics, its am I faster/stronger/more agile than that person? In gender roles, its am I prettier/skinnier than her? or am I more muscular than him? We boast when we accomplish something great or small, but give simply a nice job to our friends when they land a new job at a great firm or run a marathon for the first time. Why is it that what we do as individuals is always more important to oneself than what someone else does? Throughout history, countries have competed (and continue to compete) to be the best of the bestto have the most land, to be most technologically advanced, to have the strongest military, etc.. Of course it is always important to be trying to improve, but why must one be better than another? There are never-ending comparisons between the self and everyone else, and this is seen everywhere we look. We see perfect examples of the constant strive to prove oneself and to be the best in the tales of Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo. Columbus, who robbed populations of their land and declared whatever he desired to be his, clearly had personal defects. However, nowhere does he mention his flawed traits, but only the flaws of others in comparison to his own people, along with his own personal attributes that he favors. In the beginning of a letter to the treasurer of the Spanish court, Columbus proudly says he took possession without opposition in the name of our most fortunate king by making formal proclamation and raising standards (Polo et al 78). However, only shortly after, he mentions that during trades between the natives and his own people, while the natives were willing to give anything for little to nothing, he forbade such insignificant and valueless things be given to them, and that he forbade this, because it was clearly unjust (Polo et al 80). While unfair

Kirsti Clapsadle

Essay #1

trades were unjust, as Columbus clearly stated, taking their land was a thing worthy of pride. The point here is that even though Columbus is proud of his excellent morality, he demonstrates that he is not better than any of the native people which he considers inferior because of their lack of weapons and their fearful and timid ways (Polo et al 80). In the same way that Columbus compares the natives of the land that he visited to his own people, Marco Polo describes the people of many different lands as not proportioned, multiple times. He uses the word peculiar to describe their languages, and ill-favored for their appearance. When describing these things, Polo is of course writing in relation to what he is used to seeing: his own, white, European, people. There are in this island the most ill-favoured women in the world. Their large mouths and thick noses, and ill-favoured breasts are four times as large as those of other women (Polo et al 64). Polo describes the people of the lands that he traveled to in a way that we consider them inferior to the normal person. Even the animals of the lands are different. The animals in general have a different appearance from ours (Polo 64). Nearly every description Polo writes is a comparison between the thing to which he is referring and the equivalent of his own land. Likewise, nearly every comparison is described in a negative light in contrast with what is normal to him. Even when explorers have gone as far as to admit that they learned something new from the people that they considered other, it is often explained in a light that makes the explorer appear superior. As Mary Louise Pratt describes, for example, said La Condamine, his mathematicians, dispersed over the surface of the earth, were at work under the Torrid and Frigid Zones, for the improvement of the sciences, and the common benefit of all nations (Pratt 4). Though the mathematicians were learning new things from the outsiders that they visited, those

Kirsti Clapsadle

Essay #1

mathematicians were sharing the improvement of the sciences for the common benefit of all nations, receiving credit for enhancing the knowledge of the people. Columbus, Polo, and the French explorers described by Pratt serve as examples of the continuous comparison between the norm and the other. Casey Blanton talks about how travel writing like these adventures effect the reader. She speaks of Janis Stout who focuses on the bifurcation of the traveling self into considering subject and considered object where the experiences in the outer world can be transferred to the self that is being scrutinized, thus converting the journey into a mode of introspection (Blanton 3). Blanton essentially is describing the way in which we use the reading of travel literature to better ourselves. We live vicariously through others quite often when you consider the use of reading, watching movies, and viewing photos to wonder what it would be like to experience the things that we are seeing. This is just one more way that we compete with each other. When we go on a trip out of town, we immediately post photos to Facebook or send them to friends/family. We must admit that part of the reason we do this, though it may not be conscious, is to show that we are having fun while the friends/family members dont get to experience our adventure. We have seen in the writings of Columbus and Polo that there was a mentality of competition flowing throughout their expeditions around the world. Comparisons were made left and right, and the result was a frequent we are better than they are attitude. Likewise in present-day encounters, we use photos to prove that our experiences are better, races to prove that we are faster, pageants to prove that we are more attractive and talented in general, and all sorts of other competitions simply to prove that we are better. While travel writing is not the only contributor to the attitudes of society, this type of literature has made a large impact in the way we compare ourselves to each other in our daily lives.