Department of English
Writing the Journey: June 1999
"Writers in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear: Intertextuality in Contemporary British Non-Fiction Road Narratives on the USA"
Rachel Holmes
The University of Warwick
rholmes7@aol.com
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship of intertextuality to genre in contemporary British nonfiction road narratives on the USA. The following question, which has ramifications for the study of travel writing as a whole, will be investigated principally by utilizing a combination of discourse analysis and narratological tools: Does reference to/emulation of American road texts blur national boundaries and undermine the traditional father-to-errant child stance of British travel writers towards the US? Other questions touched upon briefly in relation to the main topic will include: How do allusions to other road genres (such as fictional road narratives, road guide books, and road movies) problematize the fiction/nonfiction dichotomy? Can differing functions of intertextuality be said to distinguish road narratives from other travel narratives or nontravel genres? The discussion will focus on intertextual elements introduced either overtly or covertly by the writer alone (although it is acknowledged that detection of covert intertextuality is dependent on my position as a subjective reader).
Roland Barthes describes the Text as 'a woven fabric' [1]. The overt interweaving of quotations from, and allusions to, a wide range of texts (including guide books, historical documents, novels, and other travel narratives) with the events of the journey is a genre marker of nonfiction travel narratives. Road writers in the USA cannot travel alone; they are preceded and pursued by a myriad of others. In addition to the reflection of the principal driver of a narrative, images of writers in the mirror include those of canonical American road writers (such as Kerouac and Steinbeck), and writers of texts read en route (such as novelists and journalists).
The road trip also involves instances of what Barthes terms 'quotations without inverted commas': texts where the voice of the original writer disappears (such as teeshirt slogans, roadside signs, and paraphrase of unacknowledged sources) [2]. At the end of the road, conscious or unconscious borrowing from, or mimicry of, other writers is included within the finished narrative. The title of this paper is itself covertly intertextual, being an adaptation from RoadFrames by Kris Lackey (an author whose influence may have gone unrecognized by the reader, had I neglected to include this reference)[3].
The paper will commence with an overview of the use of allusion, parody, quotation, and stylistic nuance in contemporary British nonfiction road narratives on the USA, as they relate to the main question. It will then provide a more detailed comparative analysis of two texts by British writers: Motel Nirvana by Melanie McGrath and Freeways by Lewis Davies [4,5]. Functions of intertextual fragments will be explored with regard to their positioning within the discursive framework of the narrative such as: a) association with/differentiation from a canon of road literature, b) provision of narrative filler, c) enhancement of heteroglossia. It will be concluded that the ways in which references to a large cross-generic American road tradition are woven into the narratives in question reveal an overall shift away from the parent-child stance.
Name: Rachel Holmes
The University of Warwick
UK
Address: Centre for British and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
Tel.: 01144 1922 625207
Email 1: rholmes7@aol.com
Email 2: r.a.holmes@warwick.ac.uk
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Updated May 23, 1999