Exploring Uncharted Territories: A Study of Bengali Women’s Travelogues in the Colonial Period

Abstract

This paper situates pioneering travel narratives of women in colonial Bengal and explores their multi-layered experiences and problematics of identity in relation to the centre-periphery dyad. It also unravels how translated accounts of Krishnabhabini Das and Durgabati Ghose in A Bengali Lady in England (2015) and The Westward Traveller (2010), respectively, explicate the development of their identities by juxtaposing an expanding consciousness resulting from their accumulated observations. Locating the nascent stages of women’s writing in colonial Bengal, it brings to the fore complex issues of gender and mobility as well as the public/private dichotomy while navigating foreign shores, especially England. The paper also highlights how the power of the gaze lies with the colonised women who drew thorough comparisons between English society and contemporaneous Bengal. A critical investigation of the travelogues by adopting a postcolonial lens opens up the underlying intricacies of interactions, reflections, and dilemmas that the authors encapsulate in the narratives and thus help in contextualising their accounts in the larger sociocultural and political backdrop.