The Representation of Morocco in Postcolonial Travel Narrative Novels: The Case of El Maghreb: 1200 Miles Ride through Morocco by Hugh E. M. Stutfield

Abstract

The current study is intended to investigate how Morocco is represented in post-colonial travel narrative novels, especially after the end of the occupation of Tangier by the Kingdom of England in the second half of the seventeenth century. In this respect, El Maghreb: 1200 Miles Ride through Morocco by Hugh E. M. Stutfield (1886) is a case in point. The novel is analyzed thematically in the light of post-colonialism, hybridity and travel narrative framework. The analysis reveals that Morocco is subjectively represented by the author from an ethnocentric perspective. This is evidenced as the Moors are described as backwards who need to be civilized by the Kingdom of England, which occupied Tangier from 1667 to 1684. Moreover, the agricultural system of Morocco was evaluated as backward just by sight. In addition, the description of the visited cities, especially Fes and Meknes, conveys a sense of strangeness and negative atmosphere. Accordingly, the agricultural, social and cultural sides of Morocco in the last decades of the nineteenth century are ethnocentrically represented in the novel El Maghreb: 1200 Miles Ride through Morocco.