Venetian travel narratives in Erica Jong’s work

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on Erica Jong’s and her fictional characters’ travel experiences in Venice, which is portrayed as a carefree and sensual destination. Jong demonstrates how female solo travelling can help challenge unequal gender roles, explore female sexuality regardless of one’s age, and rewrite the narratives of the Grand Tour. However, in her later works, the depiction of Venice transitions from a glorification of its charm to portraying it as a seductive place of decadence. The dichotomy between beauty and decay becomes a reminder of the passage of time and the inevitability of constant changes. While Jong and her heroines defy the centuries-long and idealised cultural heritage of Venice by moving beyond its common association with male desire, they also reveal that ephemeral love affairs can lead to emotional disillusionment. They also become potential targets of the leisure tourism industry and romanticised discourses that continue to influence contemporary travel expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Baby-boomers
• female sexuality
• leisure travels
• tourism industry
• Mediterranean
• Italy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As Jong grows older, her perceptions of sexuality and sex start to change. In her later-life works, the author gives more importance to intimacy, coupledom, and alternative ways of sexual practices, such as tantric sex (Stončikaitė 2017).

2 Popular travel destinations often exclude disabled, homosexual, non-white, old, economically disadvantaged, and sick individuals, which reveals the hegemonic Western norms prevalent in travel advertising (Edelheim 2007; Patterson 2007). Age-related discrimination is particularly evident in senior leisure tourism, which is an increasingly profitable market that effectively targets affluent older citizens (Stončikaitė 2022).