ABSTRACT
The chapter explores Wharton’s visits to North Africa and her Francophile Orientalist approach to the region in her travel writings. Starting with the exotic descriptions of North Africa in The Cruise of the Vanadis (1992) and In Morocco (1920), the chapter expands upon postcolonial readings of In Morocco and recontextualizes Wharton’s last travel writing as a travel text written at the time of war. When the book is read in comparison with Wharton’s earlier travel writings rather than the short fiction on North Africa, its colonial stereotyping of the Orient and Oriental women can be interpreted as part of Wharton’s architectural vision of travel and can even be linked to her architectural rhetoric of the Great War in her earlier war reports. The chapter argues that In Morocco is connected to Wharton’s rhetoric of war in her evocative descriptions of space, which are similar to her scenes of war: they are not only beautiful but also potentially dangerous.
