Woman Without Luggage: Flora Tristan's Journey to Peru

Abstract

Flora Tristan's voyage from France to Peru has been studied by critics of empire as that of a Eurocentric traveler. Although an interpretation of Flora Tristan's imperial gaze is more than persuasive, in this article I carry out a reading of her Peregrinations of a Pariah (1833-1834) in a different direction. I propose to define and interpret Flora Tristan's public persona as a pariah and a cosmopolite by examining the objects, especially clothes, with which she travels. Flora Tristán left France for Peru in poverty, to return even poorer two years later. I hold that her lack of luggage makes possible the construction of her public persona as a romantic hero of "moral superiority".