Synthesizing Views On Tourism And Cultural Profiles – Jojo Moyes’ The Ship Of Brides

The paper analyzes the introductory part of the novel The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes, as, given its synthetic but inclusive nature, it provides relevant intimations in what regards issues pertaining to cultural profiling and identities, focusing on – but not reduced to – the Indian and British ones. Other interesting matters come to the fore, besides cultural traits, and the whole information is gathered around two cores on which the two main sections making up the body of the paper are built. In the first, we analyze various tourism trends and types, noticing the way in which the text tends to place most of them in oppositions and distinctions – mass versus individual or responsible tourism, real and surrogate tourism experiences, reality and construct, heritage versus poverty or black tourism, eurocentrism and exotic cultures, financially deprived versus consumerist countries. The following section focuses initially on cultural characteristics and stereotypes regarding age (the elderly and youth), social status, class society, dress codes for women and the perception of gender difference, then passes on to throwing a glance at the surrounding physical, spatial realities: the slum neighborhood, the industrialized areas, poverty, hygiene issues and smells, the social arena. The conclusions draw on the complexity of the aspects tackled in the novel prologue.