Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Paul Ashdown

Committee Members

Janet Atwill. C. Edward Caudill, James Crook

Abstract

Although Martha Gellhorn is well established as one of the century's greatest war reporters, her non-fiction can best be understood as an original form of travel writing. Through a close reading of some 125 of Gellhorn's articles in 23 publications, this study explores how Gellhorn blended elements of journalism, memoir, and travelogue to fashion a vivid style of war reporting. Theories of rhetoric regarding symbols of language were used to develop a basis for the analysis. Gellhorn pushed the boundaries of conventional travel writing and is difficult to categorize as a journalist and a literary figure. Originally enamored of journalism as a truth-telling process, she became disenchanted with journalism's ability to shape public experience in the wake of the complex wars that shaped the Twentieth Century. Furthermore, this investigation offers an additional lens by which to examine travel literature. The depth and dimension of the genre is expanded because Gellhorn straddled the line between traditional and contemporary travel writing while enlarging the frontier of cultures by introducing the surreal destination of war. Her impressionistic vignettes are digestible commentary for readers she hoped to transform from armchair travelers into informed citizens of the world.

She developed a unique writer-reader camaraderie by bringing the reader to the scene herself. She did so by being a chauffeur, shipmate, teacher, reliable commentator, hostess, tour guide, traveler and writer. Her audience members became those counterparts: passenger, shipmate, student, guest, tourist, fellow traveler and reader.

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