Récit, science et fiction dans The Oregon Trail de Francis Parkman

Abstract

Narrative , science and fiction in Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail. Parkman’s The Oregon Trail is not typical of most travel narratives of the period. Parkman never presents himself as the champion of the official policy of westward expansion. He remains rather vague about the reasons for his journey and emphasizes events as they occur, without trying to derive meaning from any specific law. There are few spatial and temporal landmarks in the narrative ; racial stereotypes, especially about Indians, are frequent though not organized into a system ; contact with nature and the wilderness does not call upon methods of classification. Parkman’s “curiosity” and “accuracy” become the instruments of the scientific approach that Deleuze calls “nomadic”.