The Travelers and Tourists of A Room with a View

A Room with a View, a movie based on the novel by E.M. Foster, is centered in Lucy Honeychurch's and Charlotte's, two wealthy cousins, visit to Florence. When they got to their room, they noticed that it didn't have a view. Meanwhile, a father and son, Mr. Emerson and George, offered them their room since it had the view they were looking for. Once Lucy and George met, they embarked on a romantic adventure, that is, until Lucy had to go back to England, her home. Nevertheless, fate brings them back together and, since Lucy was engaged to another man, she had to decide whether to follow through with het engagement with Cecil or follow her heart and her growing attraction to George. Every journey faced in the movie, is directly connected to the concept of tourist vs. traveler that is stated in Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place.

The idea of tourist vs. traveler can be seen clearly at the beginning of the movie and specific characters can be categorized as tourists while others can be named travelers. Lucy and her cousin Charlotte are definitely tourists. Lucy is asked why she is visiting Florence and she clearly states that she is there as a tourist. When the Reverend hears such answer he says: "We residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little...handed about like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, Florence to Rome, quite unconscious of anything outside Baedeker. Their one anxiety to get done and flew and go on elsewhere else." This shows how tourists don't focus on the important things when visiting a new place. Rather than interacting with the culture and other aspects, they go around viewing, but not really seeing. Even though Lucy was a traveler at the beginning,  there is a novelist called Ms. Lavish that describes Lucy as: "The young English girl transfigured by Italy." By this, Ms. Lavish states that at first, Lucy was definitely a tourist, but after her encounter with George and her journey through Florence, she transformed into a tourist.

Contrary to Lucy and Charlotte, George and Mr. Emerson are the travelers of the movie. They are the only ones willing to learn about native aspects of Florence. They always seemed to want to explore more than met the eye. This can be better viewed when, Mr. Emerson offered the cousins his room and stated: "I don't care what I see outside; my vision is within! Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!". This traveler point of view shows that the most important thing about embarking in a journey lies on the inner vision of the place and just just what one sees with his or her eyes.

The movie and Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place have similar themes. As well as the Reverend, Kincaid views tourists as superficial and ignorant. Also they acknowledged that tourists rarely find an interest in the local aspects of the place rather, they look for tourists sites to visit and don't usually wander around. If Jamaica Kincaid had the opportunity to address Lucy and Charlotte, she would criticize their way of visiting a new place, just like she did in her book to everyone visiting Antigua. Her tone would be insulting and, because they are British, a bigger conflict of interest would come about since Antigua had been a British colony for some time.