Woolf's "Voyage" is a colonial travel novel that centers around female travelers and subverts the traditional narrative mode dominated by masculinity and imperial discourse. The novel incorporates the theme of illness into travel writing, questioning the feasibility of colonial activities through the plot of the female protagonist's illness and death. This setting is related to the prevalent discourse of disease geography at the time, which believed that the climate environment in non European regions was unhealthy for Europeans. Woolf has been passionate about reading travel literature since her youth, especially Conrad's works. She is familiar with the discourse of disease geography and associates travel with disease. During the creation of 'Far Voyage', Woolf experienced mental breakdowns and suicide attempts, and had firsthand experience with illness. As a British writer who grew up during the period of the empire's rise and fall, she has always made reflection and criticism of imperial discourse and colonial activities the central theme of her writing. The critical community mainly focuses on the gender and colonial themes of the novel, but has not fully paid attention to the relationship between diseases in the colonial context and the geographical discourse of diseases and imperial politics at that time. Woolf presented the adverse effects of colonial climate and environment on imperial colonial expansion from three dimensions: the impact of tropical diseases on European physique, the pathogenic colonial landscape and its exoticism, and the imagination of white races towards pathogenic races. She expressed her reflection and criticism on imperial colonial activities. At the same time, she also exposed her tendency to collude with imperialist values in revealing the imperial discourse that regionalized and racialized diseases.

Tropical diseases: 'Empire's invisible killer'

By analyzing the character of Mr. Papo in the novel 'Far Voyage', this paper explores the impact of tropical diseases on imperial politics. Mr. Papo, as a military officer who served in the Indian colonies for a long time, his frail and sickly image reveals the damage of colonial experiences to the health of Europeans. The novel portrays the decline of masculinity and the adverse effects of tropical diseases on the military power of the empire through Mr. Papo's illness. Woolf used satirical metaphors to present Mr. Papo's degraded male image due to illness, subverting the traditional image of imperial colonial officers. In addition, the novel also reveals the impact of tropical diseases on the fate of the empire through the disease experiences of other male characters. The failed history of the Santa Maria colony further suggests the challenge posed by tropical diseases as the 'invisible killers' of the empire to its colonial activities. Overall, through the discourse of disease geography, the rationality of imperial politics and colonial expansion has been criticized.

Pathogenic colonial landscapes and their exoticism

Explored the plot of the novel "Voyage" where the female protagonist Rachel falls ill after traveling in the colony, revealing that the colony is depicted as an unhealthy and pathogenic environment, reflecting the negative and exotic portrayal of tropical regions at that time. Tourists attribute Rachel's illness to the physical environment of the colony, such as food, water sources, and hot weather, which is consistent with the descriptions of tropical regions in medical literature at the time. Woolf created a deadly sense of crisis by emphasizing the heat, darkness, and primitiveness of the colonial environment, implying that Rachel's illness was related to the colonial environment. This exotic depiction of colonial environments reflects the binary opposition between the suzerain state and the colonies, as well as negative expressions of civilization and primitiveness, health and disease. Woolf's depiction not only reproduces imperial discourse, but also expresses criticism of imperial colonial expansion by showcasing the unconquerability of colonies. Her writing on the exoticism of colonial environments reveals deep doubts about imperial colonial activities and hints at the impending downfall of the empire.

Imagination of pathogenic races and anxiety about colonial rule

Rachel's death in 'Voyage' reveals the racialized medical discourse of disease and its implicit racial politics. Rachel's racial identity is more prominent than her gender identity, and she and five tourists represent the rise and fall of the white race. Woolf emphasized the physical differences between British women and local residents through Rachel's etiology, reflecting the racialized evolution of colonial medical discourse. In the late 19th century, colonial medical discourse focused on the causal relationship between racial differences and environmental factors. Compared to the high mortality rate of white races in tropical regions, indigenous peoples have superior disease immunity. Woolf used detailed close ups of Rachel's illness on the day of her onset to metaphorically depict the huge differences between the white race suffering from illness and the indigenous peoples immune to the disease, revealing a strong sense of crisis. In the hallucinations triggered by Rachel's illness, Woolf reinforces the sense of crisis triggered by the local ethnic group by emphasizing the "primitiveness" of the local residents. During the colonial expansion of the British Empire, hostile local ethnic groups threatened the health and lives of white colonizers, which was an important factor in colonial anxiety. The reverse invasion by the colonized through disease was an extreme fear faced by European colonizers. In Rachel's subconscious, the locals blend seamlessly with the tropical jungle, being equated as a source of fear and disease. Woolf drew inspiration from typical depictions of indigenous peoples in colonial narratives, constructing them as evil and pathogenic characters, exposing their inherent racial biases. Woolf's writings on colonial racial segregation also exposed her racist tendencies. Through the controversy among tourists over the location of Rachel's illness, Woolf presents the impact of colonial medical discourse that racializes the disease on the empire's overseas colonial policies. In the mid to late 19th century, colonial governments built white residential areas far away from indigenous peoples in high-altitude areas, railway lines, and camps, using "social and racial boundaries" to protect colonizers and their privileges and rights. The racial evolution of colonial medical discourse reflects the health crisis faced by the white race in the colonies, and in the context of the decline of the empire, it has become a political defense for the continued policy of racial segregation in the colonies. Woolf conveyed concerns about imperial power, exposing her tendency to be deeply influenced by the imperial system and collude with imperialist values. In Woolf's era, there was a breakthrough in the theory of bacterial pathogens, but disease geography still held an important position in colonial medicine, used to define the power relationship between rulers and ruled. The perspective of disease geography provides a new angle for exploring the colonial and travel themes of 'Voyage', and also provides an opportunity to interpret Woolf's contradiction between criticizing the imperialist value system and its collusion.