LEGENDARY EXPATRIATES: FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY, AND
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE “LOST GENERATION”
By
MELISSA UNGER
Integrated Studies Project
submitted to Dr. Jolene Armstrong
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts – Integrated Studies
Athabasca, Alberta
April, 2016
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
3
Legendary Expatriates
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Works Cited
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ABSTRACT
Amidst the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s in Paris, F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Ernest Hemingway created some of the most enduring and captivating work to
come out of that historical epoch. Even today, the lingering appeal of the “Lost
Generation” and the ongoing draw of Fitzgerald and Hemingway solicit
questions about the importance of the representations they constructed of
American expatriates in their work. This paper presents an interdisciplinary
historical critical perspective on the construal and consequence of American
expatriation in two of Fitzgerald’s short stories, “The Swimmers” and “One Trip
Abroad” and Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, by exploring how these
works intersect with two autobiographical accounts of the 1920s in Paris,
Malcolm Cowley’s Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s and Morley
Callaghan’s That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Some Others. By overlapping these stories with the
autobiographical accounts of Cowley and Callaghan, this paper finds that the
tension faced by expatriate characters in these stories between the possibilities
and perils offered to them through expatriation can be viewed as the outcome of
displaced individuals seeking escape from their displacement by entering into
an imagined world of expatriates that allows disconnection from reality. As
constantly shifting circumstances continue to leave individuals grappling with
various forms of displacement today, the themes emanating from the narratives
of expatriation constructed in these stories, particularly the impossibility of
permanently evading the realities of displacement and the damaging effects
that come with avoidance, are ones with which we can continue to connect.
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Legendary Expatriates: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the Construction of the
“Lost Generation”
Amidst the glamour, parties, and alcohol of the 1920s in Paris were F.
Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The exploits of that era, along with
these authors, who created some of the most enduring work to come out of that
historical epoch, continue to captivate even now, almost one hundred years
later. The lingering appeal of the “Lost Generation” and the ongoing draw of
Fitzgerald and Hemingway solicit questions about the importance of the
representations they constructed of American expatriates in their work. By
examining the ways in which two of Fitzgerald’s short stories, “The Swimmers”
and “One Trip Abroad” and Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, intersect
with two autobiographical accounts of the 1920s in Paris, Malcolm Cowley’s
Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s, and Morley Callaghan’s That
Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Hemingway, Fitzgerald,
and Some Others, this paper will present an interdisciplinary historical critical
perspective on the construal and consequence of American expatriation in
these stories. All three stories explore the tension faced by characters between
the possibilities and perils offered to them through expatriation. By overlapping
these stories with the autobiographical accounts of Cowley and Callaghan, this
tension can be seen as the outcome of displaced individuals seeking relief from
their current circumstances by entering into an imagined world of infinite
possibilities that allows disconnection from the reality of their personal situations.
Fitzgerald and Hemingway both create narratives of American expatriation that
emphasize the impossibility of avoiding the issues arising from displacement
and the dangers of escaping into an imagined world.
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In Exile’s Return, Cowley portrays the American expatriates of the 1920s
as displaced individuals reacting to changes in their relationships with America
due to their experiences during World War I and the cultural situation in America
after the war. His account of American expatriation during this era provides a
foundational context for understanding the struggle of the “Lost Generation” to
carve out a space for themselves in the postwar world. Some of the important
themes that he touches on in his account are the cultural situation in America
following World War I; the impact of the war and this cultural situation on the
“Lost Generation;” and the choice of some members of the “Lost Generation” to
expatriate to France and other European destinations. Looking at Cowley’s
explication of these themes, a narrative of cultural dislocation emerges, in which
escape to Europe becomes one of the more viable alternatives.
Cowley explains the cultural situation in America following World War I, as
perceived by the “Lost Generation,” in terms of the political, social, moral, and
economic conditions of the time. According to Cowley, the political aftermath of
the war changed the relationship of those who had participated in the war with
their home country. After the war, he contends, “[t]he composite father land for
which we had fought and in which some of us still believed—France, Italy, the
Allies, our English homeland, democracy, the self-determination of small
nations,” disintegrated “into quarrelling statesmen and oil and steel magnates”
(46, 47). In addition to these dynamics of international politics, Cowley
maintains, “Our own nation had passed the Prohibition Amendment as if to
publish a bill of separation between itself and ourselves; it wasn’t our country
any longer” (47). In other words, the political aftermath of the war led to a sense
of alienation for the “Lost Generation.” In terms of the social and moral climate of
postwar America, Cowley emphasizes the spuriousness and hypocrisy of the
time. He describes how “…almost the whole of American culture was becoming
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false or flimsy,” but proposes that “[w]orst of all…was the hypocrisy that had
come to pervade the whole system…” including business, politics, and the
enforcement of prohibition (216). In addition to this atmosphere of social
corrosion and moral duplicity, Cowley adds the focus on economic and financial
priorities that became dominant during that decade. Vividly describing the
frenzied economic ambiance, Cowley surmises, “There seemed to be no reason
why the whole process of making, selling, servicing and discarding could not
continue indefinitely at an always increasing speed” (216). In postwar America,
according to Cowley, commercialism had taken over. Cowley’s account of the
cultural situation in postwar America paints a picture of economic frenzy, along
with moral, social, and political corruption.
Highlighting the impact of the war and the cultural situation in America on
the “Lost Generation,” Cowley outlines several ways that this generation was set
adrift in the postwar world, two of which are explored here. According to
Cowley, its members were both “uprooted” and in transition (9). They had been
“uprooted…in spirit” by “[s]chool and college” (46), where they had been
“almost wrenched away from…attachment to any region or tradition” (9), and
then the war had made them “physically uprooted…scattered among strange
people” (46). During the war, Cowley asserts, participants were “fed and
lodged…at the expense of a government in which we had no share” (38).
Concurrent with this physical displacement, those who were “volunteers for
various relief agencies” also became psychically displaced, acquiring “what
might be called a spectatorial attitude” (Curnutt 18; Cowley 38, emphasis
original). As an example of this attitude, Cowley describes the participants in his
cohort who were retrieving “warm fragments of steel” during an incident in which
they were under “bombardment,” as “[s]pectators…collecting souvenirs of
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death” (40). This psychic and physical displacement followed these participants
home after the war. Cowley explains:
We returned to New York, appropriately—to the homeland of the
uprooted, where everyone you met came from another town and
tried to forget it; where nobody seemed to have parents, or a past
more distant than last night’s swell party, or a future beyond the
swell party this evening and the disillusioned book he would write
tomorrow. (47)
Impacted by the war and the cultural situation in America, this generation was
essentially in a state of transition. Cowley posits, “The generation belonged to a
period of transition from values already fixed to values that had to be created. . .
. They were seceding from the old and yet could adhere to nothing new; they
groped their way toward another scheme of life, as yet undefined…” (9).
Through Cowley’s accounts of the cultural situation in America and the impact
that the war and this cultural situation had on the “Lost Generation,” a narrative
of alienation and cultural dislocation emerges.
As a result of their dislocation, some members of this generation chose to
expatriate, seeking relief from their current circumstances in France and other
European destinations. From Cowley’s narrative, it is possible to identify three
aspects of American life that the expatriates were trying to escape from. First,
through his discussion of the book Civilization in the United States, Cowley
implies that the expatriates were trying to get away from the “mediocrity” of
American culture that they felt was deterring the productive capacities of
individuals (75-79; 76). Next, he purports that expatriates were trying to escape
the commercialism of America, because they saw themselves as “aliens in the
commercial world” and viewed “commercial society as an enemy” (6, 236).
Finally, the expatriates had the additional motivation of trying to escape from the
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social and moral restrictions in America, or as Cowley terms it, “puritanism”
(240). Besides the desire to escape these elements of American society, the
choice to expatriate was also based on the desire to embrace certain elements
that the expatriates believed would be offered to them in Europe. Europe offered
a potential for intellectual achievement that the expatriates did not sense at
home. Cowley maintains that expatriates were looking “to win their deserved
place in the hierarchy of the intellect” (81). Europe was perceived as the place
to do so, as Michael S. Reynolds explains (4). Offering a list of prominent
individuals in Paris who presented a draw for the expatriates, he asserts,
“…Paris was…the intellectual center of the 1920s in literature, painting, dance
and music” (4). However, in addition to the possibilities for intellectual
achievement that the expatriates associated with Paris, Cowley also points out
the draw of newness, arguing that one “could escape society by seeking new
places, new ideals, new ways of living” (218). Moving to Europe offered the
opportunity for pursuing this type of newness. As Kirk Curnutt contends,
“…Americans overseas began to identify with a spirit of radical experimentation
emerging in painting, poetry, and fiction. This spirit was not confined to artistic
endeavors. Many expatriates aspired to innovation in their lifestyles” (72).
Besides intellectual achievement and newness, Europe also represented the
opportunity for “freedom” (Cowley 240). Curnutt explicitly identifies this
opportunity for freedom as a prime reason for the expatriates to move abroad:
The point of living and writing abroad was not to become a citizen
of another country but to free oneself from the restrictions of
home…. Expatriation was a means of opening one’s eyes, of
learning to question authority and truth, and, perhaps most
important, of experimenting with lifestyles that across the Atlantic
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would provoke condemnation or carry legal consequences. (1415)
In many ways, through its opportunities for intellectual achievement, newness,
and freedom, helped along by the fact that “one could live for next to nothing,”
(Cowley 79), Europe represented to the expatriates a land of opportunities.
While Cowley portrays the American expatriates of the 1920s as
displaced individuals seeking after the possibilities of Europe in response to
changes in their relationships with America in the postwar years, Callaghan
highlights the imaginary world these expatriates entered into in Europe. Some of
the important themes featured in his account are the idealism present in
expatriate perceptions of Paris, the use of this imaginary world to escape or
avoid reality, and the eventual necessity of facing one’s circumstances. Through
Callaghan’s treatment of these themes, the possibilities, illusoriness,
detachment, and dangers of expatriate life in Paris are revealed.
In his account, Callaghan provides some vivid idealistic perceptions of
Paris. Describing his first night in Paris with his wife, Callaghan appears to have
entered a dream: “The corner was like a great bowl of light, little figures moving
into it and fading out, and beyond was all of Paris” (87). Within this dream world,
Callaghan recognizes that they are foreigners, but discounts any displacement
that might come as a result. He explains, “But that first night, sitting there as
strangers, wondering hopefully if Joyce, or Pound, or Fitzgerald or Ford,
someone we would recognize, might pass by, we didn’t feel lonely or out of
place. . . . Paris was around us and how could it be alien in our minds and
hearts even if no Frenchman ever spoke to us?” (87). In addition to this feeling of
accessibility, he highlights the timeless possibilities that he associates with
Paris. He comments, “What it [Paris] offered to us was what it had offered to
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men from other countries for hundreds of years; it was a lighted place where the
imagination was free” (88). Through this depiction of Paris as dream-like,
accessible, timeless, and inclusive, Callaghan emphasizes the idealism present
in his initial perceptions of the city.
Through these glimpses into his idealistic perceptions of Paris, Callaghan
introduces the imaginary world into which expatriates entered in Europe.
Regardless of his initial perceptions of belonging in Paris, according to J.
Gerald Kennedy, this imaginary world is enabled through detachment, which
also fuels its productive possibilities (Imagining 192). He argues, “The city of
exile combined…the strangeness of the foreign and the unreality of the modern,
producing an alienation from the immediate environment while at the same time
endowing it with the sort of imaginary power which only the unreal can possess”
(192). Callaghan eventually realizes this imaginary and disconnected nature of
the expatriate world. Acknowledging the imaginary quality, he says of his life in
Paris, “It’s a kind of otherworldliness” (229). But he also recognizes the
illusoriness of building a life in Paris that is completely separated from any
element of French life or culture. “Could the dream I had had for years of being
in Paris been only a necessary fantasy?” he asks, as he recounts telling his wife,
Loretto, “…if I were to stay on in France I should now be soaking up French
culture. I should want to be with French writers. If I didn’t want the French
culture, then I was there in exile” (229). In other words, through his detachment
from France, as well as America, Callaghan has acquired an “oddly
indeterminate status of being imaginatively neither here nor there” (Kennedy,
Imagining 26; emphasis original). He has discovered that the concept of
existing only within a distinct expatriate community in Paris, disconnected from
the realities of both France and America, is a fictional existence. Callaghan also
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realizes how those in the imaginary expatriate world are using it as a tool to
avoid facing reality:
…it was my conviction now that for most men there had to be
some kind of another more satisfactory world. . . . The saints,
tormented by the anguish of the flesh, wanted to reject the human
condition, the world they lived in. But whether saints or café friends
there in Paris, weren’t they all involved in a flight from the pain of
life—a pain they would feel more acutely at home? (229)
Callaghan’s admission that the imagined world of the expatriates acts as a
retreat from reality acknowledges that he, too, in an effort to avoid being
consumed by the reality of his situation has immersed himself in the detachment
of this illusory realm.
Yet Callaghan also eventually acknowledges the necessity of facing the
reality of his situation. Recognizing his displacement in France, Callaghan
relates:
Gradually I began to figure out what was troubling me. We seemed
to have come to a resting place in Montparnasse. Talking to Ernest
[Hemingway] I had said, “The Americans around here can’t be
Frenchmen, no matter how well they speak the language. If we are
going to stay here it means really we have to become Frenchmen.”
(228-229)
Callaghan has perceived the reality of his displacement in France, as well as the
fact that his displacement will continue for the duration of his time there.
Inhabiting the imaginary expatriate world cannot mask forever his condition of
displacement. Additionally, Callaghan comes to acknowledge his displacement
at home. Callaghan recounts that in reply to his wife’s question about the nature
of his “own fantasy,” which she asks in response to Callaghan’s explanation
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about how “[t]he French writers” had “exiled themselves in their own dreams,”
he “...said I might have to forge my own vision in secret spiritual isolation in my
native city” (230). For Callaghan, escape into the imaginary expatriate world in
Paris proves to be only temporary; he recognizes that at some point he needs to
face the reality of his displacement both at home and abroad.
However, Callaghan goes one step further in his account, acknowledging
not only the necessity of facing reality, but also the dangers of venturing too far
into a disconnected, imaginative realm. He ponders, “Joyce in exile had gone
deeply, too deeply, into himself. But what if he had stayed in Dublin?” (230).
Through this seemingly innocuous remark, Callaghan discloses his recognition
of the dangers that can be involved in immersing oneself too completely in what
Kennedy calls “the crisis of the displaced self” (Imagining 27). Kennedy
maintains, “In the difference between the immediate scene of exile, the ‘unreal’
site of expatriation (as Stein would have it), and those real, remembered scenes
of homeland, one confronts the anxiety of the ungrounded self” (27). The
detachment of the imaginary expatriate world allows not only productive
possibilities, but also poses inherent dangers. Emphasizing the fact that the
conditions of expatriation also inspired rashness and impetuousness among the
expatriates, Kennedy contends, “The escape from U. S. Prohibition; the greater
range, availability, and acceptance of pleasures licit and illicit; and the practical
advantage of a soaring exchange rate all combined with the wild exuberance of
the 1920s…to encourage expatriate recklessness and risk-taking” (“Figuring”
318). Tying this type of behaviour to the detachment of life abroad, Kennedy
observes the menacing effects that expatriation had on the lives of Fitzgerald
and Hemingway. He postulates that both “initially reveled in their uprooting.
Freed from American mores and family influences, inhabiting a culture more
tolerant of vice and pleasure…both writers indulged in ‘secrets, taboos, and
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delights,’ revolted against middle-class conventions, and managed to smash
apart their personal lives” (339, emphasis original). Kennedy acknowledges that
their exposure to these dangers created tension in the lives of both of these
authors, but in both cases he frames this tension as a conflict between their
American values and their new milieu (319; Imagining 86-87). However, the
tension in the lives of expatriates who are exposed to the dangers of the
imaginary expatriate world can also be viewed as a struggle they experience
between the possibilities and the perils of this imaginary world.
In “The Swimmers,” “One Trip Abroad,” and The Sun Also Rises, this
tension between the possibilities and perils of the imaginary expatriate world is
revealed through Fitzgerald’s and Hemingway’s treatments of the possibilities
offered to certain characters for productivity or novelty and the perils these
characters are exposed to in the forms of self-indulgence or self-alienation. By
overlaying the representations of this tension in these stories with the
autobiographical accounts of Cowley and Callaghan, this tension can be seen
as resulting from the attempts of these displaced characters to avoid
acknowledging their displacement by entering into the imaginary expatriate
world. Both Fitzgerald and Hemingway develop narratives of expatriation that
emphasize the consequent damage of escaping into this imaginary world and
the futility of trying to use it to avoid tackling the issues arising from
displacement.
In “The Swimmers,” Henry Marston navigates between the possibility of
achieving a new identity and the danger of self-alienation as he deals with his
displacement at home through expatriation to France. Fitzgerald marks Henry’s
attempt to distance himself from his identity as an American by disclosing that
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“[h]is seven generations of Virginia ancestors were definitely behind him every
day at noon when he turned home” (“Swimmers” 496). Their position behind
Henry as he directs himself toward his French home and French wife indicates
his effort to suppress his past and his American identity as he moves forward
into a new, unrelated life in France. As Richard Lehan contends, “…we see at
the outset how he [Henry] has betrayed his past aristocratic tradition” and
“given himself to a foreign culture” (17). Henry’s psychic displacement from his
homeland is further evident in his reflections about Judge Waterbury, an
American who tries to convince Henry to return to the United States. He
appreciates the judge’s “kindness” but only in a detached manner “as a curator
in a museum might touch a precious object removed in time and space”
(Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 496). A certain antipathy for his homeland appears in
the way that he finds the judge to be “one-dimensional, machine-finished,
blandly and bleakly un-European” (496), implying that the judge lacks the
depth, humanity, and vivaciousness that Henry associates with Europe. In spite
of a troubled existence in Paris, Henry indicates that he has no desire to return
to live in the United States when the judge offers him a job in Richmond,
although he “restrained himself from stating his frank opinion upon existence at
home” (496). To cope with this displacement, Henry has attempted to start a
new life in France by marrying Choupette and by “…liv[ing] her life, substituting
for the moral confusion of his own country, the tradition, the wisdom, the
sophistication of France” (502). Henry’s attempt to deal with his displacement at
home by forging this new identity is a prospect enabled by the fresh and
productive possibilities open to him as part of an imaginary expatriate world.
However, by taking up residence in this imaginary world, Henry also subjects
himself to the risk of self-alienation. His bid to adopt a new identity has required
“a process of ceaseless adaptation” which sets him apart as a foreigner in his
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adopted homeland (502). Entering into this expatriate world, which is
“imaginatively neither here nor there” (Kennedy, Imagining 26, emphasis
original), Henry is caught in the tension between the possibility of a new identity
and the danger of self-alienation.
This tension between the possibility of generating a new identity and the
peril of self-alienation is reflected in the tenuousness of Henry’s situation in the
first part of the story when he has no desire to return to the United States but
fears that his wife is having an affair. Fitzgerald communicates this tension
through Henry’s perception of Paris. Anticipating his trip home at lunch to
confirm his fears about his wife’s infidelity, Henry’s environment reflects his
apprehension about the precariousness of his own escape into a new identity.
The city street in front of the bank where Henry works is filled with “a suspended
mass of gasoline exhaust cooked slowly by the June sun,” which “held no
promise of rural escape” (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 495). As Henry breathes in the
toxic air, “it became the odor of the thing he must presently do” (495). On top of
the toxicity of the scene, a sense of chaos becomes apparent as Henry’s eyes
flit from one detail of Parisian life to another, represented by the various signs he
sees: “1000 Chemises…Papeterie, Pâtisserie, Solde, Réclame…Constance
Talmadge in Déjeuner de Soleil…Vêtements Ecclésiastiques, Déclaration de
Décès, and Pompes Funèbres,” a representation of “[l]ife and death” (495). This
noxious and chaotic scene reflects Henry’s tumultuous inner state. In Lehan’s
words, Henry “is at one with the fume-choked, money-oriented city” (17).
Disconnected from his homeland, but doubting his integration into France,
Henry is pulled between the draw of a new identity and the self-alienation that
can result from “the dilemma of the ungrounded self” (Kennedy, Imagining 27).
When he discovers his wife at home with another man, this tension reaches an
apex, with Henry experiencing a physical and mental breakdown (Fitzgerald,
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“Swimmers” 497). During the weeks of his illness, Henry raves “about one
thousand chemises, and…how all the population of Paris was becoming
etherized by cheap gasoline…” (497), connecting his breakdown with the
moments at the bank during which he contemplates his fear of Choupette’s
infidelity, followed by his disinclination to return to the United States. Upon finally
awakening from his delusional state, one of the first things Henry says to
Choupette is, “At all costs…you can count on me to adopt the Continental
attitude” (498), an attitude, as Lehan observes, “which accommodates adultery”
(17). In other words, Henry is asserting his intention to continue to pursue his
new identity, even at the risk of further self-alienation.
In spite of Henry’s declared intent to continue pursuing his new identity,
he is confronted with the reality of his displacement from the United States on a
vacation to the coast when he meets a young American girl. It is not until this
chance meeting that Henry’s true recovery begins. As Lehan contends, Henry’s
“physical and moral sickness is broken by a vacation on the Riviera, where
Henry, who cannot swim, goes to the help of a young girl who has suffered a
cramp” (17). When Henry first sees the girl, he perceives her “irrepressible
determination” (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 499), which becomes an inspiration that
hastens Henry’s recovery, not only of his health, but also of his subjectivity. His
process of restoration is metaphorically symbolized through the painful process
of learning to swim from the American girl (500-501). For Henry, this American
girl, signifying “his ever-new, ever-changing country,” is the key to this process
(501). According to Lehan, Henry “feels a vitality in this girl that seems gone
from his own life, and in the water he begins to understand the source of it; not
only does he experience a new physical well-being, but he begins to feel
morally intact” (17). As his breakdown suggests, Henry has become
disillusioned with his French identity. Through the American girl, he begins to
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reconnect with his previously suppressed American identity and to rediscover
his own country, which accelerates his recovery. Realizing the necessity of
confronting his displacement and rediscovering his own identity, Henry decides
to return to the United States with his family (501).
Once back in the United States, Henry’s continuing confrontation with the
reality of his displacement and ongoing reconstruction of his American identity
are clearly shown. He discovers that Choupette is now having an affair with
Judge Waterbury’s associate, Mr. Wiese (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 504). Their
relationship seems to unify the elements of French life that Henry found most
alienating with the elements of America that he most despises. As Horst Kruse
posits, Fitzgerald is disclosing “a basic opposition, not…between Europe and
America. . . . America itself appears divided in two: the materialistic and morally
corrupt America of the present…and the tradition-oriented America of old, …the
former now siding with Europe to challenge the latter” (63). As a coping
mechanism for dealing with his displacement, as represented through the
relationship of Choupette and Mr. Wiese, Henry has continued to swim.
Swimming allows Henry “to wash his mind in the water” (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers”
505), just as the American girl swims “[t]o get clean” (501). By swimming, Henry
detaches himself from the aspects of American identity that he finds unwelcome
and “move[s] in a child’s dream of space” (506). Kennedy’s discussion of the
concept of place illuminates the significance of Henry finding himself in “space.”
Drawing on the work of Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward Relph, Kennedy maintains that
place is “space endowed with value,” that is, “the projection of human sensibility
upon the natural or built environment” (Imagining 5). When Henry swims off the
Virginia coast, the reversal of this process takes place; Henry detaches himself
from the meanings he associates with America and reverts to seeing only the
land: “Far out past the breakers he [Henry] could survey the green-and-brown
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line of the Old Dominion with the pleasant impersonality of a porpoise”
(Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 505). In this “child’s dream of space,” Henry rewrites
his own past and future over that space, finding himself at times in the company
of “remembered playmates of his youth,” while at other times, “with his two sons
beside him, he seemed to be setting off along the bright pathway to the moon”
(506). This process of redefining his concept of America is an important step in
recovering his subjectivity. As Kennedy contends, “The extent of one’s psychic
involvement in or identification with a given place affects—and is affected by—
the symbolic meanings associated with that site” (Imagining 6). Reflecting on
the contrast of England’s “strong place sense” with America’s “shallow roots,”
Henry begins to understand that the “restless” nature of Americans enables
them to continuously reinvent themselves, while their money ensures their
mobility (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 506). Henry has discovered that he can
reinvent his American identity and detach himself from the aspects of American
society that he finds undesirable. In the words of Robert Sklar, “By solving the
crisis in his life Henry does not simply restore his old order, he builds a new
one” (qtd. in Friedman 259). The final effort in Henry’s construction of his new
American identity comes during his swim to the lighthouse after obtaining from
Mr. Wiese the agreement regarding the custody of his children and the
declaration admitting the fraudulence of the medical statement concerning his
mental health. This swim, “the longest swim he had ever tried,” represents his
most significant and thorough attempt to confront his displacement by
detaching himself permanently from the undesirable aspects of his home
country (Fitzgerald, “Swimmers” 511). Henry’s new, grounded identity grants
him freedom, mobility, and flexibility. When he decides to return to France (503),
he is not rejecting his connection with America by leaving, but rather he is
engaging in a wholly American activity by choosing to do so. Henry has
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achieved the ability to look beyond the unfavourable aspects of America that he
senses in individuals like Mr. Wiese to embrace the abundant potential unique to
his country. He has come to recognize the “irrepressible determination” of the
American girl as the “indomitable and undefeated” spirit of his country (499,
512). By having Henry meet the American girl on the boat (512), Fitzgerald
reinforces that Henry’s recovery has been achieved through the necessary
process of confronting displacement, a process metaphorically symbolized in
the story through swimming, to which the girl introduces him, and through which
he reformulates his identity. Fitzgerald demonstrates that while the detached,
imaginary world of expatriation provides opportunities for developing new
identities, expatriates attempting to do so in this venue also run the risk of selfalienation. The tension between these two elements, as revealed in Henry’s
breakdown, can be destructive.
In “One Trip Abroad” Fitzgerald again explores the destructive effects of
avoiding displacement by escaping into an imaginary expatriate world. He
highlights the tension present in the lives of a young American couple, the
Kellys, between their pursuit of novelty and productivity and their immersion into
self-indulgence and self-alienation. The reasons Nicole Kelly gives for leaving
the United States, her “depressing” childhood and Nelson’s distaste for his
career (Fitzgerald, “One” 580), hint at their disillusionment and displacement.
Unsatisfied with their circumstances, the Kellys are on their way to Europe in
pursuit of possibilities for novelty and productivity. As Nicole tells Mrs. Miles,
“…we wanted a change. . . . Nelson’s going to paint and I’m going to study
singing” (580). For this young couple, travelling offers the chance to escape
their current identities through broadening their horizons and self-improvement.
They have “never been to Europe before” (580), but so far, “having seen all the
Unger 20
official sights from Fez to Algiers,” they “felt improved” (579). Fitzgerald charts
the effects that the tension of the expatriate life has on the Kellys through the
appearance of another young couple that keeps crossing their paths. As John
Kuehl contends, “…repeated encounters with overt doubles reflect the Kellys’
‘process of deterioration’” (184). This second young couple tends to appear at
turning points, when the choices the Kellys face have the potential to either
move them further toward the damaging effects of escaping into a detached,
imaginary existence or allow them an opportunity to face the reality of their
circumstances. These doubles appear at four locations throughout the story,
with their appearances at the first three locations signalling a movement by the
Kellys deeper into the detached, imaginary world of the expatriates.
The first time the doubles appear in the story is in Bou Saada while the
Kellys are having dinner with the Mileses, although Nicole mentions having seen
them at two points earlier in the day (Fitzgerald, “One” 579). These appearances
are significant because they mark both the choice of the Kellys to speak with the
Mileses on the tour bus, at which point their dinner engagement is arranged, as
well as their decision to attend this dinner, at which the Mileses start to lure the
Kellys into the imaginary world of the expatriates. Mrs. Miles’ behaviour at dinner
parallels some elements of Michael K. Glenday’s observations concerning Dick
Diver. Glenday refers to “…Diver’s orbit of invention,” in which, “the unimportant
matter of ‘reality’ gives way to something else…” (146), as well as to Diver’s
“relationship to those in his circle – the effort to control the discourse, the ability
to define for them an alternative, more charged correspondence between the
inner life and outer reality” (147). In a similar manner, Mrs. Miles is depicted with
the power to draw others into her world and to create that world through the
words she uses. At dinner, “Mrs. Miles was the first to break the lingering
silence; with a sort of impatience she pulled them with her, in from the night and
Unger 21
up to the table” (Fitzgerald, “One” 579). The Kellys are being symbolically drawn
into the imaginary expatriate orb of the Mileses. The influence of the Mileses
continues after dinner at a dance performance the four attend, where Mr. Miles
prompts the Kellys to stay for the more risqué after-show (581). Nelson, willing to
embrace the Mileses as role models for acceptable behaviour, gives in to selfindulgence when he decides, “I’ll only stay a minute. I want to see what it’s like,”
while Nicole, uncomfortably “torn between repulsion and the desire not to
appear to be a prig,” chooses not to give in to her desire when she sees her
double get up and leave (581). Their differing choices cause a rift between them
that marks the initial damage of this first tangible step toward the imaginary
expatriate world. The lasting impact of this encounter with the Mileses is
illustrated during the next phase of the Kellys’ trip in Sorrento, where they have
gone in spite of Mrs. Miles’ warning against it (580). Deciding that their life in
Sorrento is not living up to their expectations, they make plans to go to Paris to
pursue their goals (582), but after a disagreement with some English guests
implicitly confirms their perception that Mrs. Miles’ assessment of Sorrento is
correct, they change their plans to go to Monte Carlo (584), where the Mileses
are located. Through their interactions with the Mileses, as signified by the first
appearances of their doubles, the Kellys have entered into the imaginary
expatriate world.
Their further immersion into this world is evidenced by the next
appearances of the doubles a couple of years later in Monte Carlo, where the
Kellys have settled. Among the members of their social circle is T. F. Golding,
whose yacht is described as “placid among the swells of the Monacan Bay, as if
constantly bound on a romantic voyage not dependent upon actual motion”
(Fitzgerald, “One” 584). Symbolizing the expatriate world, this yacht is not
responsive to or dependent upon the realities surrounding it, but rather exists as
Unger 22
though in a separate dimension unique to itself. This attitude is reflected in
Nicole, who, rather than focus on her singing, has chosen to indulge herself in
her appearance and desire to be admired (584). Not recognizing the person
she has become, she claims not to care about being chic, but has adopted the
philosophy that “…if you do want to see people, you might as well see the chic,
amusing ones; and if people call you a snob, it’s envy…” (584-585). Her skewed
perspectives of herself and those in her circle are debunked by Oscar Dane,
one of her admirers, who exposes both her self-indulgence and her selfdeception (585). His perspective on the life the Kellys have chosen offers a
warning for them to re-evaluate their decisions. This turning point is marked by
the appearance of Nicole’s double, in which Nicole’s increased self-alienation is
revealed through her response to the girl: there is not the immediate familiarity
and attraction that characterized her previous encounter in Bou Saada (585).
Instead of being drawn to her, Nicole no longer feels like making contact.
In spite of Oscar Dane’s comments, the Kellys do not yet recognize their
own self-indulgence and self-alienation when faced with an opportunity to reevaluate their lives. When Nicole discovers that Nelson is romantically involved
with Madame Delauney, whom she has been facetiously referring to “as
‘Nelson’s girl’” (Fitzgerald, “One” 586), it becomes apparent that the veneer of
amorality they have assumed has seeped into their lives. Through this incident,
Nicole suffers from an encounter with this reality that Nelson does not yet
comprehend, as demonstrated when he tells Nicole, “If I kissed Noel, there’s
nothing so terrible about it. It’s of absolutely no significance” (588).
Nevertheless, they both recognize the rift between them and try to repair it, but
the only solution they have is to return into their imaginary world where they can
believe things are true just because they say them: “Nicole accepted his
[Nelson’s] explanations, not because they were credible, but because she
Unger 23
wanted passionately to believe them” (588). Their arrival at this crossroads is
manifested by an encounter with their doubles at a café. The Kellys’ new
identities are reflected by the fact that the man “looks dissipated,” while the
woman has “a hard look in her face” (589). Nelson notices immediately that
“[t]hey’ve changed,” but reveals his own self-alienation by ruminating, “I
suppose we have, too, but not so much” (589). This encounter signifies again
that the Kellys have shifted deeper into the imaginary expatriate world, but
marks an opportunity for them to make a choice: they can maintain their current
destructive trajectory or face the reality of their condition.
In the aftermath of the incident at Monte Carlo, the Kellys, recognizing the
negative turn their lives have taken, try to alter their lifestyle by switching social
circles (Fitzgerald, “One” 589-590), which only results in their further immersion
into an imaginary expatriate world. While their original social group “was largely
American, salted with Europeans,” their new group is “largely European,
peppered with Americans” (590). In this new social circle, the Kellys’ selfindulgence grows: Nicole is more focused than ever on the impression she is
giving others, with “a horror of losing her soigné air, losing a touch of bloom or a
ray of admiration,” while Nelson indulges in alcohol, finding himself “no longer
willing to go out socially without the stimulus of liquor” (590). As part of this
greater self-indulgence, they become tangled up with Count Chiki, who makes
his living “frankly sponging, rather like Oscar Dane, but in a different sphere”
(590). Unlike Oscar Dane, who contributes “much more than he got” (588),
Count Chiki is purely self-serving. Not at all concerned about the Kellys, he
encourages their weaknesses for selfish gain, moving into their home, drinking
with Nelson, and getting “his sister to call on Nicole, who was immensely
flattered” (591). As a culmination of his scheming, he throws a canal-boat party
with a magical, dream-like setting (592), which, as Kennedy contends,
Unger 24
“captures the utter unreality of the cultural sphere inhabited by the expatriate
set” (“Expatriate” 132). Nicole, still recovering from having a baby, thinks she
spots her double at the party just as she begins to feel faint (Fitzgerald, “One”
592-593). This appearance once again indicates that the Kellys have reached a
defining moment. Now arriving at the apex of their self-indulgence, selfalienation, and disconnection from the reality of their condition, the Kellys
discover after the party that Count Chiki has stolen all of Nicole’s jewelry and left
them on the hook to pay for the entire party (593-594).
It is not until the final appearance of the doubles at a hotel in Switzerland
where the Kellys have gone to recover (Fitzgerald, “One” 594), that the Kellys
face the reality of their condition, and recognize their self-indulgence and selfalienation. When the Kellys see their doubles at the hotel, they notice even more
negative changes in their condition. Examining the girl, Nicole notices, among
other things, that she is “possibly calculating,” and that her eyes “swept over
people in a single quick glance as though estimating their value” (595). In a
similar manner, Nelson notices that the man’s “face is so weak and selfindulgent that it’s almost mean—the kind of face that needs half a dozen drinks
really to open the eyes and stiffen the mouth up to normal” (596). Even after this
close examination, the Kellys do not recognize themselves in what they see.
During their time in the imaginary expatriate world, while they have been, in
Kennedy’s words, “[o]ccupying a space that is neither American nor French, the
artificial paradise of ‘those who sought pleasure over the face of Europe’ (594),”
they have, as Kennedy avers, “at last become alienated from themselves…”
(“Expatriate” 132). It is not until they take the time to face their situation,
reflecting back upon their lives that they begin to reconnect with themselves
(Fitzgerald, “One” 596). As they begin to re-evaluate their lives, Nicole finally
questions, “Why did we lose peace and love and health, one after the other? If
Unger 25
we knew, if there was anybody to tell us, I believe we could try” (596). In that
moment, finally facing the reality of their condition, the Kellys see their doubles
and at last recognize that they have been seeing themselves all along (597).
They already have the answer to Nicole’s question, because in this couple they
have identified the unhealthy characteristics that they themselves have
developed (Kuehl 188). From the disappearance of their doubles, it can be
presumed that the Kellys have finally faced reality and understood the truth
about their condition (Kuehl 188). As a result, they are at last in a position to
understand the source of their difficulties and take steps toward restoration: by
trying to escape from their disillusionment and displacement into an imaginary
expatriate world, they have become caught up in the tension between their
desires for productivity and novelty and the corresponding dangers of
capitulating to self-indulgence and self-alienation that exist in that imaginary
world. Through the damage they incur in the process, Fitzgerald emphasizes
the futility and danger of trying to escape into this imaginary world.
In The Sun Also Rises, Jake experiences the damaging effects of
avoiding his displacement by living in a fabricated expatriate world, under the
constant tension of trying to balance productivity with self-indulgence. As an
American expatriate in postwar Paris, Jake is displaced, as Robert A. Martin
argues, because “his own ‘American-ness’ is not extractable,” but “only
displaceable” (68). Furthermore, Martin maintains, “…the freedom he [Jake] has
to move from place to place also holds him at a certain distance from the
inhabitants who ‘belong’ to the place, for he is…defined in relation to them as a
‘foreigner’—he can never really ‘belong’ either in France or in Spain” (68). Jake
is another expatriate who, like Henry Marston and the Kellys, is caught up in an
expatriate world that is “imaginatively neither here nor there” (Kennedy,
Unger 26
Imagining 26). Jake’s displacement in this postwar world is illustrated most
prominently through his war injury, which affects his ability to engage in sexual
relationships (Hemingway 15), and his conflicted identity as a Catholic (117). He
uses the word “joke” to describe the circumstances of his involvement in the war
(29), pointing toward the loss of traditional values that occurred as a result of the
war (Reynolds 63). Hemingway addresses the inefficacy of pre-war values in the
post-war world through Jake’s disillusionment with his religion. Reflecting on his
injury, Jake divulges, “The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling
all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try
and take it sometime. Try and take it” (Hemingway 30). Struggling with his new
circumstances, Jake does not find the recommendations of his Church
particularly effective. As Reynolds confirms, “…his [Jake’s] Church has not been
much help to him in coping with either his particular condition or with the world
in which he lives” (66). However, in spite of this disillusionment, Jake does not
completely dissociate himself from his religion. In addition to telling Bill that he is
“[t]echnically” still a Catholic, even though he does not know what that signifies
(Hemingway 117), in “a crisis of values,” he also makes multiple visits to
cathedrals, as Kennedy observes (Imagining 116). Jake’s ambivalent identity as
a Catholic, as well as his war-inflicted injury, are both symbols of his
displacement in a post-war world in which his pre-war values are no longer
effective.
Living in Paris, Jake is part of a fabricated expatriate world. Hemingway
gives a glimpse into the nightlife of these expatriates, revealing characteristics
that point toward their fabricated existence, displacement, and avoidance of
reality. Through their social interactions, they put up façades, speak
sarcastically, and say one thing while meaning another, as Brett does when she
Unger 27
claims she is not going to get drunk anymore, but then asks for “a brandy and
soda” (Hemingway 21). As Matt Djos posits:
…their conversations are maddeningly incongruent. We sense that
each character talks to himself through a muddled backwash of
trivia and banality. Connections are short, focused on externals
and filled with non-sequiturs. . . . we never know how anyone really
feels or even if any intelligence or sensitivity supports this
masquerade of maturity and self-sufficiency. (69, emphasis
original)
While Djos attributes this behaviour to the alcoholic tendencies of these
characters (69), this behaviour can also be seen as evidence of their
displacement and their attempts to fabricate an alternative world to inhabit. For
as Djos also points out, “Jake and his companions are terrified that fate and
circumstance might shatter their façade of civilized deference. . . . they seek
refuge in broken relationships, in changes of scene, in drunkenness and the
illusion that, however meager, they can find some pleasure in their brief
interludes of time and place” (66). Alcohol does play a huge role in this
fabricated world, with Jake drinking during one night out at least nine times
(Hemingway 14-28). However, the use of alcohol may also be understood as a
tool these expatriates use to hold their fabricated world in place. As Dr. Donald
Goodwin observes, “…alcohol promotes fantasy…” (qtd. in Eble 48). As such,
these expatriates use alcohol as a device to complete their illusion, as well as to
fill in the cracks when their fabricated world wears thin and allows reality to start
breaking through.
Exemplifying how these expatriates use their social interaction and
alcohol to avoid reality and to fabricate a tolerable existence, Jake and Brett
vacillate between their awareness of the painful reality of their relationship
Unger 28
because of Jake’s injury and their efforts to avoid that reality. Leaving the
dancing club together, once these two are alone in the taxi, both of their
façades crack, and for the first time their true feelings are uncovered
(Hemingway 24-26). However, in spite of the honesty they display when
together, there is a tension simmering beneath the surface as they both try to
avoid actually articulating their painful reality, although they allude to it just
enough that they can pretend to actually be discussing it (Djos 71). As Djos
contends, “It seems that any opportunity for a genuine conversation [between
Brett and Jake] about the pain, the frustrations, and the limits and possibilities
imposed by circumstance is frustrated by denials, evasions, unanswered
objections, tentative groping, or simply a refusal to consider the matter any
further” (71). These attempts to avoid their reality are aided by their use of
alcohol. Both Jake and Brett exhibit a pattern throughout the novel of getting
drunk when the reality of their relationship becomes overwhelming. Jake has
already done so earlier in the evening when he is upset by Brett’s arrival
(Hemingway 20), and does so again in Pamplona, as Curnutt observes (102).
That Brett gets drunk in the aftermath of her conversation with Jake in the taxi on
the way to the Select is confirmed when she shows up at Jake’s apartment at
four-thirty in the morning (Hemingway 31). These two expatriates do their best to
avoid facing the reality of their relationship by existing in a fabricated social
world, but when that reality becomes unavoidable, they use alcohol to help
mend the punctures in their contrived realm.
As Jake fluctuates between encountering and avoiding the reality of his
displacement, he attempts to escape this reality by juggling his pursuit of
productive activities with forays into the self-indulgent world of Montparnasse.
Jake’s expatriate life offers him the freedom to work as a journalist on the Right
Bank of the Seine, where he works in an office and spends time with colleagues
Unger 29
(Hemingway 34-35). Nevertheless, he is also inclined to participate in the
opportunities for self-indulgence available to him on the Left Bank where he lives
(28). Highlighting a parallel that exists between the organization of Jake’s
experience in Paris and that of Hemingway himself, Kennedy argues, “…the
distinction between Right and Left Bank virtually mirrors the growing split in his
[Hemingway’s] own life between professional discipline and café revelry”
(Imagining 119). This tension between productivity and self-indulgence is
emphasized again by a conversation that Jake has with Bill. Bill informs Jake,
“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake
European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become
obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an
expatriate, see? You hang around cafés” (Hemingway 109). It may seem as
though Bill’s assessment is incorrect, for, as Reynolds emphasizes, Jake is the
only one of his friends who is employed (67). However, Kennedy astutely
perceives, “…many of Bill’s charges seem applicable to Jake, who…spends far
more time talking in Left Bank cafés than working in his office, who has
developed ‘a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of [his] friends’ (13),
and who makes a fair effort, especially in Pamplona, to drink himself into
oblivion” (“Figuring” 317). These two representations of Jake, as the productive
employee and as the self-indulgent idler, emphasize the tension in Jake’s life.
When Jake and his friends go to Pamplona, the tension between
productivity and self-indulgence appears in the form of participation set against
spectatorship. While his friends are only interested in being spectators, as
signified by Cohn’s fear of boredom (Hemingway 153) and Brett’s mesmerism
with the “spectacle” (157), Jake pursues involvement in the bullfights as an
aficionado (125-126). Emphasizing his active contribution to the ethos of
bullfighting, Jake describes his relationship with the hotel owner, Montoya: “He
Unger 30
[Montoya] always smiled as though bull-fighting were a very special secret
between the two of us…” (125). By highlighting the exclusivity of the knowledge
he has developed, Jake is also stressing the amount of energy and effort he has
expended in its pursuit. Jake explains, “[a]ficion means passion. An aficionado
is one who is passionate about the bull-fights” (125). In order to achieve this
status, Jake has had to dedicate himself to the task. However, in spite of
positioning himself as a participant in the festival by being an aficionado,
ultimately Jake vacillates between participating and watching the events that
unfold. When the festival finally begins with “the rocket that announced the
fiesta,” Jake divulges that while he “watched, another rocket came up to it;” he
“saw the bright flash;” he “heard the pipes and the fifes and the drums coming;”
and he “saw only the heads and shoulders of the dancers” (145, all emphases
added). This standpoint as a spectator is self-indulgent and diametrically
opposed to productivity, as Jake’s experience of the festival shows:
“[e]verything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could
have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences
during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had the feeling, even when it was
quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling
about any action” (146). Jake’s shift to spectating at the festival mirrors his late
night self-indulgent exploits in Paris, as Kennedy confirms when he concludes,
“…the madness of Pamplona is only an extension of ‘fiesta-ing’ which goes on
continuously in Paris…” (Imagining 117). In a moment of apparent disregard for
“any consequences,” Jake’s desire to participate in the bullfight as an
aficionado and his position as a spectator collide when he sets Brett up with the
bullfighter Pedro Romero (Hemingway 146, 177). According to Reynolds,
“Brett’s seduction of the bullfighter,” which is enabled by Jake, “triggers…Jake’s
loss of membership in Montoya’s club” (34). By setting Brett up with Romero,
Unger 31
Jake foregoes his opportunity to participate as an aficionado, instead becoming
the definitive spectator of Brett’s self-indulgence.
In Paris and Pamplona, Jake has attempted to use both the opportunities
for productivity and the options of self-indulgence to avoid facing the reality of
his displacement. Through his productivity at work and as an aficionado, Jake
has attempted to replace his losses with something of value, reflecting his
professed philosophy of a “[j]ust exchange of values. You gave up something
and got something else” (Hemingway 141). Through his self-indulgence, he has
attempted to forget his situation altogether. However, any escape provided to
him has been temporary only. In France, Jake is under the illusions that
productivity can replace his losses and that self-indulgence can drown them.
However in Spain, he gives up his productive status as an aficionado in order to
satisfy Brett in the only way he can, shattering his illusion that any amount of
productivity can take the place of what he has lost. Additionally, his selfindulgence has failed to bring about anything but regret, as it destroys his
opportunity to be an aficionado. As the novel closes in Madrid, Jake is right
back where he started, “with Brett in the back of a taxi” (Kennedy, Imagining
118), illustrating Jake’s inability to escape the reality of his displacement, as
Kennedy perceptively observes:
…what matters here is…the condition of displacement signified by
the taxi ride. After Paris and Pamplona, Jake realizes that there is
literally no place on earth where he can escape himself and the
paradox of his frustrated longing. The taxi becomes the emblem of
his condition; he is perpetually in transit, shuttling between
distractions. . . . He remains a man in motion, unable to find refuge
or grounding. . . . At novel’s end, Jake prepares to return to Paris
and the circular inferno of inextinguishable desire. (118)
Unger 32
Jake is caught in a futile and destructive cycle, characterized by vacillating
between attempting to avoid his displacement and encountering its substance,
in which he suffers his losses over and over and over again. As Djos puts it,
“…what Jake seeks has to come first from himself; it cannot be generated from
a material setting or escapist impulses. In running from himself…he is doomed,
for he can only find peace in learning to understand and accept himself for what
he is” (76). Through this novel, Hemingway demonstrates the futility of Jake
trying to avoid the reality of his displacement through escaping into the
productive activities and self-indulgent forays made available to him in a
fabricated expatriate world. Unlike Fitzgerald, who explicitly offers to Henry
Marston and the Kellys the hope of restoration by confronting their
displacement, Hemingway demonstrates only Jake’s inability to permanently
escape the reality of his displacement, subtly implying the necessity for him to
confront it.
By overlapping these stories with the autobiographical accounts of
Cowley and Callaghan, it is evident that these stories explore the outcomes of
displaced individuals seeking escape from their displacement through an
imagined world of expatriates that allows disconnection from reality. Fitzgerald
and Hemingway both characterize the fabricated expatriate realm as one of
possibilities and perils, represented through each author’s treatment of the
opportunities for productivity and novelty offered to their characters in this
expatriate world, as well as the options of self-indulgence and self-alienation
that they face. All three stories demonstrate the damaging effects that occur
when expatriate characters avoid the reality of their displacement by immersing
themselves in this imaginary world. The representations of expatriation in these
stories are of consequence today because they show the damage that occurs
Unger 33
when the characters choose opportunities to avoid facing their displacement
instead of searching for a suitable paradigm for dealing with their
circumstances. Individuals today face constantly shifting circumstances that
can leave people feeling displaced and disoriented. We continue to encounter
this choice between avoiding issues arising from our various forms of
displacement or searching for an effective paradigm for understanding and
responding to our circumstances. As such, the themes that emanate from these
narratives of expatriation, particularly the impossibility of permanently evading
the realities of displacement and the dangers that can come with avoidance, are
ones with which we can continue to connect.
Unger 34
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