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 4 Works Cited 34
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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 Unger 6 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 Unger 7 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 Unger 8 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 Unger 9
would provoke condemnation or carry legal consequences. (14- 15) 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 Unger 10 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 Unger 11 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 Unger 12 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 Unger 13 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 Unger 14
“[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 Unger 15 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, Unger 16
“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 Unger 17 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 Unger 18 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 Unger 19 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 self- alienation. 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 self- indulgence 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 self- deception (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 re- evaluate 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’ self- indulgence 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, self- alienation, 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 self- alienation. 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 self- indulgent 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 self- indulgence 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
Works Cited Bryer, Jackson R., ed. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism. Madison: The U of Wisconsin P, 1982. Callaghan, Morley. That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Some Others. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1976. Cowley, Malcolm. Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s. New York: Viking Press, 1963. Curnutt, Kirk. Ernest Hemingway and the Expatriate Modernist Movement. Gale Study Guides to Great Literature, Literary Topics v. 2. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Djos, Matt. “Alcoholism in Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’: A Wine and Roses Perspective on the Lost Generation.” Hemingway Review 14.2 (1995): 64-78. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Athabasca U Lib. Athabasca, AB. 12 Nov. 2015.
William Blazek and Laura Rattray. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2007. 143-159. ProQuest Ebrary. Web. Athabasca U Lib. 20 April 2016.