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Lost Generation” 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 Unger 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Legendary Expatriates 4 Works Cited 34 Unger 3 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. Unger 4 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. Unger 5 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.
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