Paris has traditionally called to the American heart, beginning with the arrival of Benjamin Franklin in 1776 in an effort to win the support of France for the colonies’ War of Independence. Franklin would remain in Paris for nine years, returning to Philadelphia in 1785. Then, in the first great period of American literature before 1860, literary pioneers such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne were all to spend time in the French capital. Henry James, toward the close of the nineteenth century, was the first to create the image of a talented literary artist who was ready to foreswear his citizenship. From his adopted home in England he traveled widely through Italy and France, living in Paris for two years. There he became close friends with another literary expatriate, Edith Wharton, who made Paris her permanent home. Between them they gave the term “expatriate” a high literary polish at the turn of the century, and their prestige was undeniable. They were the ‘in’ cosmopolitans, sought out by traveling Americans, commented on in the press, the favored guests of scholars, as well as men and women of affairs.
This thesis investigates the mass expatriation of Americans to Paris during the 1920s, and then focuses on selected works by two of the expatriates: Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925). The specific emphasis is on disillusionment with the American lifestyle as reflected in these novels. The two books have been chosen because both are prominent examples of the literary criticism that Americans were directing at their homeland from abroad throughout the twenties.
At a glance
- Compares Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s novels in the context of 1920s expatriation
- Examines the historical World Series scandal and Prohibition alongside The Great Gatsby
- 90 sources in the bibliography
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE EXPATRIATE ARTIST COMMUNITY IN FRANCE
2.1 The “Lost Generation” of American Expatriates
2.2 Paris as the Center of the Expatriate Community
3. ERNEST HEMINGWAY AND F. SCOTT FITZGERALD IN FRANCE
3.1 Ernest Hemingway
3.1.1 The Road to France – Hemingway’s Early Years
3.1.2 Life in Paris
3.2 F. Scott Fitzgerald
3.2.1 The Road to France – Fitzgerald’s Early Years
3.2.2 Life on the Riviera
4. DISILLUSIONMENT IN HEMINGWAY’S THE SUN ALSO RISES
4.1 The Expatriates and Their Way of Life
4.2 The “Lost Generation” of Americans
4.3 The American Government
4.4 Money and New Values
4.5 American Values in Contrast
5. DISILLUSIONMENT IN FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY
5.1 The Effects of Wealth
5.2 Corruption in the 1920s
5.3 Commerce as the New Religion
5.4 The Corruption of the American Dream
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Objectives and Themes
This thesis investigates the migration of American writers and artists to France in the 1920s and asks how disillusionment with the American lifestyle is reflected in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It connects historical and biographical context with close readings of the two novels.
- The Lost Generation and the impact of World War I
- Paris as a center of American expatriate literary life
- Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s paths to France
- Expatriate identity, money, and values in The Sun Also Rises
- Wealth, corruption, commerce, and the American Dream in The Great Gatsby
Excerpt from the Book
2.1 The “Lost Generation” of American Expatriates
There have always been varied motives for self-exile, just as many different Americans have gone abroad. Yet Ishbel Ross, in his study of Americans who have left their homeland, notes that “the artists and writers have most consistently fed the expatriate flame,” leaving behind the limitations of American culture, and seeking an atmosphere of tradition. This “flame” reached its peak with the Americans who went to Europe after World War I, an artistic mass migration which was the largest ever made from the New World. According to A Handbook to Literature, “expatriate” is a term “applied to those who leave their native lands and reside elsewhere,” further stating that this move is usually voluntary. Moreover, an expatriate is a person who has withdrawn from residence in or allegiance to his or her native land, who has become disillusioned with that country and seeks a more welcoming environment.
Whereas historically the expatriates had been isolated individuals, the number of gifted writers and artists who settled in Paris during the 1920s created a group effect. Ross states that it was authors such as “Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald” who “shook up the literary world, as both writers and personalities.” The Americans who went to France after the war became members of what Gertrude Stein described as the “Lost Generation.” The term originated from an incident in the summer of 1925, when Stein’s car was being repaired in a French garage. The garage owner lamented that workers aged between twenty-two and thirty did not learn fast and he was unable to teach them. He said to Stein, “C’est une génération perdue.” Stein later repeated the remark in conversation with Ernest Hemingway, extending it to include the moral chaos of the then-current generation of expatriates whom Stein felt had no respect for anything.
The generation was “lost” in the sense that its inherited values were no longer relevant in the postwar world. Many of the young people had been in the war and had received at least psychic, if not also physical wounds. Members of the generation felt lost in an America which was increasingly devoted to materialism and the cult of the dollar, as opposed to the development of culture and the arts. The United States seemed provincial, emotionally barren, and politically repressive to the writers who were “lost” in that they felt a spiritual alienation from their homeland. Hemingway would later use Stein’s remark as the epigraph to The Sun Also Rises, a novel which has been credited with giving a “literary expression” to “the general atmosphere of postwar disillusionment.”
Chapter Summaries
1. INTRODUCTION: Introduces the research focus, the two novels, and the historical and biographical approach used throughout the thesis.
2. THE EXPATRIATE ARTIST COMMUNITY IN FRANCE: Explores the reasons American writers and artists left their homeland and the conditions that made Paris a center of expatriate literary life.
3. ERNEST HEMINGWAY AND F. SCOTT FITZGERALD IN FRANCE: Traces the authors’ early lives and their contrasting experiences in France before the publication of the selected novels.
4. DISILLUSIONMENT IN HEMINGWAY’S THE SUN ALSO RISES: Examines expatriate society, postwar alienation, American politics, money, and alternative values in Hemingway’s novel.
5. DISILLUSIONMENT IN FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY: Analyzes the novel’s treatment of wealth, corruption, commerce, and the American Dream.
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: Brings the historical discussion and literary analyses together to consider the two novels’ portrayals of American life.
Keywords
American expatriates, Lost Generation, Paris, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, disillusionment, American lifestyle, materialism, Prohibition, American Dream, literary analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this thesis about?
It examines American literary expatriation to France in the 1920s and representations of disillusionment with American life in two novels.
What are its central themes?
Its principal themes include postwar alienation, expatriate community, materialism, corruption, personal values, and the American Dream.
What is the main research objective?
The thesis seeks to explain how Hemingway and Fitzgerald express disillusionment with the American lifestyle in their selected works.
What research method does the author use?
The author combines historical and biographical contextualization with textual analysis of the two novels, drawing on literary criticism and other published sources.
What does the main body of the thesis cover?
It discusses the expatriate community in France, the authors’ lives, and separate analyses of The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby.
Which keywords characterize the thesis?
Key terms include the Lost Generation, expatriation, Paris, disillusionment, materialism, and the American Dream.
Why does the thesis discuss Paris and the French Riviera?
Hemingway joined the literary community in Paris, while Fitzgerald initially lived on the Riviera and moved to Paris after completing The Great Gatsby. The thesis uses these experiences to contextualize their writing.
How does the thesis approach money in the two novels?
It examines money and personal values in The Sun Also Rises alongside wealth, commerce, and the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.
What role does Prohibition play in the analysis?
The thesis considers Prohibition as part of the political and social context for both novels, including its relationship to references to drinking and corruption.
- Citar trabajo
- Michael Grawe (Autor), 2001, Expatriate American Authors in Paris - Disillusionment with the American Lifestyle as Reflected in Selected Works of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/42048
