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.
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 Topics
This thesis examines the mass migration of American authors to Paris during the 1920s and analyzes how two seminal literary works, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, reflect a profound disillusionment with the American lifestyle of that era. The study aims to connect historical and socio-political factors of postwar America with the personal experiences of the authors and the thematic content of their novels.
- The historical context of the American "Lost Generation" and the allure of Paris as an artistic hub.
- Biographical accounts of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and their personal disillusionment with the American environment.
- Analysis of moral decay, social alienation, and the impact of the commercial ethic on interpersonal relationships in The Sun Also Rises.
- Investigation into the destructive effects of wealth, societal corruption, and the erosion of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.
- Comparative insights into how different settings are utilized to express shared themes of alienation from the homeland.
Excerpt from the Book
4.1. The Expatriates and Their Way of Life
The Sun Also Rises opens in Paris where Hemingway’s disillusionment with the American lifestyle is indicated by his portrayal of the expatriates and their way of life. As one reviewer noted: “Any country’s condition can be conducted from the vices and virtues of the expatriates. In them the native attributes are in excess […].” The reader is introduced to a group of Americans who are living in France but feel uncomfortable in a foreign environment, for instance Robert Cohn, who is “fairly happy, except that, like so many people living in Europe, he would rather have been in America […].” (SAR 13) Cohn and his compatriots are a reflection of Hemingway’s personal experiences in Paris, where he found that the majority of expatriates had simply transplanted their American attitudes and habits to a foreign city, creating an ethnocentric community. By 1925, when Hemingway wrote the novel, Paris had an American hospital, library, cathedral, and Chamber of Commerce, as well as American movie theaters, banks and newspapers, all of which helped to create a mini-America abroad. Similarly, the expatriate community in the novel is a microcosm of American society.
The expatriates in The Sun Also Rises live in a very insular world, associating only with each other, as depicted in the scene of the Americans’ dance at the bal musette: “Five nights a week the working people of the Pantheon quarter danced there. One night a week it was the dancing-club.” (SAR 27) In these two sentences Hemingway conveys the complete separation of the two groups, where the Americans have their “dancing club,” a term which implies exclusivity, on a night when the Parisians do not go to the bal musette. Furthermore, Hemingway is making a subtle judgment of the two nationalities’ lifestyles by describing the French as “working people,” who have presumably earned the right to go out dancing. The Americans, on the other hand, simply take over the premises once a week.
Summary of Chapters
1. INTRODUCTION: Outlines the research focus on the expatriation of American authors to Paris in the 1920s and introduces the selected novels as reflections of disillusionment with the American lifestyle.
2. THE EXPATRIATE ARTIST COMMUNITY IN FRANCE: Provides historical context on the migration of American intellectuals and the emergence of Paris as the central hub for this expatriate community.
3. ERNEST HEMINGWAY AND F. SCOTT FITZGERALD IN FRANCE: Details the early biographies of both authors, highlighting how their experiences in America and later in Europe shaped their artistic perspectives.
4. DISILLUSIONMENT IN HEMINGWAY’S THE SUN ALSO RISES: Analyzes the novel’s depiction of aimless expatriate life, the impacts of Prohibition, and the moral vacuum represented by a society driven by money.
5. DISILLUSIONMENT IN FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY: Examines how the novel portrays the corrupting influence of wealth, the failure of the American Dream, and the commercialization of religion in 1920s America.
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: Synthesizes the findings, concluding that both authors effectively utilized their works to critique the cultural and ethical failures of their homeland.
Keywords
Lost Generation, Expatriate, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Disillusionment, Paris, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, Materialism, American Dream, Prohibition, Moral decay, Postwar, Social alienation, Capitalism.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this research?
The research explores why many American intellectuals left the United States in the 1920s and how this mass migration is reflected in the literature of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly regarding their critique of American society.
What are the central themes discussed in these works?
Central themes include the alienation of the "Lost Generation," the destructive nature of materialism, the moral corruption of the era, and the disillusionment with the American Dream.
What is the primary research goal?
The goal is to analyze how the authors' personal experiences in Paris and their observations of American culture motivated their critique of the socio-political climate in the United States, as demonstrated in their novels.
Which methodology does the study employ?
The study uses a literary analysis approach, combined with historical and biographical context, to examine the portrayals of expatriate life and the thematic criticism of the American lifestyle presented in the selected novels.
What topics does the main section of the document cover?
The main sections cover the historical development of the expatriate movement, the early lives of the authors, and detailed analyses of how disillusionment, money, and corrupt social values are manifested in both The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby.
Which keywords characterize this work?
Key terms include "Lost Generation," "Expatriate," "Materialism," "American Dream," and the names of the two authors, reflecting the sociological and literary scope of the study.
How does Hemingway distinguish "real" character from "expatriate poseur" in his work?
Hemingway uses the concept of "work" and the ability to live according to a personal "code"—demonstrated by Jake Barnes's labor and the matador Romero’s discipline—to separate authentic individuals from the aimless, decadent expatriate bohemians.
What is the significance of the "Doctor T. J. Eckleburg" billboard in The Great Gatsby?
The billboard acts as a modern, sightless deity in a valley of industrial waste, symbolizing the total replacement of traditional religious values with commercialism and materialism in 1920s American society.
- Quote paper
- Michael Grawe (Author), 2001, Expatriate American Authors in Paris - Disillusionment with the American Lifestyle as Reflected in Selected Works of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/42048
