8. Midterm

Throughout the semester so far, we have read many travel novels that describe the countless places our main characters have been to. These various descriptions that the authors have made of these places has helped us to develop common travel themes for the novels. I thought that the descriptions of various natural places such as rivers, deserts and fields were an important element to look at.  In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road each of the authors stress the importance that natural settings have in a larger context. The main argument that I am trying to make is how when each of the main characters are in these natural places it as if they undergo a new found sense or realization and become reborn.      

The first novel to look at that I think has an interesting description of a place is in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.  The most fascinating scene is when Jake and Bill go on a fishing trip. Hemingway writes, “It was very hot on the dam, so I put my worm-can in the shade with the bag, and got a book out of the pack and settled down under the tree to read until Bill should  come up for lunch” (125). What I found to be particularly interesting about this passage was how cool, calm and collected Jake seemed to be. Through the novel, the reader sees Jake travelling all over and going from café to café or bar to bar just because he wants to travel and have a good time. I think this passage illustrates something different because of how Jake doesn’t want to be on the move here. Instead he is focused on staying put for a change and welcomes having the time to sit back and think and realize what he is doing.

Another interesting passage in The Sun Also Rises is when Hemingway states, “I walked up the road and got out the two bottles of wine. They were cold” (126). It continues later on when he says, “I spread the lunch on a newspaper, and uncorked one of the bottles and leaned against  a tree.  Bill came up drying his hands, his bag plump with ferns” (126). I really enjoyed this description of the river scene because I thought it was a warming moment in the book. Jake and Bill are having a great time and there is no other place they rather be. They are alone and doing something they like which makes it a valuable trip. Not only are they doing something they like but they caught plenty of fish which makes this trip of relaxation and enjoyment translate to revelation and rejuvenation. Jake and Bill have had the time to think and reflect and hence transform themselves and in a sense become reborn.

The Shletering Sky by Paul Bowles also offers another exciting viewpoint on nature and how it can result in revelations in people. Bowles describes Port and Kit’s journey to the desert by saying, “They sat down on the rocks side by side, facing the vastness below. She linked her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. He only stared straight before him, sighed, and finally shook his head slowly” (93). Port and Kit are alone in a mostly abandoned and quiet place and yet all Port can do is think. He is thinking about life in general and trying to find a meaning to it. Bowles goes on to say, “It was such places as this, such moments that he loved above all else in life” (93). Port thrives on being in natural places such as the desert and thrives when being in them. Port does most of his critical and analytical thinking in these types of environments which helps further connect how the descriptions and scenes of natural places can be tied into the process of revelation and finding one’s self.

The final novel that I really thought had a good emphasis on the sense of setting and how it affects the main character was in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Kerouac describes Sal’s enjoyment with the cottenfields by stating, “It was beautiful. Across the field were tents, an d beyond them the sere brown cottonfields that stretched out of sight to the brown arroyo foothills and then the snow-capped Sierras in the blue morning air” (96). By providing the readers, with this well written and observant description of the setting in the cottonfields, the reader can get a sense of the scene in which Sal is currently witnessing. By describing it in the positive manner that he does,  we get a sense of the happiness that fills Sal’s heart when being in the cottonfields. He goes on later to say, “This was so much better than washing dishes on South Main Street. But I knew nothing about picking cotton” (96). I think that this statement just further leads to the engaging nature of how Sal is affected by his visit. Sal may not know how to pick cotton but its not knowing how to pick the cotton that would give him enjoyment. He is happy at this particular moment because he is “not on the road” at the particular moment.  He later goes on to say, “If I felt like resting I did, with my face on the pillow of the brown moist earth. Birds sang an accompaniment. I thought I had found my life’s work” (96). His time at the cottonfield is a chance for Sal to be free and realize and rethink what he is doing and what his intentions are. By being in a place that is isolated from the grind and hustle of everyday life for most humans, Sal is able to thrive and have a personality. He is not doing things because everyone else is doing it and he is not going from place to place in search for life’s next experience. He is settled at one place and this is what gives him the biggest dose of connecting with his inner self that he has had. Like the other nature visits that the main characters have in the other novels, Sal is just another example of the way in which his thought process and his mood are affected by visiting the cottonfield.

Sometimes a person just needs a place in order to feel comfortable enough in order to analyze what is going on in his or her lives and what they should do in the future in order to continue succeeding or to start succeeding. In many of the novels that we have read in this course so far, the places that these characters go to find a safe haven of enjoyment, rejuvenation and revelation are places of nature. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake and Bill go on a fishing trip in order to get refreshed and re-evaluate why they are traveling. In The Sheltering Skythe desert has a huge impact on Port’s thinking about his current life and what the future holds for him. On the Road also offers a look at how nature can change the thought process of a character when Sal visits the cottonfields.   Each of these scenes in these novels connects places to the positive mental effects that they have on the characters. If the characters did not experience these places, they probably wouldn’t have been able to realize what they want  in life and the reasons behind their travels. These places that they visit serve as a temporary “safe haven” and a retreat from reality into a world where there is time to stop and think and to evaluate one’s true intentions.

In Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the reader is presented with two kindred spirits: Kit and Dean.  Just as Kit gradually goes more and more native after Port’s death so do Sal and Dean in Mexico.  The real world does not seem to be an option for Port, Dean, and Kit.  Dean has always been in a state of the primitive for as long as the reader knows him.  It is an inherent part of his character that every surrounding he is in brings out.   With Port and Kit, there is the idea of the abyss that both fell into (Port’s abyss was death, Kit’s madness).  Dean is falling into an abyss throughout the course of the book too though he is not aware of it.  His is one of ignorance.  To demonstrate the power of the abyss, I will look at examples where Kit and Dean are in similar mental and/or physical situations.

The road functions as Sal and Dean’s desert.  Long durations of time spent driving and in the desert lead to introspection and realization. The desert and the road are ideal environments for living in the head.  When all you see is cornfields or sand dunes, the mind becomes the place to cavort.  What Port ends up realizing, thanks to the desert, is the meaningless of life.  Sal and Dean are trying to avoid coming to this realization.  Dean lives life as if it were a constant sugar rush, constantly feeding him.  They think if they keep going to bars, clubs, houses, cities, towns, diners, whorehouses, the realization won’t have time to catch up with them, but it manages to: “What difference does it make after all?—anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth?  All in the mind,” (233).  Sal’s musings from the Detroit movie theater mirror Port’s words to Kit in the desert: “‘But what is behind’… ‘Nothing. I suppose. Just darkness. Absolute night,’” (94).  Port and Sal have come to the same conclusion thanks to their environments.  Port wouldn’t be able to relate to Dean because Port doesn’t see the value in life.  He wouldn’t see the need or the worth in Dean’s lust for life.  But Dean is never thinking that far ahead or really considering the big picture.   He does not need to.

After Port’s death, Kit realizes she has to see, use, and exist in the desert differently (in an On the Road-esque way) because the way Port interacted with it led to his demise.  But by trying to avoid Port’s abyss, Kit falls into another:  “Life was suddenly there, she was in it, not looking through the window at it,” (241).  That is the feeling, at once liberating and dangerous, Dean always has or is looking for.  It’s his philosophy in a way.  Kit starts acting like Dean. There isn’t a middle ground between these two abysses for these characters.  You either live in your head or live on the edges of your nerves, always ready to jump into a pool (like Kit).  We see the change in her and are shocked and thrilled whereas Dean is Dean right from the start and only heightens himself to further levels of incomprehensiveness.  Initially, we are entertained and excited by Dean and Kit’s adventures and audacity: “Even as she saw these two men she knew that she would accompany them, and the certainty gave her an unexpected sense of power: instead of feeling the omens, she now would make them, be them herself,” (263).  This scene is a bit of a “You go, girl!” moment because she is finally dictating her life.  Then we realize the danger of the spontaneity.  However, Dean and Kit don’t come to this realization.

Kit and Dean’s moments of “going native” are also surprisingly similar: both involving liberation through nudity: “We took off our T-shirts and roared through the jungle…No towns, nothing, lost jungle, miles and miles…‘I’d just like to get naked and roll and roll in that jungle,’ said Dean,” (280) and in the case of Kit: “Once in the garden she found herself pulling off her clothes…Each time she bent to get water between her cupped palms she uttered a burst of wordless song,” (240-1).  Kit’s moment is much more personal and private whereas Dean’s environment matches his personality.  Her liberation comes in going in the pool in the first place and then from the singing.  The singing is such an organic thing to do.  It just comes instinctually out of her being.  Her first step in liberation from a part of herself and the mental trappings of the desert that only encouraged her neurotic propensities needs to be a serene moment like this.  It couldn’t be frenzied like Dean’s experience in the jungle.  Kit isn’t ready for that kind of headfirst delving.  For her, that comes later after she has adjusted to her new mental state.  Whereas Dean is a monkey so the jungle is his where he was meant to be all along.  The jungle, like Dean, is almost too filled with life, too lush, too overgrown, too filled with possibilities and surprises.  It is dangerous when you are too much like your environment or your environment is too much like you because then: “the jungle takes you over and you become it,” (281).  At the pool, Bowles describes Kit’s state as: “She felt a strange intensity being born within her,” (240-1).  This seed of intensity, birthed poolside, is what is so inherent and strong about Dean’s character all along.  For the majority of The Sheltering Sky, Kit is very much like the people Sal and Dean drive with on the way to Denver:  “ ‘…they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false…their souls really won’t be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry,’” (197).  Dean would like her because she breaks away from this persona.  Perhaps they might be too much for each other.  The Kit-esque woman in the car with Sal and Dean is described as using “a suppressed, hysterical whisper,” which echoes Kit’s poolside ultimatum to herself: “‘I shall never be hysterical again,”” (241).  This “worry” Dean talks about is a manifestation of hysteria and Kit manages to break herself from it, away from her state of existence where “‘Whenever I’m about to be happy I hang on instead of letting go,’” (240).  Unfortunately, this only leads her into the arms of another hysteria, Dean’s hysteria.  Dean is in constant search of climax, that’s his hysteria.  The jungle and Mexico are this huge climax.

Going south seems to be the equivalent to going deeper into the Sahara, but it could also be argued that all the voyaging East to West is going deeper into the Sahara as well. The Kit and Dean parallels only increase as she goes further into the desert. For example, both are described in similar manners: “At the moment her balance was perfect; stiff as a plank she lay poised on the brink…By the time it arrived at the rock…the balance would be broken…She let go” (293) and “If you touched him he would sway like a boulder suspended on a pebble on the precipice of a cliff.  He might come crashing down or just sway rock-like…the boulder exploded into a flower…and he looked around like a man waking up” (250).  These two are always ready to dive headfirst into a feeling, a type of existence.  In the end, the reader senses that Kit and Dean will continue to go deeper (Kit into the Casbah and Dean back West, or back and forth until the twelfth of never).  They want to go deeper and therefore, they will only get madder.  The way Kit learns to live in a Dean-esque manner is to block out certain thoughts and memories (the main one being her affair with Tunner).  Once she remembers that her old life comes roaring back.  Her go with the flow state allows her to just focus on the present and the immediately tangible.  Kit’s post-death-of-Port state is one of blissful ignorance.  She strips so many layers of herself through this so all that remains is the most basic, primal, raw depiction of a woman (not being able to control her bodily functions, biting her fellow wives—“The sensation was delicious” (282), existing “solely for those few fiery hours…beside Belqassim (278)).  Dean experiences a similar rewinding: “People were now beginning to look at Dean with maternal and paternal affection glowing in their faces…” (251).  His friends or now, acquaintances see him as a lost boy, a little child desperate for attention that they feel bad for, not the cool guy who showed them a good time.  His immaturity is now official.

Returning to the concept of the abyss, Dean’s abyss is madness due to constant search for climax, perhaps climax overdose.  Occasional climax is a side effect of Kit’s new mindset.  Her resituating of herself and her mind lead her into the abyss.  The desert and the road encourage and facilitate this.  Kit lets her mind be so vast (like the desert) and so open to experiences, but so closed off to her true self and true problems, that she can only try to escape herself by further delving into experiences (i.e. the Casbah).  Dean’s receptive nature leads him to obliviousness. He is not avoiding his mind; he is darting around his real life.  By never stopping to catch their breaths, Kit and Dean think they can avoid the abyss.  However, not stopping only leads them further down the rabbit hole.

In the post-war world of the late 40’s and early fifties, many young people felt discontented and alienated from the savagery of Western civilization. In both On the Road and The Sheltering Sky, the main characters have been alienated from Western cultural values and set out to geographical regions that they consider to be less tainted by Western civilization in search of a romantic ideal of a more pure and primitive way of life, only to find that they cannot fully integrate themselves into these non-Western cultures.  
 
In The Sheltering Sky, Port makes his grievances towards Western civilization known during lunch with Kit and Port, saying, “Europe has destroyed the whole world. Should I feel thankful to it and sorry for it? I hope the whole place gets wiped off the map.” Not only does Port feel alienated from the European cultural values that led to the destruction and death that resulted from the second World War, but he feels resentful towards the Western culture as a whole and tries to distance himself from it. Similarly when Sal is deep in the Mexican jungle watching the natives beg by the side of the road, he imagines the possibility of a nuclear holocaust that could occur at any minute to wipe out Western civilization, saying of the natives, “They didn't know that a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday, and stretching out our hands in the same, same way”. For Sal, the technology and sophistication associated with Western civilization that helps us to build the bridges and the roads that help us dominate the world is a double-edged sword with the power to wipe it all out instantaneously. Almost prophetically, Sal seems to anticipate and maybe even, like Port, hope for the destruction of Western civilization, saying, “For when destruction comes to the world of ‘history’ and the Apocalypse of the Fellahin returns once more as so many times before, people will still stare with the same eyes from the caves of Mexico as well as from the caves of Bali, where it all began and where Adam was suckled and taught to know”. Disenfranchised from their cultural homeland, both Sal and Port harbor a great deal resentment towards the Western world and try to dissociate themselves from the West by gravitating towards remote geographical regions with cultures that they regard as more primitive and simple, which is a manifestation of their obsession with the romantic idealization of non-Western cultures.   
 
For Port, part of distancing himself from society and rejecting its cultural values is planning “impossible trips” to places far away from the reach of Westernization. When he gets to North Africa, Port finds that the deeper into the continent he gets, the further and further he gets away from the familiar cultural values of the West the more excited he becomes, saying, “the idea that each successive moment he was deeper into the Sahara than he had been the moment before, that he was leaving behind all familiar things, this constant consideration kept him in a state of pleasant agitation,” so it becomes his obsession. Part of the reason for Port’s journey further and further into the continent is the fallacy that the further one gets from all familiar things, which includes the West, the more authentic the lives of the people there will be. Port expresses his romantic idealization of non-western cultures more explicitly in the fourth chapter when he describes the North African natives who he sees on the streets, saying, “their faces are masks. They all look a thousand years old. What little energy they have is only the blind, mass desire to live.” His description of the North Africans sounds quite similar to Sal’s description of the “Fellahin Indians” that he encounters in Mexico, as for years it had been one of his superstitions that reality and true perception were to be found in the conversations of the laboring classes, saying, “he often found himself still in the act of waiting with the unreasoning belief that gems of wisdom might yet issue from their mouths”. The people and the culture that Port and Sal are in search of are best described by Sal who claims excited to learn from the imaginary “Fellahin people” who he views as the “essential strain of the basic primitive, wailing humanity”. Sal romanticizes the Fellahin as simple and primitive, the type of people who have no history and have remained unchanged since ancient times, which is the source of their ancient wisdom.
 
The closest that Sal and Port get to actually experiencing the authentic culture that they have set out to find is when they go out to experience the places that they’re visiting, normally in search of sex or drugs. Ironically, in Mexico, Sal indulges in the same types of activities that he would have indulged in at home, he goes out in search of sex and drugs. In Gregoria at a gas station, Sal meets a young kid named Victor who Sal finds out can get him both. After he wakes up the rest of the crew, they go to Victors house to get some weed, and then to the whorehouse in search of sex. Interestingly enough, the Mexican whorehouse scenes in On the Road are actually quite similar to the sex scenes in The Sheltering Sky in that both Sal and Port are interested in prostitutes that they cannot have. At the one whorehouse that Port visits with Mohammed he is bored of the first two girls who he encounters, but becomes enamored with a blind girl who he somehow loses track of and never gets with. Similarly, in the whorehouse scene in Mexico, Sal is dissatisfied with the first two prostitutes who approach him and he falls for a sixteen-year-old colored girl who he is too ashamed to approach. These prostitutes embody some of the romantic sentiment that both Port and Sal feel towards these non-Western cultures. They are both fascinated by the exotic, yet they can never fully experience it either because they are afraid, or because the chance just passes them by.
 
Ultimately, neither protagonist seems to take away much from the authentic culture that they set out to learn from. Both Port and Sal fall ill at the end of their stay in the foreign lands that they are visiting, with Port experiencing the unveiling of the “sheltering sky” and Sal eventually gravitating back towards his old life in New York hanging out with the same friends. Although the sicknesses differ in both magnitude and outcome, they both reveal the spiritual failure of each character’s journey. At the time of his death, Port finds himself still waiting for the “gems of wisdom” that he might receive from the natives, but it is apparent that he no longer has the “unreasoning belief” in the native’s wisdom that he once possessed. As Port grows more and more ill, his outlook on life becomes increasingly existential. Earlier in the novel, his existentialist outlook on life becomes apparent while he and Kit are conversing about what lies beyond the sheltering sky, but it seems as if Port is still taken by the romantic idea that he can somehow find true wisdom by escaping Western civilization by going to some far flung romantic locale. Throughout the novel, when Port talks about existentialism, Kit shuts him down and tries to focus on just living life and all too often drinking heavily. Sal shares much in common with Kit in that he tends to cling to his romantic notions of that world and eschew the post-war existentialist sentiment of Port. While he is delirious and weakened from dysentery, Sal experiences the “dark swirl” of his mind and “all the dreams” that accompany a near-death sickness, but when he gets better, he remains unchanged and goes back to his old ways. Had Port only experienced a near-death experience rather than an actual death, he most likely would have continued on in search of the perceived romantic truths hidden in non-Western cultures for the rest of his life, or until he became bored of it like Sal or disenfranchised like Kit and then he would eventually head back home to New York. 

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans were migrating to “the new world,” to acquire land and start a new life, free of English rule. Just as Europeans fled their homes in search for new beginnings in America, American people often travel to Europe to escape an unsettling aspect of their current lifestyle. In the novels Daisy Miller by Henry James and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, the main characters travel to Europe for pleasure as well as to establish a permanent place of residency, respectively. In both novels, the differences between the American and European people are made quite apparent, especially when it comes to the depiction of the female characters. In Daisy Miller, the New York native title character sticks out like a sore thumb in English society, yet possesses great appeal to the European men. Similarly, Brett Ashley of The Sun Also Rises is an American woman living comfortably in Paris while holding the attention of both Europeans and Americans alike. By examining the characters of Daisy Miller and Brett Ashley, one can observe the influence of American women in Europe and how their personalities are magnified by their new location.

Daisy Miller is a part of an affluent family from Schenectady. Upon meeting Winterbourne, Daisy describes to him her life at home and in New York. She describes how she is “very fond of society and always had a great deal of it” (11). Daisy was often in the company of various men, so when she arrived in Europe and wasn’t greeted with the companionship she was used to, she was let down by the seeming lack of any worthwhile society. Because of her status in New York, Daisy refused to conform to the social norms of English culture. Her seemingly innocent yet flirtatious personality was considered outlandish by the upper-class European women, illuminating the stark contrast between the customs of new-world Americans and old-world Europeans. While Daisy didn’t want to insult the women, she did not feel it was her obligation to remold herself in order to better fit the constraints that her new environment withheld.  (TO BE CONTINUED AFTER CLASS.....)

When traveling for extended periods of time, the idea of getting away from everyday rituals and behaviors becomes minimalized. Unlike a quick trip, where one can abandon their home life for a short period of time, living in a new country for longer than a mere vacation loses the effect of getting away, and the everyday stresses and problems from home become more prevalent. One of these is the quest of love. In Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, both sets of main characters go on searches for love.
 
Daisy Miller, the sweet, innocent girl, who comes across as the more scandalous type, is only a young woman plagued by love on a family trip throughout Europe. Her constant trickery aimed towards Winterbourne underlies her actual feelings for him, and in doing this, she flirts with other men and always keeps Winterbourne on edge. Turning to several scenes in the novella, we see how she expresses her fondness towards Winterbourne.
 
Budding their quasi relationship is their first adventure at Chillon Castle, where the two fascinate themselves with each other’s company, until Winterbourne tells Daisy that he has to leave for Geneva in a few days’ time. Upon hearing this, she calls him horrid and closes herself off from him for the rest of the trip, turning from incredibly chattery to more reserved and affected. From the start, we see her curiosity for Winterbourne, and when he breaks the news about his soon-to-be departure, we also see Daisy’s letdown.
 
After his return, Daisy seeks to make Winterbourne jealous, and to do so, she begins courting with a gentleman named Mr. Giovanelli. Daisy makes her intentions obvious about being viewed in public with Giovanelli, however, she still clearly shows an interest and desire for Winterbourne. Daisy was meeting Giovanelli at a garden, so when asked at a luncheon how she was planning on arriving there, she cried, “the Pincio is only a hundred yards distant, and if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends he would offer to walk with me!” (38). Winterbourne agrees to take her, and along the way, she whines to him because he didn’t visit her the moment he returned from Geneva. Winterbourne tries to explain that she is making up things in her head, but Daisy still doesn’t believe him. The fact that she cared so much about whether or not he went out of his way to see her shows how much Winterbourne meant to her and this also explains her behavior at the castle in Chillon; once Winterbourne told her that he was heading off for Geneva, she began to sulk because she felt he was abandoning her and she was disappointed that he wouldn’t be staying. 
 
Viewing the plot from Winterbourne’s perspective, we see that the feelings of attraction are mutual. When he found out that Daisy would be accompanying Giovanelli to the Pincio Gardens, “his attention quickened” (37) from simply listening to the conversation. Also, when talking to Daisy about her flirtatious nature at Mrs. Walker’s party, he tells her that she “is a very nice girl,” (49) but he only wants her to flirt with him and him only.
 
A few days later, as Winterbourne strolls through the Palace of the Caesars, he spots Daisy with Giovanelli. When Winterbourne first glanced at her, “it seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty; but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her” (57). This constant reminder of her beauty every time he lays eyes on her adds to the proof that he is falling for her.
 
There runs the question of whether Daisy is actually engaged to Giovanelli, and when Winterbourne asks her what the truth is, her response changes each time. At first, she tells him that she is engaged, but she fears he does not believe her, so she responds with, “you don’t believe it…well then- I am not!” (58), thus changing her answer from trying to appear taken and not wanting Winterbourne, to needing and opening herself up to him.
 
The final time that Winterbourne sees Daisy is when he comes across her and Giovanelli in the Colosseum. He sees them talking in the middle of the night and when he finds out they’ve been there all night, he begins to worry; he fears she will succumb to the Roman fever, which can be caught by staying out late at the Colosseum. After urging them to go back home, he walks Daisy to the carriage, and she asks whether he believed she was engaged the other day. Winterbourne responds, saying, “I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not” (61). He has finally realized that nothing can come out of their being together. We know Daisy is hurt after she hears this.
 
Daisy falls ill days later and Winterbourne comes almost daily to ask how she is doing. He knows that being with Daisy won’t work out, however, he still loves her. Mrs. Miller tells him that Daisy wanted her to tell him “that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian” and asked if he remembered the time they “went to that castle, in Switzerland” (62-63). She dies “the most innocent girl,” despite her flirtatious nature (63). Daisy truly cared about Winterbourne’s opinions of her, and though she tried to hide them, it’s obvious to the reader that her feelings were legitimate.
 
Jake and Brett’s experiences in geographical places parallel those of Daisy and Winterbourne. Ex-lovers, the two still share passionate feelings for each other, however, they are unable to make things work. Throughout the novel, Brett  shares intimacy with four men, all while searching for her life partner.
 
In a taxi, Jake and Brett kiss. They long to be back together, but Brett won’t commit to him because of his injury from the war. Later that night, however, she arrives at Jake’s apartment, wanting to come in and causing a raucous. She claims, “Just wanted to see you. Damned silly idea” (41) and is being playful and trying to kiss him, even though she has a Greek man waiting for her downstairs. These actions of returning to Jake occur over and over again during the course of the story.
 
After venturing to Spain, Jake learns that Brett will be arriving there soon, so he decides to cut fishing, his favorite pastime, short, in order to prepare for her arrival.
 
At a restaurant in Pamplona after Brett’s arrival, Brett begs Jake to introduce her to Romero, the matador, who she’s taken an interest in. Even though he is still in love with her, Jake agrees and follows through. Afterwards, in the park, Brett tells Jake, “I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him I think” (187).
 
They part ways, and Jake decides to spend a few days in San Sebastian while Brett stays in Madrid with Romero. Relaxing at the beach, Jake receives a telegram during his stay reading: “Could you come Hotel Montana Madrid Am rather in trouble” (242). Knowing that Brett needs help, he ends his vacation right away and takes the first train to Madrid.
 
In Madrid, we learn that Brett has let Romero go, adding to the list of men unqualified for her. Though she seems picky, she ultimately is trying to find love. Her first husband died and she has never been able to fully get over him. Because of this, she has never been capable of finding one man and being content with him; her search for perfection has led her to keep on looking.
 
As if coming full circle, the couple shares a final moment together in a cab after leaving the hotel. Driving through Madrid, we see that despite all the men Brett has been interested in, and all the times Jake has changed his plans to accommodate her, the two share a common love for each other. Brett says, “Oh Jake… we could have had such a damned good time together” (251), finally showing her reciprocated feelings for him.
 
In each place, Jake and Winterbourne endured similar emotions and treatment. Jake’s actions mirror those of Winterbourne, but to a more higher extreme. While we can assume that Winterbourne loved Daisy, the extent to which Jake loved Brett was so high that it caused him to act in ways he would never have originally done and abandon his values and favorite pastimes. Unlike Winterbourne, Jake is unable to get himself to take charge of his life and realize that by hanging out with Brett, he is merely teasing himself; he never comes to terms that he must get over her.
 
It is clear that, while in each place abroad, we still face common problems we sometimes seek to get away from. In this case, the search for love, ultimately influenced many of the decisions the characters made in these stories. 

The tenor man climbs and climbs up to the peak of his solo and lets out a long shriek in utter ecstasy. The bandstand shakes in raw energy and one man sits wide eyed and focused on nothing, but the feeling of music. Dean Moriarty has found a place where he can belong. He is fully in the moment. The characters from On the Road and The Sun Also Rises search for their sense of self or place in the whorehouse, jazz club, and the fiestas of Pamplona and use them as an escape, but traveling never results in change. They still have lives and problems to return to at their physical homes proving how merriment is enjoyable yet pointless.
 
In On The Road, Dean seeks cheap thrills to keep his life going because the moment on the road is where he feels like he belongs. Women and children try to tie him down with obligations, but he constantly finds himself on the road. He finds a time where he loses all sense of time while watching a jazz band. “Dean stood in front of him[tenor saxophonist], oblivious to everything else in the world, with his head bowed, his hands socking in together, his whole body jumping on his heels and the sweat…”(190). He has found one more place where he can be completely himself. Jazz clubs offer an energy that allows him to focus and devote himself just to music.
 
Dean later recalls the same scene where an alto saxophone player creates an incredible aura through music. The entire room becomes entranced by the sound and it feels as if time comes to a halt. Dean says to Sal, “’All of a sudden in the middle of the chorus he gets it—everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries. Time stops. He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune that counts but IT—‘”(195) because that is the feeling he seeks. He wants the feeling of immortality and to lose track of time. There is a huge amount of bliss during the “IT” moment and Dean can not get over the saxophonist’s passion.
 
The whorehouse scene is an example of a situation where Dean and Sal feels “IT”. He has that heavenly ecstasy that he desires all that time of being in the moment. The whorehouse has the music, the dancing, the women, and the booze for a good time. Dean and Sal feel as if they are immortal and time will never end. The music intoxicates them with its volume and intertwining rhythms. They lose themselves and Sal says, “…all these tremendous numbers resounded and flared in the golden, mysterious afternoon like the sounds you expect to hear on the last day of the world and the Second Coming,”(273) as if the music overwhelms him with energy and passion.
Sal keeps repeating the word “dream” as if his experience is surreal. He recalls, “It was like a long, spectral Arabian dream in the afternoon in another life,” (273). Dean and he get the feeling of escape through travel. Dean does not have the responsibilities of his multiple wives and children while Sal is no longer a part of the New York scene of intellectuals. They are both on vacation and it upsets them when it becomes time to depart.
Sal realizes, “I was in Mexico after all and not in a pornographic hasheesh day dream in heaven,” (277) even though he’s mistaken. He only smoked marijuana and not hash so all of his intoxication must have altered his memory. He still thinks about his experience as he drives off and, “The haunting mambo followed us a few blocks. It was all over,” (277). Sal and Dean have their moment of bliss, but it must end like every other moment. Dean does not understand that he has responsibilities that he can not avoid and stay a functional member of society.
Also, Dean enjoys being on the road so much with Sal because of the thrill of driving. While delivering the Cadillac to Chicago, Sal describes, “The road was crowded and everyone exploding to pass. Dean came down on all this at 110 miles an hour and never hesitated” (224) because he has to pay full attention to the road. It forces him to drive perfectly or else a mistake could cost him. They end up traveling a total of 1180 in a mere seventeen hours showing how he had to maintain his ridiculous travel rate. Dean gets in a euphoric state while driving, which is why he finds excuses to travel and stay on the road.
 
In The Sun Also Rises, Robert Cohn, Jake Barnes, Mike Campbell travel from New York to Paris to Pamplona. There are sights to see, but it seems like they constantly spend their time in bars or partying. As a part of the Lost Generation, the Great War psychologically and emotionally damaged every person who took part. Their views on traditions and morals changed creating a population that felt empty inside. They no longer have a sense of place rooting them their physical homes in New York and Paris so they travel in search for it. They don’t even enjoy the partying at all, but need to be intoxicated to forget the past and enjoy life.
 
Robert Cohn feels as if he has not done enough in his life. He is the only one out of his friend circle who did not go to war so he can not empathize with the feelings of the Lost Generation. Also, he is a writer seeking experiences to write about so he forces them upon himself through travel. Robert Cohn complains, “’I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it’” (18, Hemingway). He suggests to Jake Barnes that they should go to South America just for the sake of doing more with his life. Jake responds, “’…You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that’” (19) since travel does not actually do something for him. Cohn just falsifies experience through travel, but they do not change Cohn as a person. He is still a writer with relationship troubles based in New York; he just uses the bars to get drunk and forget about his issues, but they remain.
 
Jake’s friend, Mike, seeks an escape for a different reason than Cohn. When Mike takes part in the fiesta in Pamplona, he says, “’I’m rather drunk…I think I’ll stay rather drunk. This is all awfully amusing, but it’s not too pleasant’” (207) showing how he uses bars as an escape rather than for personal merriment. He just remains in the state of inebriation because he can avoid real life and memories of the war rather than face his failing attempt at creating a relationship with Brett.
 
Cohn and Jake use the bullfights as an escape because of the rush of the fight. Jake as a narrator admits, “We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight” (168) because there is an intensity of the moment feeling. During the bullfights, which is the main attraction of the fiestas, Cohn admits to being bored. The group tries their hardest to stay entertained or else the trip becomes menial. After all, they are traveling, which should be a vacation for personal pleasure. What would be the purpose? Cohn says, “’No. I[Cohn] wasn’t bored. I wish you’d forgive me for that.’ ‘It’s all right,’ Bill said, ‘so long as you weren’t bored’”(169) showing how they want to feel like they have a sense of self despite how hectic and uncontrolled their lives are.
 
Sal and Dean feel a sense of belonging and find their sense of place by being on the road and the times in the jazz club and the whorehouse. Dean resolves his divorce in the end, but he loses his mind while Sal settles down confident in himself. Jake, Cohn and Mike want to escape from issues as a part of the Lost Generation. They resort to alcoholism and false merriment to find themselves. Traveling served different purposes for these characters, but the travel itself never produced results regarding a sense of self or place. 

I’m thinking back to the first day of class, the first time I sat through a discussion facilitated by a professor instead of a teacher, and felt rather intimidated by the amount of travel insight that was being tossed around the room. Our introductory seminar focused on why people travel and what draw humans to migrate, if only for a short while. Two distinct boundaries were drawn around the concept of a home life, the place where we spend most of our days and always feel connected, even when we have been displaced from it for yearlong stretches, and the areas we travel to. Looking back at this discussion, I realize that we neglected to talk about the “In Between”, an area where we aren’t originally from, but don’t intentionally mean to travel to.
 
We don’t just travel to forget about our day to day routines and take a break, as Cohen’s “recreational traveler” does, but to experience a place unlike our own, who’s cultures vary so drastically, that is has the affect of a liminal space. When we enter theses places we can establish new relationships with the surroundings and forget about those we have made elsewhere. Liminal spaces are places where normal social conventions are set aside, boundaries are broken down, and the concept of right and wrong blend together. Liminal spaces are the “In Between”
 
In Kerouac’s On The Road, Sal Paradise rarely finds stability in his life, especially while traveling, so I found that his stay in a ramshackle one dollar tent in Sabinal, Texas to be a rather interesting arrangement. The tent’s original appeal was its cheap price tag, and for a desperate traveler with only four dollars to his name, this is paramount. Sal takes on the role of a father figure, traveling with his new love interest Terry, and her son, Little Johnny. Sal is used to fending for himself, bearing his burdens and his burdens only. A man on the road is responsible for no one but himself, until he finds so-called love. For this reason, the “place” becomes representative of a temporary home, not just because Sal finds a temporary family to fill a vacant space, but because his stay is more lengthy than anywhere else he has been; so lengthy in fact that he has time to get a job. This temporary “home” also signifies a liminal space, where people are free to give in to what they really want at that moment, as demonstrated by Terry and Sal having sex in the same room as Little Johnny. As disturbing as this is, I had to set aside my own preconceptions to attempt to understand it. As the days pass, the tent develops into a symbol for Sal’s relationship with Terry: brief, organic, simple; but more importantly, it’s a break from anything he is used to back at home.
 
It’s hard to clarify whether Sal’s description of this tent is sarcasm or not. After noticing the bed in one of the tent’s corners, followed by a stove and broken mirror, he regards it as “delightful” (Kerouac, 87). Shabby accommodations wouldn’t seem delightful to most, but to Sal, a wannabe hobo, anything better than cold hard ground is idealistic. On the Road could be considered a quest for simplicity, and the tent is representative of his day-to-day lifestyle; working only enough to buy a nights worth of groceries, and living comfortably enough to survive. Because the tent is situated so close to nature, it becomes a place where Sal doesn’t have to forget his love of “the Road” thus adding to its appeal.
 
In The Sheltering Sky, sex becomes an area of “In Between”. Society tells us what sex is and how it is portrayed. For most sex is seen as a sacred, personal act between two people, presumably in love. In Sheltering Sky, the protagonist, Port, creates his own definition of sex. It no longer has to be ritualistic or amount to anything, but can instead become a simple, enjoyable task. In Turkey, Port meets Smaïl, a lonely Arab pimp who leads him toward the dark corridors of a brothel. The brothel is set in yet another tent. From inside the brothel, there is no liminality. Sex is paid for, drugs are offered, and culturally, this is typical of prostitution. But outside the brothel, where it’s taboo to pay for sex in any way other than love, the liminality of this place begins to take shape. As Port’s navigates possible perils of the position he is in, guilt takes hold of him and he wonders what got him into this situation. Port feels that his friend Tunner has been after his wife and thus claims that he is “using this as an excuse to get out of here, because I am afraid” (Bowles, 26) In actuality, we can see that Port running away from Kit stems from sexual frustration and disconnect between himself and his partner, a better explanation for his need to fulfill sexual desires elsewhere. Port uses this tent as a refuge.
 
The tent, set at the end of a staircase in an alleyway, looks suspicious, as candles burn bright, their pink shadows seeping through thin canvas. The eerie environment should have acted as a warning sign, but once again, another character is drawn the appeal of this liminal space, where, in that moment, there is no right or wrong. This place in time reflects Port’s subconscious, as he battles with his id and superego. The tent, which he knows will induce short-term bliss, acts as his Id, the part of our personality that is responsible for our basic, uncontrollable need to seek out pleasure. Port’s superego is the life he has back at the hotel, his wife and his responsibilities he holds towards her to be a faithful partner. If the Id is hedonistic, the superego is moralistic, and the conflicting subconscious battles until Port reaches a final consensus: the pull of liminality is too tempting to resist.
 
Once inside, Port begins to notice specifics about the environment: soiled clothing, empty cans of sardines, torn pieces of bread, candles, and straw matting strewn across the floor. The vulgarity of the tent’s unkempt atmosphere begins to charm Port, almost as if it parallels the way his conscience must be feeling: dirty, unchaste.
 
The problem with liminality is that it is only temporary. When you are in the moment, you lose a sense of time, much like the entire journey Port, Kit, and Tunner face as they travel through Africa. “Because neither she nor Port had ever lived a life of any kind of regularity. They both had made the fatal error of coming hazily to regard time as non-existent. One year was like another year. Eventually everything would happen.” (Bowles, 127) This lack of regularity Kit mentions describes her mentality: she is neither here nor there, and he husband follows suit. This is the reason why they are able to travel on a moments notice, taking a bust to Ain Krorfa one moment and a train to Boussif he next. Unfortunately, Kit and Port never seem to be in-sync, and while Kit is mentality in one place in her life, Port is somewhere else, and vice-versa.
 
While on the train heading to Boussif, Kit regards how it is a metaphor of the incomprehensible vastness of time: “The train that went always faster was merely an epitome of life itself.” (Bowles, 66) No matter how many “liminal spaces” you might find yourself in, time never stops. If only Sal, Kit and Port knew this before their travels.

Although there are many reasons why people travel, the narrators in Ernest Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Roadseem to travel for the same reason.  As writers, Jake and Sal need life experiences for literary content.  Therefore, they use traveling as a way of accessing the experiences that they need.  However, as writers sensitive to the nuances of life experiences, they crave and seek out only those experiences that are “authentic.”  This suggests that each geographic location has both artificial and “authentic” aspects, and that it is in these “authentic” parts of a place where our narrators find the life experiences that they need. 
 
This concept of artifice and authentic within a location can be explained through a physical breakdown of the geography.  Yi-Fu Tuan explains in his essay “An Experiential Perspective,” how geography can be classified on a physical scale: ranging from the largest classification, a nation-state, to the smallest classification, an object in one’s home.  When applying this physical concept of geography to authenticity an interesting inverse relationship emerges: the larger the geographic location the less intimate the experience with the location is.  This makes sense, since the larger the geographic location is, the less one would be able to intimately experience it firsthand (tap into it authentically), and the more one would have to rely on second-hand (more artificial) symbolism for their understanding of the place.
 
Considering this concept of geographic breakdown, the goal of each narrator, in searching for the authentic, would be to look for authenticity in the small geographic locations.  For our authors, this translates into breaking down where they travel into microcosms that can then be investigated.  This practice is particularly apparent in Kerouac’s On the Road in which Sal offers the step-by-step process that he used to break down America in his search for authenticity.  At the beginning of the trip, Sal has a very foreign, distant and second-hand relationship with his ultimate travel goal, San Francisco.  His interaction with this city, is solely through looking at a map: “I’d been pouring over maps of the United States in Paterson for months, even reading.” (Kerouac, 8-9).  As Sal’s journey begins “geographic size” begins to decrease: for example, during this trip, the goal at first is California, then “Frisco,” then the bars of “Frisco” and finally to a particular spot in these bars (directly in front of the jazz band).  Only after arriving in this particular spot is Sal, able to truly have authentic experiences that not only provide insight about “Frisco,” but also authentic thoughts about life in general.  This authentic, epiphany-like experience is exhibited through Sal’s description of Dean: “Dean was directly in front of him [the tenorman] with his face lowered to the bell of the horn, clapping his hands, pouring sweat on the man’s keys… Dean was in a trance ” (Kerouac, 187).  Overall, Sal’s step-by-step geographic downsizing, which ends with an epiphany-like experience, confirms that small geographic spaces are necessary for fully accessing the authentic.
 
This scene, of Dean dancing, illuminates how the amount of time spent in a place (“geographic time”) is also a part of achieving an authentic understanding of the location. However, unlike the inverse relationship between geographic size and authentic experiences, the relationship between “geographic time” and authentic experiences is one of a direct relationship.  This means, as “geographic time” (time spent in a place) increases, authenticity also increases. This is why, for example, in Paul Bowles’s A Sheltering Sky, there is clear reference made about the quality of the traveler and the amount of time he/she spends traveling: “He [Port] was did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler.  The difference is partly one of time, he would explain.  Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler… moves slowly” (Bowles, 6).  This claim confirms that the more time spent traveling the more experience you have with the places making you a more authentic traveler.
 
In On The Road, Kerouac adds yet another dimension to the relationship of time and authenticity.  Sal, through Dean’s input, explains how time seems to stand still when an authentic experience is happening.  This is because the person having the authentic experience is too fully consumed to worry about time passing by.  However, Sal offers an important outside vantage point of Dean’s aforementioned (dancing) experience: while Dean in his trance may have felt that time stood still, Sal observed that quite a bit of time actually did pass by: the tenorman played an entire set. This confirms the direct relationship between “geographic time” and authentic experiences, in that only with this large amount of time was Dean able to have an authentic experience.   Time allowed him to investigate and then reinvestigate (etc.) the small place he was in, which allowed him to truly get to know the place and its intricacies.
 
Interestingly, Tuan explains in his essay that authentic intimate locales are often times not what are typically called geographic locations.  Things such as chairs or cars can also be places, in that that they are centers of meaning, and are made meaningful because they fulfill the “criteria” for authentic and firsthand experiences: geographic size and geographic time.  Interestingly, the authors confirm the geographic power of these small objects by using thier geographic connotations to enhance their scenes.  In The Sun Also Rises, very intimate scenes occur in taxis: early in the book and then at the end we find Jake and Brett in a taxi, “We were sitting apart and we jolted close together going down the old street. The street was dark again and I kissed her” and then “The driver started up the street. I settled back. Brett moved close to me. We sat close against each other. I put my arm around her and she rested against me comfortable” (Hemingway, 33,251).  Hemmingway seems to use the very intimate proximity that cars create, again is thanks to their geographic size, to enhance the intimacy of his scene.
 
In On The Road, a corner of a house reaps the benefits of “geographic size” and “geographic time.” The character Old Bull Lee Bull Lee has this authentic relationship with a corner in his house, as Sal explains, “He sat in his chair… the shades by his chair were always drawn, day and night; it was his corner of the house” (Kerouac, 135).  Through this detailed explanation, Sal confirms Bull Lee’s first hand relationship with the corner, which clearly developed out of geographic size (it’s a small corner) and geographic time (it is implied that he sat there every day).   Kerouac uses this geographic power of the corner, like Hemmingway used the geographic power of the car, to enhance his point: Kerouac had been making Bull Lee out to be very intellectual and wise, and by showing how he had such an authentic relationship with his home, the place where he studies, Kerouac adds legitimacy to this portrayal of Old Bull Lee.
 
In all of these ways, the narrators of the travel novels we have read achieve access to authentic experiences, by locating authenticity in small “geographic size” and long “geographic time.”  As illuminated in the Old Bull Lee example, a great source of authenticity is home and objects in the home because they enjoy the intimacy and the authenticity benefits of “geographic size” and “geographic time.” Home is therefore a powerful geographic influence for travelers, in that it provides them with a set of authentic geographic expectations to carry with them no matter where they travel: often time people try to locate the authentic comforts home while abroad.  In this way, due to its geographic power home experiences may be an underlying influence in all of our travels.

Deep inside everyone is the central belief that there is something out there that is the true purpose of life. It might be different from one person to the next, but no matter what, having the drive to find “it” is universal. In both Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, the protagonists search for their own personal meaning in foreign territory. While the novels are not set with the same backdrop, both casts of characters take on the same challenge. Navigating their way through the landscapes of the “out West” in the United States as well as the vast Sahara Desert in Africa, both are finally able to grasp “it,” but not without serious repercussions. In exchange for their newfound realizations, both Kit and Port in The Sheltering Sky strive to reach the ultimate abyss, leading to death and for Kit, something close to insanity. In On the Road, Dean succumbs to the influence of drugs, and Sal loses a friend. A difference worth noting between the two searches and their results is that while Dean and Sal’s “IT” is found among the crowded jazz club in Frisco, the “IT” for Port and Kit can only be reached through the loneliness of the abyss. But in someway, even though on first glance an abyss is the exact opposite of a lively club, both locations have the power to stop time and transform the individual. 

 

Dean and Sal’s search for the all-consuming “IT,” literally and figuratively drives them through the United States, exploring the different communities they pass through and providing them with a plethora of experiences. Only stopping for a few weeks at a time, the boys make their way across the country,  knocking up women, messing up other people’s houses and drinking and smoking their way into oblivion. Unlike Port and Kit, whose journey was only inhibited by the other, the sense of camaraderie shared by Sal and Dean was a vital part of their travels. Together, they kept each other in check (to varying degrees of success) and acted as a “band of brothers” (to borrow from Henry V) or “two broken-down heroes of the Western night” (190). Throughout the trip (with the exception of a few interludes here and there) Sal and Dean were a constant part in each other’s lives. It only makes sense that the moment where their “IT” was discovered was a shared experience. 

 

The jazz “joint” where the boys came upon their understanding of the meaning of everything “was a sawdust saloon...a crazy place...In the back...scores of men and women stood against the wall drinking wine-spodiodi...Everybody was rocking and roaring” (196-7).  It is here that Dean finally feels that he understands what he has been searching for. As the alto saxophonist played, Dean felt that “time stops. He’s filling empty spaces with the substance of our lives...remembrance of ideas... He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT...”(206) Jazz has a way of transitioning the listener into an out of body experience. As the instruments emit the improvised strains and rhythms that only expert jazz musicians can produce, the audience is able to sense a complete abandonment of constraints and freedom. It’s this that probably enthralls Dean the most and brings him to understanding the “impon-de-rables.” After all, his drug trips are not that different from some types of jazz. They are at times jumpy and random and the only people who can understand them are the people who are just as involved. The majority of the most talented musicians were on drugs, so Dean feeling an unspoken connection to them is no surprise. As Sal comes to comprehend the “IT,” the two boy rejoice at the thought that they both “know what IT is and...know TIME and...know that everything is really FINE” (208). Dean and Sal are in this trip together, and even though they eventually part ways, this shared knowledge of the IT keeps them worry free and separates themselves from the others who are “anxious and whiny” and whose “souls really won’t be at peace” unless they worry (208). 

 

While Sal and Dean made their discovery of the something a bonding experience, Kit and Port’s searches, although starting together, lead their already troubled marriage further and further apart. In The Sheltering Sky, the need for the authentic leads Kit, Port and Tunner into the Sahara. Both Kit and Port hint at their unhappiness and their quest for the aspect of their lives that they believe only the “real” can unlock, but their hunts only turn dramatic and alarming after Port loses his passport. At first, he is wrought up over the loss of such a crucial document, but later he finds that “...it rather suited his fancy to be going off with no proof of his identity to a hidden desert town about which no one could tell him anything”(163). Once he no longer has hard evidence of his identity, it is easier for him to be swept away in his search for the abyss. 

 

His mission to finding the hard truths of life and the authentic “IT” bring him to the point of extreme illness both mentally and physically. As Kafka’s quotation at the beginning of the third section states, “From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” This desperate desire for final chance to turn back is what drove Port into not getting his shots. Having opted out of receiving his medications before traveling, he clearly had the intention of going head first into the desert’s abyss even before he left. At the worst point of his sickness, he reached such an intense level that he was forced to fight against the forces pulling him into the unknown while simultaneously pushing himself over the edge. Much like the bridge the jazz musician traverses back and forth with his notes, Port struggles with straddling both sides of the chasm.  Through his final moments, even after there is anything he can do, he battles the “terrible disparity between the speed at which he was moving and the quiet immobility of that line, but he insisted. So as not to go. To stay behind” (221).  While Kit is at his bedside for some of the time, she leaves him right before he dies. There is no sharing of the discovered “IT.” Kit is left to deal with the repercussions of the quest on her own, bringing her to abandon her inhibitions and dive into a quest for the same mysterious meaning. 

 

Perhaps the lesson that can be drawn from the two groups of travelers is that the environment in which they travel affects what they believe to be their final “IT.” Sal and Dean voyaged in a pack, going to dive bars, clubs and socializing with friends. Consequently, their “IT” was one that could be shared and could continue without causing death. On the other hand, for Port and Kit, their miserable marriage and lonely setting brought them to the understanding that there was nothing on this earth that was as real as death. Maybe if they had been happier and with friends, they would not have come to this conclusion. So the next time you think about going on the quest for the meaning of life, take a moral from The Sheltering Sky (and the singer Beck): don’t go at it alone. 

Whether traveling from Vevey to Rome or from Paris to Madrid, the expected outcome of an extended, experiential journey is that of the acquisition of inner knowledge and a tangible change in a character’s nature. Henry James’ Daisy Miller and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises are testimonies of exactly the opposite. When considering the setting at the very beginning and end of each story the reader can see that the main characters go through several changes of location and circumstance throughout the books. However, they end up back where they started in terms of their respective situations and relationships by the time the final chapters are reached. In Daisy Miller, Winterbourne leaves Switzerland and travels to Italy in search of what he believes to be true love. Eventually his relationship with Daisy falls apart and when she dies, he is not left grieving but openly disappointed at the waste of time and simply eager to return to his former life. Jake’s relationship with Brett at the start of The Sun Also Rises exhibits some jealously and the sense that although they will never be together, the two hold a special place in each other’s hearts. These feelings are exhibited again and again but the situation is never resolved. From their starting locations, Winterbourne and Jake embark on travels across Europe in an effort to find inner tranquility, love, excitement, and authenticity. Their actual experiences as exhibited in their final destinations prove that both men have not gained any of these aspects and are to return to their starting places in the same form  as when they departed from it.

The first page of Daisy Miller opens with a description of Vevey and its hotel, Trois Couronnes. Immediately, the narrator comments on the differentiation between tourist and traveler, intending the reader to believe that Winterbourne is considered the latter. The reader is led to believe that he will embark on an adventure and gain new knowledge along the way.  A lake is depicted; the whole beginning seems to serve as an image of tranquility and undisturbed peace, contrasting the drama and uncertainty that is evident in the end. It is interesting that the entire first page describes the setting but not one character is mentioned, as if it is more important for the reader to get to know the place than the people in it. Vevey is where Winterbourne meets Daisy and their affair forms itself. This place serves as a comfort zone for the two characters; they only begin to argue and disagree when removed from the calm of Vevey, such as during their visit to the castle. During the Vevey section, Winterbourne becomes enamored with Daisy. “Certainly she was very charming,” he thinks. Since he is financially secure and does not need to hold a job, Winterbourne seemingly throws himself into spending time with Daisy and courting her.
 
In the reallocation from Vevey to Rome, the cast of characters changes very little. New additions such as Mrs. Walker and Mr. Giovanelli are introduced but overall the character list remains the same. In a way, Winterbourne left Switzerland to gain new experiences and to search for fulfillment but he undoubtedly encounters the same social norms and relationships that formerly existed. Daisy continues to fraternize with various men and Winterbourne still seems lost as if drifting along without a genuine purpose. Since neither Vevey nor Rome can be considered “home” for Winterbourne, he is left grappling for Daisy’s attention while failing to take advantage of his time in Rome. Throughout, there is a constant lack of acknowledgement when it comes to Winterbourne and his failure to live life meaningfully. The novel closes with Daisy’s death. The scene at Daisy’s funeral is depicted with Winterbourne standing as one of many; he stands almost equally with Giovanelli. “’You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts.’” This statement by Winterbourne to his aunt is one of the few indications that Daisy had even existed in his life after the passing of a year. The last paragraph in the book explains Winterbourne’s retreat back to Geneva; all in all, nothing has changed. “A report that he is ‘studying’ hard – an imitation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady” (64). Winterbourne might as well not have gone to Italy at all and his life would have remained similarly stagnant.

The Sun Also Rises begins dissimilarity to the previous novel in its depiction of one, relatively insignificant character, Robert Cohn. The narrator then goes on to mention that the setting is Paris, with all of its dance hall, coffee shops and artists. Describing these two factors of the story allows the reader to see that although Paris may be viewed as the ultimate authentic gathering place for writers at this time, it is filled with people like Cohn who are just searching for their own authenticity of identity. Also unlike Daisy Miller, this novel opens in the characters’ hometown. Although they are Americans, Jake and Brett have lived in Paris for years and it serves as the place they return to after travelling. Jake and Brett’s love affair is evident from her first entrance into the story. The relationship remains basically unchanging throughout as a constant reminder that neither of their futile endeavors with outside people are meant to be.

In the final scene of The Sun Also Rises, Brett messages Jake to meet her in Madrid where they reunite after her brief stint with Romero. Regardless of any other lovers Brett has she repeatedly chooses to fall back on Jake. She refuses, however to consider being involved with him exclusively. In addition, the last chapter marks one of the only times that Brett and Jake are alone together, without outside influences or other characters to meddle in their business. There would have been no better time for the two to realize their love for each other but alas they fall back into the same pattern and choose comfort in place of the possibility of fulfillment. “I felt like a fool to be going back into it” (237), Jake states in reference to meeting Brett in Spain. Thus his lack of understanding and action in response to the situation is revealed at the end of the story. By the time Jake arrives in Madrid at Brett’s beckoning, they talk and essentially arrive at the resolution to continue the same relationship that has kept them coming back to each other.

Interestingly, both Winterbourne and Jake speak of visiting their end destinations before their Daisy or Brett is included. They end up in Rome and Spain, however, through the will of their respective women. An overarching theme in both novels is that life is cyclical and in reality, most aspects are trivial. Achieving change in a relationship or an attitude is very difficult and is not accomplished with the characters in Daisy Miller or The Sun Also Rises. Neither Winterbourne’s travels to Italy or Jake’s visit to Spain provoke a significant alteration; the characters in the starting and ending locations are fundamentally the same.
 
 

Home is typically defined as “a nurturing shelter… where we can openly and comfortably admit our frailty and our bodily needs… the pivot of a daily routine.” (Tuan) While typically many travel fictions, especially those read in our class, present fantastical stories of travel that can sometimes be difficult to identify with, home is an idea that we are all familiar with. If we think about our lives through a geographical lens, we can organize all of our experiences into places. The place we were first born, the place we spend time with our friends, the place we get our education, the place we always go on vacation—the one common denominator here is the place we spend the most of our time, the place we return to in times of need, or simply to catch a wink of sleep. This place is home. Along with this idea of a “return” to home, home is typically considered a “refuge”, somewhere we go when we need order and authenticity—something we typically lack in everyday life. Yi-Fu Tuan attempts to describe the home in his piece “Place: An Experiential Perspective”, calling it a “center of meaning”. All of these things are well and true—for most people. But in the case of many of the characters we read about in our stories of wild travels around the world, country, or continent, we see the idea of home as a center of meaning start to be confused. In a number of our readings, our characters, for one reason or another, can’t find or remember where their home really is. But interestingly enough, they are not looking for it. Two main examples of this phenomenon can be seen in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. In both of these novels based on true life, the characters experience confusion of where their home truly is, or if they have one at all. But because home is such a central “place” in the lives of most people, a party must have a very strong reason as to why they choose to disassociate themselves from such a place. Possibly due to their basis in reality, both of the stories do have very legitimate reasons for leaving home. This might show the real truth of the necessity having a “home” as a center of meaning: for people who are innocent, home is an easy and safe place to always fall back on. But once you’ve seen that things at home are disturbingly inauthentic, or have seen things more “authentic” than home itself, you feel no need to continue to possess home as a center of meaning.

After the horrors of World War I, many of the youth were disillusioned by all of the violence that had just overtaken the world. Indicated by its primary title as the “first” world war, it was the first for many things, especially the shocking amount of violence. Those who were in the war were especially scarred by the violence, so much so that their generation was coined as the “Lost Generation”. One of the members of this lost generation was Ernest Hemingway, who became an expatriate after finding a disturbing lack of greater meaning in American society. He wrote about his trials and tribulations as an American expatriate in Europe in his book, The Sun Also Rises. This book was very closely based on real events, changing things only as tangible as names of people and places. This writing style reflects upon Hemingway’s greater search for authenticity that is reflected in the main character’s (based on Hemingway himself) personal quest throughout the book. Simply in its definition, expatriatism reflects the act of denouncing one’s home, not necessarily to replace it with someplace else, just to get away from the home one is used to that suddenly means so little to them in the circumstances of the time. To the characters of The Sun Also Rises, Europe held a certain authenticity, a certain meaning that the United States lacked. The United States is barely mentioned in the book, except to discuss how little identification the men hold with it. However, despite their lack of identification with it, Hemingway tries to show the underlying pull of the home to even these men who are strong and disillusioned to most emotion. At the end of the book, Jake sits in a French café (his current “home”) and buys a copy of the New York Herald. This presents a very interesting contrast between his current home and his traditional childhood home. Even though Jake hates America for many reasons, it’s still comfortable and safe, and those two things are really what makes a home.

Similarly in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, the main character, Sal, is directly based on Jack Kerouac himself. This basis in reality makes for an authentic experience, one that the reader can believe in and not have to take with a grain of salt. Although some of Sal’s experiences are outlandish and peculiar by today’s standards, the context of the time in which he lived must be taken into consideration when reading the book. Sal and his friends (or Jack and his friends) basically started the Beat Generation. Also known as the beat movement, the cohort was mainly made up of a group of writers and poets, Jack Kerouac being one of the main ones, and his book On The Road becoming the essential bible of the beat generation. The basic idea of the beats was to liberate culture and break down the many walls that had existed before the 1950’s, in the realms of literature, art, sex, and music. They basically rejected the prevailing American middle-class values and felt a need to protest. For the beat generation to start there had to be some catalyst, some realization that something was wrong in the world. This catalyst is exactly what made Kerouac hit the road in the first place. Like many of our travelers, Sal traveled to search for authenticity, because he could not find any at his home. Because his home lacked authenticity, one of the main defining characteristics of home as a place, to him it held little meaning as a central place, and therefore he hardly identified with it as he grew into his adolescent and young adult years. Typically, when one renounces their original home, they adopt another second-rate home to replace it, because everyone does need some sort of reliability of a home, even if it is not the classic four walls with a mailbox and a driveway. For Sal, his new home was the road. He references it many times throughout the story, and it makes perfect sense when you consider the definition of home. To Sal, the road is where authenticity exists. Where real people have real goals, even if their goal is to just get to work or visit their sweetheart across the border. The road was where there were possibilities, not like in Paterson, New Jersey where everyone’s fate was pretty much set from birth. In On The Road, we continually see an arc of Sal’s excitement about a certain place. He goes from anticipation to excitement to one climactic event, which afterwards deflates him and readies him to get back on the road and start the cycle over. Surprisingly, Sal’s favorite part of the arc is the anticipation. Not even the excitement or the climactic event can get him as happy as having his thumb out on the road, his mind brewing with what he will do at the next place he goes. A third quality of the road is that it makes him feel safe and, simultaneously, makes him feel alive. If he is just sitting in a room somewhere, all he’s doing is getting minutes closer to death. But on the road, he is truly alive. He is experiencing new things and life itself. And if the road can give him authenticity, happiness, and an ultimate security in his life, then why shouldn’t it be considered a home?

Although it is shocking in itself to imagine people renouncing their homes, it is almost impossible to imagine people renouncing the entire idea of home. Because as we can see in these two readings, the men in these stories try to act like they have renounced home altogether, and can’t barely remember where they’re from or which way is home. However, every man needs a home somewhere. Even the homeless men you see on the streets of New York City: their name implies a renouncement (intentional or not) of home, yet they probably still settle down each night to the place that, on their scale, gives them happiness, authenticity, and security. Because perhaps this is one of the defining characteristics of man, or possibly all beings: the need for a refuge, a shelter, or a place they can always come back to.

According to Pico Iyer, we travel “to find ourselves” and “in search of both self and anonymity.” At the beginning of each of their stories, Sal, Jake and Kit are unsatisfied with their lives. They are each seeking something or running away from their troubles. Often they don’t even know what they are hunting for or fleeing from. Each character’s search seems relatively hopeless until they have an experience in nature. After each such experience, the characters seem changed. They all become more grounded. Sal, Jake and Kit all find anonymity in nature and undergo a change. They finally learn to see the meaning in their lives and appreciate the relationships they have for what they are.
 
In Kerouac’s, On the Road, Sal and Dean are always looking for “IT” (Kerouac, 195), they find it in several places, but never within themselves. At the movie theater in Detroit, Sal begins to explain his lack of identity and fulfillment by saying “they almost [sweep] [him] away” (Kerouac, 233) with the trash on the floor. As the story progresses, Sal and Dean feel more and more pressure to be on the move to avoid aging. Just outside Gregoria, Mexico, Dean, Sal and Stan stop to sleep in the thick Mexican jungle. Everybody tosses and turns in the heat and humidity, but Sal has a spiritual experience in the jungle that night.
 
Sal decides to sleep on top of the car “with [his] face exposed to the heavens” (Kerouac, 281). He describes that “for the first time in [his] life the weather [is] not something that touch[es] [him], that caress[es] [him], [freezes] or sweat[s] him, but [becomes] [him]. The atmosphere and [him] [become] the same” (Kerouac, 281). Sal seems to be feeling something intensely mystic even though what he is going through sounds extremely unpleasant. He is covered in “dead bugs mingled with [his] blood” (Kerouac, 281) and he smells the “rank, hot and rotten jungle” (Kerouac, 281). But Sal still gets sucked into it without resisting. He finds beauty in the jungle even though it seems disgusting. He understands and absorbs the jungle just as much as it absorbs him.
 
Sal sweats and bleeds all night and it seems as if he is expelling the sense of meaninglessness out of his body. This experience marks a turning point in Sal’s life. After he sleeps in the jungle, Sal’s trip, and even life, seem to become deeper and more serious. He no longer goes chasing after girls and even when he does meet some girls accidentally, the meeting is almost religious instead of sexual. In the jungle Sal also sees “a wild horse, white as a ghost” (Kerouac, 282). It subconsciously reminds him that he can’t escape aging. Instead of fighting back like he does when Dean talks about his age, Sal understands and accepts this fact. It makes him more mature. Dean doesn’t have an experience like this which is why he leaves Sal (the only person to really understand and care about Dean) to run back to his many superficial marriages in the States. Sal’s new understanding of life is also what leads him to finally admit that Dean is a “rat” (Kerouac, 288). In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake too learns to see one of his relationships for what it really is.
 
Jake has an experience of nature and reawakening when he visits San Sebastian. For the fist time in the story, Jake is not surrounded by his shallow friends. He heads down Concha, the beach, alone.  This part of the book turns completely to description because Jake has no one to talk to, and the description is detailed and slow. Sense of time is lost. In Jake’s first swim, “the tide [is] about half way out” (Hemingway, 238), the second time Jake goes swimming is what really reforms him.
 
Jake wakes up the next day and states that “everything [is] fresh…in the early morning” (Hemingway, 241). This already shows that he is becoming new. He goes down to the beach and this time “the tide is in” (Hemingway, 240). There is no mention of other people around. Hemingway says that Jake undresses, but leaves out any mention of Jake putting on swim-suit. This demonstrates Jake shedding his old identity. Like Sal lying face-up on top of the car, Jake turns on his back and floats in the water to symbolize the fact that he is opening himself up to Mother Nature.  Jake swims leisurely and says “it [seems] like a long swim” (Hemingway, 241)—once again, he loses his sense of time. Later Jake repeats that he is swimming “slowly and steadily” (Hemingway, 242).
 
After returning to the hotel, Jake receives Brett’s telegraph asking him to come get her. Jake allows Brett’s plea to bring back to his old life, but he approaches it in a new way. For the first time, Jake admits his disapproval of her behavior. He says sarcastically, “That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another…go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it alright” (Hemingway, 243). By repeating, “That was it,” Jake conveys his frustration, and also implies that he is done with Brett’s frivolous games. In the last few lines of the novel, Brett says to Jake, “we could have had such a damned good time together” (Hemingway, 251). Whereas earlier Jake was the one begging Brett to live with him, now he simply replies, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” (Hemingway, 251). Jake has found meaning in his life without Brett and is satisfied with their relationship the way it is. In contrast to Sal and Jake, Kit manages to find fulfillment without any relationships at all.
 
Throughout the first half of The Sheltering Sky, Kit is displayed as overly neurotic and generally unhappy with her life but she continues to run away from these problems by following omens instead of her own decisions. When she talks with Port during their bike ride, Port describes his preference for warm countries. Kit says that “[She’s] not sure [she] doesn’t feel it’s wrong to try to escape the night and winter” (Bowles, 92). In other words, she understands that one must eventually face their problems but for now she continues to run away from them with Port. Port also accurately explains that “[He and Kit have] never managed…to get all the way into life” (Bowles, 94). Kit’s guilt about her night with Tunner also forces her to evade her troubles. Tunner states that not “a drop of rain has fallen since that night” (Bowles, 228) to symbolize Kit’s impurity. This all changes after Kit’s experience in nature.
 
After Port dies, Kit sets out alone through Sbâ. She expresses a need to “have water all around her” (Bowles, 240) because she wants to transform and become pure. For the first time she knows what she is looking for. Suddenly she sees a “wide break in the wall into a garden” (Bowles, 240). The garden has a pool in it. The broken wall represents an opening into her self that has been blocked off until now. She goes into the garden and like Jake, sheds her clothing and her old identity. She realizes that “Whenever [she’s] about to be happy [she] hang[s] on instead of letting go” (Bowles, 240). Finally, Kit lets go. She gets into the pool and “wade[s] slowly toward the center” (Bowles, 241). In the heart of the pool, “the water [comes] to her waist” (Bowles, 241)—the middle of the pool meets the middle of Kit’s body to symbolize that she is getting “all the way into life” (Bowles, 94). Kit also symbolically sleeps on the ground with her face to the sky, like Sal and Jake exposing herself to the sky and nature. After leaving the garden, “the alley [grows] wide” and the “wall [recedes]” in front of her to show that her self is opening up.
 
Kit even feels her own transformation. She says, “Life was suddenly there, she was in it” and that “[she] shall never be hysterical again” (Bowles, 241). When she gets out of the pool, “life [does] not recede from her” (Bowles, 241). Just like Sal and Jake, Kit has lost a sense of time and feels as if she has been bathing for hours. Her watch has even disappeared to make the loss of time all the more apparent. Kit has recaptured “the joy of being” (Bowles, 242) and it follows her throughout the rest of the novel. At the very end of the story, it even causes Kit to choose the carefree life in Oran instead of going home to New York. 
 
Although each of their experiences is different, Sal, Jake and Kit all self-reflect and find satisfaction in their lifes. They go back into their journeys with a new insight that helps them face their troubles and accept where their expeditions are taking them.

When people lose a connection with the place they name “home,” they may leave that place in an attempt to redefine what “home” is. This loss of connection is what spurs the motivation for travel. In this essay, three novels will be introduced to examine the effect of this loss of “home.” The characters described have all been influenced by war in their decision to leave America and search for authentic experience in foreign locations. Their experiences function to convey how authenticity of a place is lost and in what kinds of environments that authenticity can be rediscovered.


In Kerouac’s On the Road, the protagonist, Sal, along with his best friend Dean travel together from America into Mexico. Sal and Dean have originally been traveling across America in an effort to experience authentic Western culture and the freedom this lifestyle cultivates. However, after many authentic experiences, their American surroundings begin to show signs of artificiality. Sal describes a “gorgeous country girl,” characterized by “emptiness,” and not having “the slightest idea of what she wanted” (242). The country girl symbolizes the transformation of the American West from a place of true character and culture to one bleak and void of meaning. The girl has no direction in life and seems to have no problem doing what other people decide for her, which is a contradiction to the free lifestyle Sal and Dean pursue. Likewise, Sal notices a “horrible sight in the bar” while at a jazz club: a “white hipster fairy” playing with “that complacent Reichianalyzed ecstasy that doesn’t mean anything” (200). Jazz is a symbol of authentic American culture and in this setting, the authentic jazz atmosphere of the nightclub is infiltrated by an insincere performer, another image of lost authenticity that leads Sal to realize that the America with which he was once infatuated is now “a muddy boot and no longer a shiny limousine” (141). Going into Mexico, Sal and Dean are able to rediscover authentic culture. Sal portrays Mexico as having “narrow sidewalks crowded with Hongkong-like humanity” (279), a “sweetest and purest and smallest” (298) location containing “pure and ancient activities of human life” (278). It is a place where “all of the human qualities are…still there,” where people “didn’t know that a bomb had come that could…reduce them to jumbles” (299). Here, Sal contrasts the humanity of American and Mexican societies, providing a potential rationale for why America eventually lost its magical quality, the atomic bomb. These descriptions of Mexico provide an image of pure, authentic culture that Sal only finds in rural and pastoral places. Their trip to Mexico allows them to re-experience what they interpret as humanity.


In Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, three Americans, Kit, Port and Tunner leave America to pursue life in Africa. These characters have left the Western world because they feel it has “no character, no ideals, no culture – nothing, nothing” (8). Kit states that “Europe has destroyed the whole world” (88), conveying that these characters go to Africa in search of authentic culture that does not exist anymore in the post-war Western world; to them the American has become a “gorilla-like brute with a fierce frown on his face…and probably an automatic in his hip pocket” (148). This conveys that they leave America to get away from a culture that has lost its sense of a common humanity. Port goes to Africa in search of “reality and true perception…to be found in the conversation of the laboring classes” (15), meaning that he believes truth and actual life exist in rural environments, away from the overdevelopment of American society. These characters have lost faith in America and in the absence of a home, they now go to Africa in an attempt to rediscover the authenticity found within rural society. This idea is accentuated by the fact that Port defines himself as a “traveler,” not a “tourist” (6), meaning that he is making the trip for the purpose of experiencing the authentic; in Africa “the institution of tourist travel” has been “destroyed by the war,” suggesting they can feel authentic because there are no other tourists where they are going. While in Africa, Port and Kit experience instances of authenticity as related to rural society. Port states that he feels “that he was pioneering – he felt more closely identified with his great-grandparents, when he was…out here in the desert than he did sitting at home,” (101) meaning that the African desert has become more authentic to him than his home environment in America. In addition to this, Port wanders around foreign city streets alone, and even attempts to have sex with a blind dancer at one point. These are the types of experiences that enable Port to integrate into the local culture. In the end, Port dies in Africa, which can be interpreted as the most authentic of all experiences, for death is the ultimate end. Going to Africa allows Port to experience the basic modes of human interaction, which is the foundation for a society whose social atmosphere feels authentic.


The characters in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises are all American expats living in Paris. They have left America because they have been emotionally and physically destroyed by the war; Jake, the protagonist, has acquired a “certain injury” (27) from the war that prevents him from having sex, consequently hindering his relationship with the woman he loves, Brett, who “was a V.A.D. in the hospital [he] was in during the war” (38). Now these characters pursue a hedonistic lifestyle away from post-war America. These characters decide to make a trip to Spain, where they, especially Jake, fall in love with the authenticity and humanity of the Spanish culture. Jake states that the Spanish countryside is not “country…as it had been,” but instead “really Spain” (93), meaning that he feels he has experienced something he can say is authentically Spanish. The authenticity of Spain is also conveyed through the motif of bullfighting, particularly when observing one bullfighter named Romero. While other bullfighters are “developing a technique…to give a fake emotional feeling,” Romero maintains “the old thing, the holding of his purity of line.” (168). In this way, Romero is a symbol for the notion of realness Spain provides for Jake. Brett pursues a romantic affair with Romero, perhaps in an effort to become closer to and internalize his authentic qualities. After watching Romero compete in the arena, Jake feels as he “felt once coming home from an out-of-town football game…in the town [he] had lived in all [his] life and it was all new” (192). In this statement, Jake likens the fresh experience of bullfighting to his pastime experience of football, a symbol of authentic American culture, meaning that Spain has replaced America as a source of authenticity for him. Jake is also embraced into the local culture through his admiration for Romero. A local hotel-owner, Montoya, tells Jake that he is different from other foreigners because “he’s a real aficionado” (131), meaning that he has authentic passion for the bull-fights. This is significant because it conveys that Spain is a place of true, real passion and that Jake is able to more or less integrate into this authentic society. Perhaps the America these characters have fled has lost this notion of sincere passion.


The pursuits of the characters within these three novels are successful in that they are able to encounter what they deem as authenticity. What is significant is that they all travel to places more rural than where they begin, conveying that authenticity of the home is lost as places become more developed and forget common humanity. While these characters go to different countries, they maintain a similar idea in retrieving what they have lost coming from post-war American society. When one loses an authentic home, he will go back to the simplest form of human life in an attempt to re-experience authenticity, home, and humanity.
 

Geography concerns the study of the earth, its features, and its distribution of life, thus also including the distribution’s effects on human activity. As Tuan explains in “Place: An Experiential Perspective,” the examination of human activity and place are centered on the fundamental concept of the home as a universal point of reference. This point of reference shapes the way every person sees the world because it acts as a comparison, in both a physical and spiritual sense, for the way they will interact with others and for the feelings they will experience within foreign surroundings. Tuan also notes that it is the objects and elements that exist within the home, not just the people who can be found there, that strengthen this sensation. It is through “the passive modes of experience” that people find themselves deeply connected to these objects, specifically to the rooms and the furnishings of their homes, because each has a physical presence that allows a relationship to be formed with it, one that provides a center or “loci of meaning.”

The importance of physicality is essential in understanding how travelers interact with their world and in turn how they interact with themselves. Whether their journeys span across a country or the distance of the globe; every traveler, those in the desert, on the road and on the sidewalks of France, must find themselves at some point retiring to a room. These rooms are often the only tangible elements that the travelers encounter for long spans of time, and it is within their tangibility that the travelers are able to clearly see themselves. When one is in a constant state of motion, it is easy to get lost within the scenery and ever-changing backdrop of the road, the dusty street corner or the sandy terrain; but in a room surrounded by four solid walls, one has nothing but himself and a few furnishings to frame that image around. It is imperative that that image of self is always present, and for the traveler, that that presence comes from his finding it within himself, of course, in conjunction with a few dry walls.

While in a home each room is different, not only in the fact that it serves a different purpose, but also in that it contains personal objects that hold significance; in a hotel there is a certain sense of uniformity. This uniformity is what ties all hotel rooms together; it is their standard nature and lack of connectedness with their occupants that brings forth a sense of personal reflection that can only be experienced when one is distanced from home. This distance, accompanied by the pseudo-home veneer that hotels are constructed of, combine to provide the traveler with the impression that he is in a home-like state where he must fill in the blanks or empty space with introspection and personal thought.

These periods of self-examination, taking place in hotel rooms across the globe, are all uniform in that they help the lodger understand something about himself by either presenting his interior clearly or revealing a clouded core. For Port in the opening lines of Paul Bowles’, The Sheltering Sky, the room is a place that “meant very little to him,” yet it is where he constantly oscillates between a sense of being and a dreamlike state of nothingness (Bowles 3). Port is able to navigate between these two levels of consciousness by his awareness of the bare room and what is around him. Though Port explains nothing of what exists geographically beyond the room, its existence and the feeling that it has given him is enough to justify existence of life outside of it. 

The fact that a room that has no relation to Port nor contains any substantial furnishing is able to provide such a profound effect is very telling of the capabilities a place has to impact an individual. Port experiences this place by being grounded by it; though he finds no personal connection with it or with its furnishings as one might have within the home, he uses its physical existence to transcend back into reality and to validate the outside world in the same sense as the interior complexities of his mind. While this internal-external oscillation occurs within Port’s mind, the concept of the room aiding this separation can be seen similarly in the detachment of an individual from other elements of life as well. 

Hemingway’s Jake in The Sun Also Rises finds this distinction within his own room, not through the departure of an internal conversation, but instead from a physical estrangement from society. Jake frequently attempts to escape to the safety of four confined walls when he is overwhelmed by the reality of his physical deformity and his discontentment with Brett. He sees the room as the only material distance he can gain from the world; but paradoxically, it is the furnishings he encounters within his temporary home that cause him to become even more aware of the outside world and subsequently more aware of himself: “Undressing, I looked at myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed. That was a typically French way to furnish a room. Practical, too, I suppose. Of all the ways to be wounded…” (Hemingway 38).

The mirror is a fascinating object to consider within a room because regardless of the duration an individual spends in it, he has a direct connection with the room; that connection being his seeing his own reflection within it. As Jake stares at his naked body in the French mirror, he is reminded once again of his disfiguration and is forced to face both literally and intellectually the reality of his pained life. It is interesting to note that Jake is conscious of the geographic loci in which he finds himself: a French bedroom. This is an important piece of information because if he were in any other country in another any other room, it is quite possible that the mirror might be placed differently or that it might not be present at all. But because Jake is in this place he finds himself confronted by an element of his being that he wished to conceal from both the world and from himself. The desire to conceal one’s identity can have the effect of temporarily losing one’s self within the safety that is inherent in a confined structure.

When Sal, Kerouac’s fictionalized persona in On the Road, spends the day sleeping in a gloomy inn, he experiences this sensation of losing one’s self. “I didn’t know who I was—I was far from home…in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen…I was somebody else, some stranger.” As Sal attempts to escape the responsibility of his white middle class reality, he finds that, at least briefly, he is able to do so within a strange Des Moines hotel room. There is something about that room that allows him to suspend himself from the reality that he is paradoxically in search of. Though he experiences a transitory separation from himself, after that momentary separation has passed, Sal recognizes his location as being “halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future,” (Kerouac 15). This statement displays the sense of awareness Sal is able to obtain through his experience of the hotel room even within an apparent loss of self. It is in this geographic connectedness that the importance of Sal’s physical location is realized. His awareness and deep connection to place in terms of that hotel room reflect the sort of realization he has come to within himself.  

Though people are shaped by what they are surrounded by; people, in fact, have a great deal to do with the shaping of those surroundings themselves. A true understanding of one’s self can only be obtained in an environment that fosters personal thought and provokes meaning; but, it is within the individual himself to experience that environment or to create its meaning. For travelers it is often difficult to take the time to experience this reflection or to step back from the experience that they are so much a part of. Fortunately, they are able to experience a sense of themselves while removing their clothing and opening and closing their eyes in rooms across the globe. These rooms assist the travelers gaining of personal understanding and meaning by allowing them to see a reflection, both literally and metaphorically, of themselves. Rooms also become centers of meaning in that their physical presence allows their inhabitants to feel a concrete sense of place and grounding. This grounding mimics a sense of home that is extremely important to travelers who are presumably apart from their point of reference because it provides a personal geography within the desert, the sidewalk and the road that fosters self-awareness within four sturdy walls.   


Sources:

Bowles, Paul The Sheltering Sky
Hemingway, Ernest The Sun Also Rises
Kerouac, Jack On The Road
Tuan, Yi-Fu.  "Place: An Experiential Perspective"
Free Dictionary. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/geography

Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, both take place in a post-war society with the shifted value system that affects the young generation. The protagonists of the novels, Jake and Sal Paradise, are, in D.C.D. Pocock’s words “characters seeking liberation, both geographical and spiritual, through change of place.” Away from the disillusionment and chaos, they wander around a number of different places. While Jake is an American expatriate in Europe and most of his travels take place abroad n France and Spain, Sal is a middle-class American who mostly wanders around domestically in the West and Mexico. However, it is interesting to note that out of the numerous different places, countryside is the most pivotal place in both in its relation to the overall theme and the purpose of the stories. The descriptions of the experiences, human relationships, and the physical setting of the countryside highlight the differences between the countryside and their home place, New York, a symbol of the social sickness and an obsessive way of life both characters escape in search for a new centre.
 
In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake and Bill’s fishing trip to the Spanish Basques is located in the centre of novel structurally. The five-day, short yet, sweet, vacation the protagonist has in this quiet, serene countryside is important in relation to understanding the novel. Located outside of France and even far away from America, the Basques is geographically isolated and this distance removes the protagonist Jake from the complexities of his friendships and drama regarding sex. Jake is only with his good friend Bill, and together they enjoy outdoors and a friendly old-fashioned competition between men. The people described in the countryside are of complete different nature. The local people in this setting are peasants who “drink very politely” and need to “go[] up into the hills” (110), as opposed to the wealthy friends of Jake who spend much time in bars and cafes and create tension among themselves with phoniness. The accommodation is of contrasting nature as well. The inn they stay at is not comfortable and different from what they’re used to at home: “it had a stone floor, low ceiling, and was oak-paneled. The shutters were all up and it was so cold you could see your breath” (115). Despite the hostile climate and the humble circumstance, Jake feels “good to be warm and in bed” (116). The countryside is described as a beautiful place where the characters connect with nature and get back to the basics. The place is portrayed to have a brilliant cloudless sky, clear stream, earth full of worms, goats grazing around, green fields rolling, and wild strawberries growing on the side. The pastoral representation of this place contrast with the rest of the places in the novel: “The trees were big, and the foliage was thick but it was not gloomy. There was no undergrowth, only the smooth grass, very green and fresh, and the big gray trees well spaced as though it were a park” (121). This tranquil and relaxed atmosphere functions as a great place to discuss and reflect on one of the major themes of the novel, on the meaning and way of life. The characters have been aimlessly pursuing pleasures such as drinking due to the loss of morality, values, innocence, and faith that resulted in the Great War. While fishing and relaxing in the great nature and in warm camaraderie, Bill points to Jake,  “You’re an expatriate. Why don’t you live in New York? … 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” (120). The countryside which represents the very opposite of the chaotic world bombarded with lost meaning of life and shattered value system, provides the two with isolation from the drama and place to rejuvenate and reflect. Bill even says he would not have been able to confess his genuine feelings to Jake if they were not in the countryside: “You’re a hell of a good guy, and I’m fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn’t tell you that in New York. I’d mean I was a faggot” (121), a quote underlying the stark differences between the city they come from and the countryside they vacation in. Perfect weather, beautiful nature, and favorable retreat from the hectic world, the two friends swim, play games, and have a jolly good time “here in the great-out-doors” (127). It is in this countryside, a foil of society Jake belongs to, where the possible solution to the question of the meaning of life is presented: “How should we know? We should not question. Our stay on earth is not for long. Let us rejoice and believe and give thanks…let us rejoice in our blessings” (126).
 
Just as countryside is the critical place in Hemingway, the cotton fields is one of the important places that function in delivering the message in Kerouac’s On the Road. Most of Sal’s travels take place in America; the Mexican cotton fields is one exception. Far away from New York, Sal is also removed from his group of friends and his white middle-class society he originally escapes from. Instead, he is with Terry, a Mexican girl; although they both know intuitively that their relationship may not bloom into a complete flower, their relationship is ideal and healthy. The life and the environment are also different in an uncomfortable way for Sal. Terry’s family lives in shacks “situated on the old road that ran between the vineyards” (98). Likewise, the local people in Sabinal are poor, living in shacks and tents, in sharp contrast to where Sal originally comes from. Terry’s brother and everyone lives by the manana philosophy that believes “tomorrow we make a lot of money; tonight we don’t worry” (93). There is no phoniness or judging among the members of the community, but only genuinely welcoming, warm inclusiveness. They gather around together and spend a lot of time singing and playing guitars. Just like the warm and easygoing atmosphere and the mood of the place, the countryside is portrayed as beautiful: “The beautiful green countryside of October in California reeled by madly” (92). In the beginning, Sal is initially attracted to Dean, the holy madman, because he lives “in the moment.” Feeling out of place in his white-middle class, scholarly yet pessimist group of friends, Sal sets on the road, drinking, partying, and wandering from place to place. Yet when he comes to a place where people “in the moment,” he realizes the need to work, realizing that “making money with the manure truck would never materialize,” and voluntarily seeks “for cotton picking work” (95). However, at the same time, it is in the cotton fields where he finds IT and the connected feeling of a secure centre he has been searching for. In the cotton fields, Sal meets people who love to work and have amazing patience and joy. Sal enjoys the outdoors and feels a great connection to nature, in the soil. Although the work is tough, he strongly feels bliss: “My back began to ache. But it was beautiful kneeling and hiding in that earth…I thought I had found my life’s work ” (96). He claims in the fields, “[he] forgot all about the East and all about Dean and Carlo and the bloody road…I was a man of the earth, precisely as I had dreamed I would be” (97).
 
The Spanish and Mexican country is an important place within the two novels because it contrasts with the city life where the moral values have been shattered and the meaning of life and innocence and optimism have been lost. The protagonists who travel in search of a new centre both come close to the ideal state, the traditional values and beliefs of easygoing, friendly life, in the countryside. However, while the country experiences help them reflect and experience “living in the moment” philosophy, they both do not stay and end up going back home.