Expatriate Experience

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that Malcolm Lowry's 'Under the Volcano' was one of the earliest novels to describe the postcolonial condition. The writer discusses that as a wandering expatriate writer, Lowry himself directly experienced the feeling of displacement from one's national identity - a feeling that has increasingly become the norm in a globalized and globalizing world model that is fraught with problems. This paper, then, evaluates the postcolonial themes of Lowry's work in order to show the ways in which the expatriate author anticipated postcolonial modes of thought via the modernist project.

From the Paper:

"Indeed, the expatriate experience was a major facet of the modernist project. From Gertrude Stein and Henry Miller to Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and James Jones to Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, nearly all of the significant writers of Lowry's generation dealt with this theme in their literary works. This theme was also a significant part of their lives, however. Indeed, in order to "make it new," it was viewed as necessary to detach oneself from one's native land and immerse oneself in exotic places. The resulting sense of dislocation was viewed as the key ingredient for the creation of works of art.
"Lowry differs from the prototypical modernist, however, and the sense of dislocation that imbues the expatriate experience is given a markedly different treatment from that of his expatriate predecessors in Under the Volcano. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt, 1966.
• Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
• Lowry, Malcolm. Under the Volcano. New York: Penguin, 1947.
• Miller, Andrew John. "Under the nation-state: modernist deterritorialization in Malcolm Lowry's
• Under the Volcano." Twentieth Century Literature, Spring 2004. Retrieved May 9, 2008 from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_1_50/ai_n6364034/pg_1.

More papers on Expatriate Experience:

• Research Paper # 146271 : "The Experience of Expatriates"
• Essay # 58446 : "Kuwait and Asian Expatriate Workers"
• Essay # 28118 : "Managing the Expatriate Manager"

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