English 015 - Americans Abroad
Comfort: Americans at the Mercy of Their Surroundings
Comfort: Americans at the Mercy of Their Surroundings
Category: 1E: Twain, James, Wharton | Meg Gray
Achieving comfort, a state of psychical and mental relaxation, in unfamiliar surroundings is often unnerving and sometimes very difficult. In Daisy Miller by Henry James and The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, the characters consciously and unconsciously devise methods of establishing their own comfort while traveling abroad. However, because of whom the two parties choose to come in contact with and how they let these interactions play out the uncomfortable situations addressed in the two books are different both in number and in type. Despite this dichotomy, the characters either deal with or avoid discomfort using very similar techniques. Most significant among these is the stereotyping and degradation of other cultures to reassure themselves that an American lifestyle is the best lifestyle.
Twain and James both superimpose American culture and ideals onto situations in other countries by making ignorant assumptions about the host culture. Ultimately the goal of these assumptions is to reassure the American way of life. Upon viewing the gondola activity in Venice, Twain decides, “it seems queer –ever so queer- to see a boat doing duty as a private carriage” (p.162). To alleviate his misgivings about this behavior and to return the boat traffic to his comfort zone, he turns all of the incidents he sees with the boats into typical interactions he might see any day of the week in Connecticut. Twain achieves this by first describing a businessman going to work. Then he illustrates his point with two backstabbing Southern belle stereotypes bidding each other farewell. A wary young man sneaking his sweetheart out of the house comes next. Finally, after describing ladies out shopping, Twain declares, “human nature is very much the same all over the world; and it is so like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a store and buy ten cents’ worth of ribbon and have it sent home in a scow. Ah, it is these little touches of nature that move one to tears in these far-off foreign lands” (p.163). Twain is admitting that the similarity to home that he has contrived in this scene is bringing him comfort. He used his American superiority complex to fit a series of unfamiliar scenes into a mold of American normalcy -something he is comfortable with.
There is no question that people from the same background, or in these cases from the same country are more comfortable around each other than around people from other backgrounds and countries. In Daisy Miller, the Americans stick together and form their own society within a society while abroad. They do this because they assume that Italian culture is inferior. The concept of “when in Rome do as the Romans” is lost on them; it would make them too uncomfortable. Instead, they try to force all Americans to conform to the proper social codes of the time. In this book, unlike in Twain, the Americans are using their assumptions against both the natives and against other Americans who don’t fit their model mold of behavior. When the Americans in Rome realize that Daisy is behaving in an unfamiliar (and unbecoming) manner they disassociate themselves from her, just as they disassociated themselves from Italian life already. This enables their society to return to the state of comfort they are used to. Basically, they sacrifice her comfort for the comfort of the rest of the group.
One of the most obvious differences between being at home and being in a foreign country is generally the disconcerting difference in language. Twain and Daisy Miller are forced to confront language barriers in very distinctive ways because the spheres of travel for the two of them are so different. This provides Twain and James with the opportunity to demonstrate many different ways of tackling invasions on a person’s comfort zone because of a language barrier. In both texts, language barriers are avoided and ignored to insure the comfort of the American.
Twain constantly faces a barrage of new faces and places on his travels. Given his often obvious level of discomfort, this causes him to implement the avoidance method often and well. When he is in an uncomfortable situation, where the native language is beyond him, he almost subconsciously uses other methods of communication. Body language is one of other methods he uses. As Twain and his compatriots search for the center of Paris, Twain discloses that after asking for directions never did the Americans “ever succeed in comprehending just exactly what they said in reply- but they always pointed” (p.63). The scene with the Egyptian pyramids shows some other examples of non-verbal communication. Twain is put on the defensive by the uncontrolled swarm of foreign human activity at the base of the pyramids and the nerve-shattering ride to apex of the pyramids that take him by surprise. He copes and regains his comfort by using two methods of universal communication that require minimal language skills, money and mockery. Over and over again Twain pays an Egyptian boy to run down the side of the pyramid up to the top of another one and back. This continues until Twain offers the boy and his distressed mother a hundred dollars each to jump off the pyramid. They don’t jump but the degrading implication is clear. The American makes himself feel more comfortable by making the Egyptians look absolutely ridiculous. By letting money, not language, talk, Twain is able to reassure his feeling of superiority over the impoverished natives.
Twain also overcomes the language barrier by ignoring that it is his fault. This is clear within minutes of his first landing in France. After trying his abysmal French on a helpful waterman to no avail, he becomes frustrated at the Frenchman’s lack of comprehension. “He appeared to be very ignorant of French,” (p.62) says Twain of the native speaker, and so his confidence in his language skills is left in tact by the confrontation. Twain blames the language barrier on the Frenchman, rather than concede that his French might not be perfect.
Daisy experiences the language barrier very differently because she did not go abroad to interact with foreigners. She went abroad to interact with all of the right Americans she would see on her travels. She stays at “American watering places…that evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga,” (p.3) and moves in a society where having an Italian companion is shocking, despite being in Italy! When she does associate with foreigners she sticks to the cultured ones who speak English, like Mr. Giovanelli. By making this choice, she essentially sidesteps the issue of a language barrier. She avoids and ignores a problem that could cause her discomfort, but in a way she sacrifices herself in the process. She experiences only the tiniest fraction of the foreign culture that Twain does.
In Twain’s travels abroad the native culture and inhabitants are in the foreground of the story. In Daisy Miller’s experience abroad, the native culture is put on the back burner. The beggars that appear in the two stories highlight this difference. “An urchin of nine or ten,” (p.5) approaches a character in Daisy Miller. He turns out to be a spoiled young American pleading for a lump a sugar, when his request is granted he takes two. Jump now to The Innocents Abroad, now a similar situation takes place in a “wretched” village somewhere in the Middle East. This time the culprit is a naked boy who learned how to beg for “Bucksheesh!” before he learned how to say mother. That is what Twain was confronted with, not the bratty children of his vacationing countrymen.
Which of the two beggars would most tourists be more comfortable around? That is an easy question, and the answer defines the principal difference between The Innocents Abroad and Daisy Miller. The only forays out of the realm of American tourism that Henry James makes are those of Daisy into the lives of her Italian suitors. This produces discomfort for her only because of the discomfort it causes her fellow Americans. Twain, however, is uncomfortable for most of his travels. This is primarily because he is out of his element and instead at the mercy of whatever foreign culture he is visiting. The sources of discomfort are obviously different, but the solutions were noticeably the same.
The comfort of the Americans abroad often comes at the expense of someone else. In Daisy Miller, the comfort of most of the Americans comes at the expense of Daisy herself. Mr. Giovanelli pays the price of heartbreak for the comfort of Daisy. Twains discomfort was assuaged by degrading the “squalid humanity” (p.348) he observed, and his constant anxiety comes out on the pages of The Innocents Abroad as constant mockery of every culture he visits. Yet, the price paid for comfort would seem well worth it and even small to both Daisy and Twain for once a certain comfort level was achieved, both were liberated to an extent that would be impossible at home. Daisy experienced an unimaginable amount of sexual freedom and independence. And Twain was just able to be an ass, or as he puts it, “it is so easy to be bloated where it costs nothing of consequence” (p.64).
Posted by on October 02, 2003 at 01:20 PM