English 015 - Americans Abroad
Passports and Identities
Passports and Identities
Category: 4E: O'Brien | Diana Heald
The United States passport is one of the most popular symbols of American travel abroad. Passports allow travelers to truly assume Western identities and label them as foreigners; traveling without a passport is somewhat suspect, if not illegal. As the travelers in The Sheltering Sky and Going After Cacciato move deeper and deeper into non-Western countries, they find their American identities increasingly cumbersome. For some of the characters, these identities are easily shed because they are so undefined to begin with. For others, moving deeper into uncharted territory is a difficult process that mandates forced suppression of the travelers’ identities, both as Americans and as people. Kit and Cacciato’s undefined personalities allow them to move across barriers and borders in foreign lands; in part by losing their passports or by neglecting to bring them along in the first place, Port and the rest of the soldiers can follow them because they consciously shed their identities.
Throughout the novel, Cacciato is conspicuously nondescript. Paul Berlin “tried to picture Cacciato’s face… but the image came out fuzzy… Could’ve gone either way” (pp. 7-8). Paul Berlin remarks that Cacciato’s face is unfinished, with the implication that Cacciato is not a fully realized person, physically or in terms of personality and identity. When Paul Berlin inspects Cacciato’s photo album, the man in the pictures comes from a typical upbringing; there is nothing startling or controversial about him. Additionally, none of the photos give Paul Berlin any insight into Cacciato as a person, leaving him to wonder, “Who was he? ... [T]he images were fuzzy” (p. 120). Throughout their trek, Cacciato continues to elude the other soldiers, dropping vague hints here and there but always managing to vanish again into the vast, unfamiliar terrain. When they see him ahead on the trail, the soldiers call out to Cacciato, but all they can do is watch as his “big mouth opened and closed and opened… arms kept flapping, faster now and less deliberate” (p. 12). They struggle to read his lips and interpret his gestures, but ultimately the only word Paul Berlin can make out is goodbye. In Berlin’s mind, Cacciato appears ahead like a shimmering mirage in the distance; it is unclear exactly where he “tilt[s] from fact to imagination” (p. 206). Cacciato moves across borders and barriers unnoticed and without a passport or papers because nothing about his physical appearance or his personality calls attention to himself, while his more mature, developed comrades struggle to follow behind him.
Like Cacciato in Asia, Kit arrives in Africa with little identity of her own, and she quickly begins to transform herself into someone else as she travels deeper into the Sahara following Port’s death. She begins with a ritual ablution, bending “to get water between her cupped palms [as] she uttered a burst of wordless song” (p. 247). After cleaning off the last residues of her American-ness, Kit quickly hails a passing camel caravan and realizes that “with the heavy tan she had acquired during the past weeks she looked astonishingly like an Arab boy” (p. 278). She seeks pleasure in Belqassim, yet she soon realizes that any other man would do just as well. She lives in a world where it is impossible for her to communicate with anyone else, preventing her from ever having to develop an identity of her own in relation to her surroundings. Kit finds peace in her existence in the Sahara, but as she enters a large, French-speaking city, she realizes how threatening European society is to her status as a non-entity. Kit says that “[i]n another minute, life would be painful. The words were coming back… they must be kept inside in the dark” (p. 302). For Kit, the conscious choice not to have an identity protects her from harm and from the panic attacks she once suffered, giving her the freedom to cross both physical and societal borders unharmed.
In Going After Cacciato, while Cacciato is formless and elusive, each of the other soldiers has his own personality, which he must consciously shed or deny in order to chase Cacciato through unknown territory. Lieutenant Sidney Martin follows the rules and remains detached from his subordinates, Eddie Lazzuti “sings marching songs and nursery ballads,” Oscar Johnson is like “a mimic absorbing too much of his own stage style,” and Doc Peret is “[a] theoretician, a pragmatist” (pp. 141-144). As a seemingly mismatched group of American ex-soldiers on the run, it is difficult for them not to draw attention to themselves. The soldiers often run into situations where passports are necessary, yet they always seem to escape. In Tehran, Doc simply tells the military captain who has arrested them, “I fear, we are without passports. Otherwise it would be an honor to present them. A distinct honor” (p. 191). Excuses like these seem flimsy, yet the soldiers’ plight would be even worse if their identities were ever discovered. Through a combination of vague language and sheer willpower, they are able to get out of even the stickiest situations. When they arrive in Greece and are greeted by policemen who know their identities and are ready to arrest them, Paul Berlin simply says to himself, “It would not have ended that way,” and magically it doesn’t—the men move past the guards, are careful not to reveal themselves, and get away (p. 272). Paul Berlin especially appreciates the opportunity to deny his past and the troubling feelings that go along with it. On the road, there is no time to think of his constantly disappointed father or his alcoholic mother. Even so, he knows that if they find Cacciato, “it’s back to the realms of reality,” and he will have to resume and recognize the identity that had been troubling him (p. 114). For all the soldiers, the lack of passports is at first cumbersome and makes their mission more difficult, yet as they grow accustomed to their ambiguous status, they actually begin to revel in it.
As they journey further into the Sahara, Port struggles to follow Kit as her identity changes. He knows that he has a delicate grasp on her, and finds that no matter how hard he tries to suppress his own identity; in the end it is more powerful than he is. Kit’s formlessness allows her to journey into the Sahara alone, while Port is tormented by the fact that he cannot follow her. From his deathbed, he calls out to her: “All these years I’ve been living for you. I didn’t know it, and now I do” (p. 217). Even as he speaks these touching words, Kit is unable to bring herself to hold his hand as it reaches for hers. Port’s identity is based entirely on Kit, and Kit’s own identity is rapidly changing and disappearing, which she makes no effort to prevent. When Port realizes his passport is gone, he remarks, “[E]ver since I discovered that my passport was gone, I’ve felt only half alive… it’s very depressing… to have no proof of who you are” (p. 160). Although Port realizes that without identification, he is nothing, he must also become nothing if he is to pursue Kit in her journey into insanity. For as long as Port’s passport is lost, he is able to follow Kit, but as soon as it resurfaces he loses her again to the forces of the Sahara.
As Sarkin Aung Wan says, “Even the refugee must do more than just flee. He must arrive” (p. 318). Kit, Port, and Paul Berlin all eventually realize that existence without identity is impossible; while they may travel unknown, disguised, or without passports, eventually all the travelers arrive somewhere. In the end, Port dies, Kit goes insane, and the soldiers realize that the trip to Paris was all a dream. The only person to succeed in his journey is Cacciato, who somewhere in his travels fades into nothingness. Ultimately, Cacciato never realizes the futility of his dreams because, unlike the others, he never has to arrive anywhere.
Posted by on December 15, 2003 at 12:10 PM