English 015 - Americans Abroad
Kelsey Abbruzzese
The Loneliness of Vietnam
Category: 4E: O'Brien | Kelsey Abbruzzese
In Going After Cacciato, every man dies alone. Every death is unique, and every death brings relief to the living. After Buff’s death, Paul Berlin “couldn’t fake sadness. It had to be there. If it wasn’t there you couldn’t fake it. You were glad it wasn’t you” (282). Because of...
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Posted by on December 15, 2003 at 12:44 PM
In the Tunnels
Category: 08B: Going After Cacciato | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Tunnel scenes in Going After Cacciato display violent traps for Americans. The soldiers refuse to go down them, knowing what fate awaits them. They hate Martin for sending men to search the tunnels. After the Vietnamese shoot Frenchie Tucker, Oscar says, “This here’s what happens when you search the fuckers...
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Posted by on December 02, 2003 at 01:18 PM
Europe in the Desert
Category: 3E: Bowles | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Europe in the Desert “The young Englishman who went to Messad, he was like you,” an Arab tells Port in The Sheltering Sky. “Pretending always to be innocent” (Bowles 143). Though Port and Kit commit deviant sexual behavior in the novel as the Englishman, Eric Lyle, and his mother do,...
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Posted by on November 25, 2003 at 01:24 PM
The Desert
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Kelsey Abbruzzese
After Port’s death, Kit assumes his hope of escaping civilization. She flees to the desert, an empty expanse of sand and sky. Kit delves into desert life, marrying Belqassim and finding her only pleasure in him. “Always she remained inside the windowless room…her mind empty of everything save the memory...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:19 PM
Separation
Category: 06B: The Sheltering Sky | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Whenever the Lyles crash into The Sheltering Sky, shouting and insulting the natives, Port and Kit face separation. The Lyles’ presence in the story suggests the growing distance between Port and Kit and the increasing closeness of Kit and Tunner. The Lyles enter in the story as Port and Kit’s...
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Posted by on November 06, 2003 at 02:08 PM
Brett and Honoria
Category: 2E: Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Ernest Hemingway once said, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” In The Sun Also Rises and “Babylon Revisited,” Jake and Charlie attempt to find happiness in specific people. Jake seeks out Brett while Charlie looks to his daughter, Honoria. The men see these women as opportunities...
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Posted by on October 30, 2003 at 07:09 PM
Emptiness in Paris
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Kelsey Abbruzzese
To Charlie, Paris is emptiness. His daughter has dissipated, becoming nothing out of something (389). Paris swallows Honoria like the foreign tourists, away from Charlie’s love and control. “The Poet’s Café had disappeared, but the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell still yawned...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 10:10 AM
Paris
Category: 04B: Autobiography of ABT | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway both spent time in Paris, but the two writers have different views of the city in their novels. Stein and Alice B. Toklas connect with the city instead of aimlessly drifting like Jake, Brett, and the other Americans in Hemingway’s novel. Paris is more than...
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Posted by on October 14, 2003 at 01:24 PM
The Fighter from Princeton
Category: 03B: The Sun Also Rises | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Ernest Hemingway said, “Never mistake motion for action.” In The Sun Also Rises, the characters float aimlessly through Paris and Spain, drinking and watching their lives pass by. The men of the novel revolve around Brett, but Robert Cohn is the only man in her life who fights for her...
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Posted by on October 07, 2003 at 11:48 AM
Ignorant Americans
Category: 1E: Twain, James, Wharton | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Ignorant Americans “The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad,” wrote Mark Twain on page 164 of The Innocents Abroad. In The Innocents Abroad and Daisy Miller, both Twain and Henry James see how American ignorance occurred overseas. However,...
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Posted by on October 02, 2003 at 01:34 PM
Roman Fire
Category: 02B: Roman Fever | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Daisy Miller and the women of “Roman Fever” danced around the Roman fire thinking they would never be burned. Their youth made them reckless with their own lives and the hearts of others because they believed they were invincible. When Mrs. Slade explains she wrote the letter that instigated the...
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Posted by on September 22, 2003 at 10:22 PM
Mark Twain vs. Daisy Miller
Category: 01B: Daisy Miller | Kelsey Abbruzzese
When is ignorance attractive? It is when it comes in a pretty package like Daisy Miller instead of Mark Twain’s bobbing umbrella caravan in Syria. These Americans are uneducated in foreign terms, yet Twain is ashamed of his ignorance among the foreigners while Daisy’s mindless chatter is depicted as entertaining....
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Posted by on September 15, 2003 at 09:22 PM
Kelsey Abbruzzese
Category: Kelsey Abbruzzese
"There is no pleasure in having nothing to do, the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it." - John Raper "There is no pleasure in having nothing to do, the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it." - John Raper "There is...
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Posted by on September 10, 2003 at 06:56 PM