Travel for the Bragging Rights, Travel for Control

The Fox's

While reading the Mosquito Coast, I began to wonder if we could consider adding a new category (perhaps a sub-category) to Cohen's categories of reasons for travel. It is made very obvious throughout the novel that Allie Fox is feels alienated from his American center; he is extremely critical of all things mainstream and modern, and has essentially withdrawn himself and his family from American society, even while living in America. However, his attitude towards traveling away in hopes of locating a new, more authentic center struck me as very different than that of the characters we've been introduced to in our other readings. Port and Kit, for instance, seemed tormented by their alienation from their center, regretful and disillusioned with the state of the world. Allie, on the other hand, seems not so much tormented as disgusted, and painfully arrogant. He is proud not only of the fact that he is more intelligent and sensitive to the country's development than mainstream society and the people who comprise it, but of the fact that he is leaving it behind. He indulges in the notion that "most Americans are homing pigeons, and none of them has the conviction to do what we're doing - picking ourselves up and going to a different country for good." Allie repeatedly describes himself as the "last American" or the "last man". He sees himself as something between a heroic retro-pilgrim and a martyr (page 84). Perhaps his sub-category, beyond being alienated from his center, could be this: he travels for the bragging rights, and to feel more accomplished, more worldly, more intelligent, and simply "better" than those who do not travel - those he leaves behind.

I also found it a little funny/absurd/sickening that, despite being the epitome of a "know-it-all," and claiming to know so much about the rest of the world - the savage world that is free of the silly problems and people of America - can be so ignorant. I winced every time Allie referred to the Hondurans as "savages," and described them as a simple, almost child-like race of people. In some ways, Allie reminded me of Kurtz. He seemed to crave a power over not only his family but everyone he met - the crew of the Unicorn, Polski's farmhands, even Polski himself. He exerted this power by showing people up, and he consequently seemed to attract a fair following of admirers, whom he did not really respect any more than Kurtz respected his own "savages". When he met with the Hondurans in New England, Charlie described them as "looking upon Father obediently" (p 66), much like the "savages" that Kurtz "tamed" in Heart of Darkness. Allie ventured into the jungle to maintain and perhaps even validate and reinforce his power over his family; Kurtz came to find and exert his own power in the Congo, over both the over trade and the natives he met there. They undoubtedly went abroad for completely different reasons (Kurtz for wealth, Allie under the pretense of escaping the idea of material wealth), but the desire for control and power over others surfaced in both of them (though really, Allie practically wore this desire on his sleeve) while abroad.