Travel as an Escape

ErnestWhile reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, I was struck by one line in particular: "Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that." (p. 15). This jaded yet very accurate retort comes from Jake, who becomes fed up with Cohn's vain attempts to convince him to travel to South America. These words almost startled me with their poignancy, for this is a lesson I am slowly learning; that travel should not be a means of escape.

I think that that escape is the goal of many travelers. People go abroad to "get away;" from work, from family, from a broken relationship or from the general disappointment of a poorly-lived life. People go abroad in hopes of discovering a new side of themselves, or a new self altogether. Often, however, those problems that encourage people to travel far from home are too deeply rooted in the person to simply be tossed aside like jetsam, and thus follow their owners to their various destinations. People eventually discover that they are the same person, whether they are in Memphis or the Maldives, and that they will have to deal with their lives wherever they go.

This is a lesson that Jake, Brett, Cohn and company learn well in The Sun Also Rises.The ex-patriots lead essentially miserable lives in Paris. As is stated on the Wikipedia page for The Sun Also Rises, "The topic of war is rarely discussed explicitly by any of the characters, but its effects are alluded to through the sexual impotence of Jake and his war wound, and the behavior of the other characters, whom Carlos Baker described as 'floundering in an emulsion of ennui and alcohol.' " The characters are bored, restless, and jaded, and usually resort to abusing alcohol or sexual promiscuisty in order to alleviate these pains of existence. Eventually, however, they decide to go abroad - to Spain. They do this in hopes of finding some comfort; Jake hopes to escape Brett, for a while, and all of them hope to escape their ennui and the emptiness of lives without meaning. Of course, Spain and travel cannot fix them because they are still them, with the same perspectives, personalities, injuries and histories. They do not really escape anything, in the end, except perhaps Jake.

Travel may offer a short-term means of "escape," but it cannot and should not be depended on for much more, in that respect; there isn't really such a thing as a true "fresh start", no matter how far away you go looking for it.