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Dialogues@RU is published annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume One
Spring 2002
The Voice
of Melancholy in Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation -
Page 1
by Joanna H. Martinez
The condition of exile from one's native land is often endowed with many emotions. Eva Hoffman in her autobiography Lost in Translation describes a full range of them. She begins her story with a nostalgic look at the past in Poland, continues through the pain of exile to Canada, and closes with the affirmation of her new home: the United States. In describing her assimilation to the American culture and translating her past experiences into a foreign language, she uses a voice of melancholy. It is a special kind of melancholy, however, the kind Danuta Zadworna Fjellestad in her essay "The Insertion of the Self into the Space of Borderless Possibility: Eva Hoffman's Exiled Body", would say is characteristic of those raised in the Communist regime of Eastern and Central Europe (2). It is also a language characteristic of the cosmopolitan citizen of the modern world, whose condition Eva Hoffman describes in "The New Nomads", a retrospective essay, in which she takes a critical look at her own autobiography. Yearning for the safe haven of childhood and the distance from the past create a certain style of narrative. The moodiness of melancholic dejection and the nostalgia for the childhood are only two of its prevailing characteristics. There is also the profound idealization of the past and the fantasy of Paradise, or some 'promised land', as well as the constant observation of an alien culture from a marginal position. The exiled person stands insignificant and unimportant in the New World, and that is the point from which the autobiography of an émigré is often written. That is also the reason why such an autobiography often turns into a cultural or political critique, and accordingly bears some similarities to the American feminist writings, as discussed by Rita Felski in "On Confession" and Susan Stanford Friedman in "Woman's Autobiographical Selves: theory and Practice". Hence, the voice of melancholy in Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation is much more than a testimony of the romantic, and often fatalistic, nature of the Eastern European culture. This melancholy is intensified in exile by the feeling of marginality followed by the inevitable process of idealization of the native culture and an attempt to intellectualize the inner suffering. In Hoffman's case the idealization of the Polish culture is most evident in her silence about her Jewishness.
It is hard, however, to classify Hoffman's autobiography solely as a feminist writing. In many aspects, discussed in detail by Felski and Friedman, Lost in Translation is not at all 'feminist'. Especially in contrast to Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior Hoffman's autobiography is much more of an intellectual memoir. In so far as the contents of the two books are concerned, Kingston's story is concentrated on the 'feminist issues', especially her stormy relationship with her mother and other women in her community; Hoffman hardly speaks about her mother and sister. While Kingston describes in detail her attempts to free herself from the stereotypes of what a woman in a Chinese culture is supposed to be like, Hoffman has no such troubles. Even as a teenager she seems quite happy with the person that she is, and the women she knows certainly reinforce her self-esteem, rather than diminish it. But, apart from the 'feminist' issues, there is another very important contrast between the two stories. The cultural perspectives, from which the two women write, are very different. To Kingston the American exile is a chance of a lifetime. It is a chance to lead a life different from that of her mother's. Maxine embraces the American culture as superior to her own, and seek a refuge in it. For Hoffman the Canadian exile is a source of intellectual pain and disappointment, and her new American home a source of confusion. Consequently, the way each of the women ends her story is also a contrast. While Maxine finally comes to terms with the Chinese culture, embraces it and finds strength in it, Eva finally accepts the American culture, and stops insisting on the superiority of the Polish culture.
The desire to intellectualize the suffering Eva Hoffman experiences in exile becomes a great motive for writing. According to her, it is the ultimate fate of an immigrant to become some kind of a critic: "'Where did you learn how to be a critic?' an editor of magazine for which I've written an article has asked me […]. 'At Harvard, I guess,' I answered. 'No,' he said, 'there's something else.' 'I suppose it's that I'm an immigrant,' I said. 'Ah yes,' he said. 'That must be it.'" (Lost in Translation 226-227). The experience of dislocation as well as the feeling of loss and alienation gives the immigrant a certain perspective on the past, the present and the future. The past becomes idealized, the present is constantly scrutinized and the future poses no guarantees. Consequently, many immigrants have the overwhelming need for putting all of those conflicting emotions in writing, although they hardly ever act upon those feelings. There is not only the "impulse to memorialize" (The New Nomads 51) one's past, but there also is the overpowering need to record one's discoveries of the new understanding of the world one acquires in exile. There is always a point in the immigrant experience where certain naïve innocence of the intellect is lost. An immigrant has to face the fact that the culture of the homeland is one of many, and that there is no such a thing as the right interpretation of the multiplicity of feelings and emotions that exile brings. The reality of an émigré becomes shockingly relative:
For to have a deep experience of two cultures is to know that no culture is absolute -- it is to discover that even the most interstitial and seemingly natural aspects of our identities and social reality are constructed rather than given and that they could be arranged, shaped, articulated in quite another way (The New 51).
Hence, the perspective that the condition of exile offers is a double-edged sword. On one hand one gains a great appreciation for one's native culture, and on the other hand the new awareness of the relativity of truth, or rather the conspicuous nonexistence of ultimate truth, becomes a hard burden to carry.