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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 5
by Joanna H. Martinez
The motif of Paradise is often used to picture idealistic or simply unattainable, utopian conditions. The use of this biblical symbol is often telling of the direction in which the narrative is moving, because for some it may be Paradise to be gained (Maxine Hong Kingston), and for some, like Eva Hoffman, it may be Paradise that was lost. While Hoffman's autobiography is an attempt to idealize her native country, Kingston's story, at least initially, idealizes the American culture. While Hoffman stubbornly insists on the superiority of her native culture and thinks of Poland as the lost Paradise, Kingston tries to distance herself from the Chinese culture and thinks of America as the Paradise to be gained. The stories of both of those women, however, imply that some sacrifices must be made or some suffering indured before the painful feelings of distance from the 'Promised Land' could be alleviated. There is a paradox in the very nature of the immigrant experience, however, which brings serious doubts whether such a Paradise on Earth exists, for it appears that it is a figment of the immigrant imagination, or better yet, a part of human nature. It is often the complaint of those who have several homes, and live in several lands, that their happiness lays always in the place which they just left, or to which they going, but never where they are at the moment. To find happiness in the present is the great challenge not only for an émigré but also for those who travel only in their imagination. According to Hoffman's own reflections on exile "it may often be easier to live in exile with the fantasy of paradise than to suffer the inevitable ambiguities and compromises of cultivating actual earthly places" (The New 63). Thus, Hoffman's story speaks not only about the peculiar condition of immigration but also about more general human condition: that of the struggle for the ability to fully and happily live in the moment and in the place, into which God or the fortune randomly throws each human being.
Works Cited
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