A Backward Glance over Travelled Roads

Edith Wharton and Expatriation

Abstract

Known mainly for her portrayal of Old New York, Edith Wharton was an exile writing from the margin, an expatriate writer whose imagination was shaped by traveling and living in Europe. Expatriation not only gave her a better perspective on American society, but provided her with the artistic and professional stimuli she needed to become a writer. Cultural differences interplay throughout her work, which includes travel writing and novels featuring Europe, expatriates, and visions of America through the expatriate eye. This essay explores the complexities of expatriation both at the biographical and the literary level, in an attempt to trace Wharton's subtle variations on the theme and her articulation of a personal mythology.