Elsewhereness and Social Escape in Bowen, Woolf, and Isherwood Anonymous College

In Elizabeth Bowen’s To the North, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and Christopher Isherwood’s Mr. Norris Changes Trains, the authors invoked elsewhereness through their characters’ needs to be anywhere except home, or Britain. In all three novels, characters relate to other countries as a means to escape their problems and distract themselves from their fears. The characters in each novel understand Britain to be an island in relation to Europe and isolated in the international context. In The Waves, elsewhereness even expresses itself in the imaginary world of Elvedon, an enchanted place where all senses have to be engaged. Elsewhereness and travel allows the characters to escape their true identities, where they do not have to be defined by their problems and social role and rank.

Elizabeth Bowen’s To the North represents travel as a result of fear. Cecila Summer’s constant traveling and inability to settle is indicative of her fear of commitment and her need to run away from the death of her husband and true connections. However, throughout the novel, her traveling and restlessness is leading her towards death. When she is first on the train from Switzerland, she describes her experience at the Swiss border: “As the wait...