Conclusion

This chapter provides a résumé of the main points discussed in the preceding chapters. Its most important conclusion is that while French attitudes have changed toward Americans due to a variety of historical and cultural factors, the American attitude toward the French is not very much different from what was first presented in Chapter I.

The Splendor and Misery of the American Scientist

A depiction by a conservative French writer, Villiers de l’Ilse-Adam, of the French fascination with and fear of growing American political and scientific power. Although set in the United States and with no French characters, this is a prescient reflection on the burgeoning American hegemony, as perceived by the French.

Introduction

The Introduction explains that this study will focus on close readings of selected French and German novels to indicate the evolution and devolution of Franco-American images of each other. Roland Barthes’s theory of modern myth will be used in some chapters, but not in all. For each chapter historical and cultural background is provided.

L’Américaine in Paris

The discussion shows how Diane Johnson’s novel, Le Divorce, is a rewriting of James’ The American. In this version the hero becomes the heroine, yet many of the dichotomies between the French and the Americans are maintained. EuroDisney, the symbol of American popular culture in France is paralleled by the quartier Saint-Germain-Des-Prés which has become a more highbrow French theme park, vaunting the glories of post-war French culture in the midst of upscale boutiques offering luxury items to wealthy American tourists. This is the only time in the novels discussed that an American makes a sustained effort to integrate herself into French society.

Rerouting

This chapter discusses a major shift in French novelists’ attitudes toward the United States. While the social critique remains very much in place, there is a new willingness to explore the American individual, famous, infamous, or ordinary, and to leave conclusions to the reader. The chapter offers a variety of changes in French and American society as explanations of this new phenomenon. The concluding portions of the chapter focus on one text, Ça n’existe pas l’Amérique, which illustrates many of these changes.

An American Excursion into French Fiction

This chapter addresses the widespread claim that Paul Auster is the most French of American novelists by demonstrating various ways in which he has borrowed from French literary and cultural practices. This is one of the first detailed attempts to give intellectual substance to the claim that Auster is really quite different from his American counterparts because of the strong Gallic influence on his work.

The Expatriate Idyll

A critique of American expatriates, mostly veterans of World War I, who turn Europe into a vast American playground. The alleged justification of their behaviour is their traumatic experiences of the Great War which has been over for ten years at the start of the novel. Robert Cohn’s character contrasts with that of his fellow expatriates and sheds light on their affections and sterility. He also represents the condition of post-war literature, severely tried by the realities of the war, but slowly re-establishing its strength and ability to comment meaningfully on the contemporary world.

The Creation of the American in Paris

Henry James’ The American, influenced by de Tocqueville’s studies of American democracy, creates a paradigm of Franco-American images of each other which will persist, with variations and reversals, until almost the end of the Cold War. Simply put, the French see the Americans as wealthy, yet culturally naïve, while the Americans see the French as highly cultivated but duplicitous. The United States is the present and the future, while France is the past.

Embracing American Culture

Cherokee presents a major reorientation of French thinking about the massive influx of American products and culture in the aftermath of World War II. Although a large-scale fear of how these elements would threaten the French Way of Life remained prevalent, the novel maintains that French culture is strong enough not only to absorb these influences, but to rebrand and integrate them into mainstream French culture.

Truths and Delusions

This novel chronicles French intellectuals’ initial elation at the end of the Occupation and then their rapid disillusionment at the lack of meaningful change after the war. It also addresses their fears that their importance is flagging in the post war era. The love affair between Anne (French) and Lewis (American) brings into focus the complex, often conflicted relation between France and the United States during the post-war, Cold War era.