The Foreign and the Lonely: National Cultural Identity in Christopher Isherwood’s Down There on a Visit

Abstract

Either in the theoretical philosophical dimension of ontological and existential reflections or at the more empirical practical level of social, psychological, cultural problematics, the phenomenon of loneliness commands the attention of scholars from various domains, one of the most prominent fields of research being identity studies. This article deals with the specifics of the functioning of national cultural identity in the discourse of loneliness, typical of Christopher Isherwood's fiction. The object of the research is his 1962 novel "Down There on a Visit". With the help of a complex methodology which comprises elements of hermeneutic analysis, biographical method, close reading, and basic notions of identity studies, the representations of national cultural identity, its dynamics and transformations are examined within the problematic field of loneliness in the text. Terminological and phenomenological underpinnings of the concept of national cultural identity are established. The biographically determined aspects of the poetics and architectonics of the novel are traced based on diary and memoir sources. This involves an interpretation of the title that allows reading loneliness as the central concept of the author's intent, implemented at different levels of the text. A characterisation is made of the narrator-protagonist as well as four "antiheroes" who embody various worldviews and represent multiple modi of nationally and culturally conditioned loneliness: travellers, foreigners, refugees, etc. There are identified key ideas and themes, which allow for the actualisation of the national cultural aspect of the discourse of loneliness, are identified. Among them is the motif of journey, which is conceptualised into a metaphor of existential quest, self-reflection, self-discovery, identity formation and transformations. A special meaning is also ascribed to the concept of home, which encompasses the paradigms of societal alienation, flight to foreign lands, loss of roots as well as the closely related theme of migration with its motifs of seeking asylum, crossing and fluidity of borders, transitivity, etc.