Expatriates

As I read Hemingway, the characters' expatriate status held considerable interest for me, especially since I had recently learned that my own family would soon become expatriates. Bill, Robert, Mike, and Brett portray American stereotypes of post-war expatriates. As Bill so aptly put it, "You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You’re an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés." 

However, Jake distinguishes himself from the regular crowd of expatriates. While the others really do drink themselves to death and become obsessed by sex, Jake seems to disapprove of their lifestyle. He does not appear to identify with the others and does not consider himself American, as we see when he says, "They’re a fine lot," I said. "There’s one American woman down here now that collects bull-fighters." Hemingway uses the American value of hard work to separate Jake from the crowd. He is the one who repeatedly pays the bills when the others can't, and he is the only one in the entire novel whom we see go to work.

I see Jake as Hemingway's tool to criticize expatriate, and therefore his own, life. I feel that Jake is a representation of that bit of Americanness that remains in expatriates, no matter how far away they go. The Americanness is portrayed as better than the "fake European values," a portrayal that closely matches the racist expatriate stereotype. In essence, Hemingway shows that he and his characters are all thoroughly American in the end.