Summary of the Book Exit into History by Eva Hoffman - Essay Example

An exploration into the world revealed in Eva Hoffman’s Exit Into History: A Journey Through the New Eastern Europe Introduction Eva Hoffman’s fiction novel Exit into History is a personal journey through five Eastern European countries as they emerge from under the cloak of the Iron Curtain. Through her conversations with numerous people in all these countries, some of the main theories in sociology and psychology regarding human relationships in terms of culture become clear. From the individual point of view, one can see R. Michael Paige’s theories regarding prior cultural experience, the threat to cultural identity and the risk of self-awareness at work within the author herself while the theories presented by Leung and Bond in 1984 regarding cultural norms, communal norms and equity norms can be followed through the actions of the individuals Hoffman meets. In addition, the theories of Brown and Levinson presented in 1978 regarding saving face, losing face and face-threatening acts becomes clear as each group of people deals with the effects of the fall of communism within their own countries. Throughout Exit into History, one can trace evidence supporting the theories of R. Michael Paige, Leung and Bond and Brown and Levinson regarding culture and the individual’s response to it as well as obtain a broad idea of how the fall of communism affected the five Eastern European countries through which the author traveled. R. Michael Paige and Eva Hoffman The book begins with Hoffman’s first trip back to Poland in several years. Although she’s visited Warsaw in recent memory, her biggest cultural experience here was a happy childhood spent in what she remembers as the romantic streets of Cracow. “Poland … stayed arrested in my imagination as a land of childhood sensuality, lyricism, vividness, and human warmth” (Hoffman, 1993, ix). Her shock at meeting with what she calls the “grayness” of the city is due in part to her absence from the country as well as her experiences outside of it. As she says, “I’m looking at it with different antennae, without the protective filters of the system, which was the justification, the explanation for so much: even for the gray” (4). Although she adapts to this new view of her homeland, Hoffman is also confronted on the grounds of her faith by individuals with little understanding or knowledge of the history of Judaism within their own countries. Merely riding in a taxicab to a new destination, she is confronted with the idea that many people within Poland still believe Jewish people to be of a very base nature. “I heard they were very stingy, it was terrible to work for them. And they didn’t like to help their own, either” (98). This struggle with identity can also be seen in the people Hoffman meets during her travels. While the people in Czechoslavakia worked to subsume their individuality during the Communist years, and the people of Poland developed a complete underground system to maintain their identities, Hoffman describes the people of Hungary as going through a “schizophrenia” in which they are re-evaluating themselves in an environment where everyone is now responsible for their own actions. Leung & Bond and normalcy For each country visited, Hoffman encountered a society reinventing itself, picking up the pieces of where they left off when they were interrupted in their progress by the Communist influence. Through these actions, one can begin to see how the citizenry has dealt with the sudden shifts in expected norms. In Czechoslovakia, she encounters people who continue to carry on the practices of the old regime just because they aren’t sure of how to proceed on their own. “’They’ haven’t given up an inch of their real power, and They are waiting for Their moment” (140) is the general cultural sense Hoffman reports out of that country that saw a brutal and terrifying enforcement of the socialist ideals. Romania is described in even worse condition, its inhabitants only recently embracing the idea of being able to invite foreigners into their homes and still accepting of the secret police in their daily lives (268) while “Bulgaria is the only country in the bloc in which the Communists … won a majority of votes in the recent free elections” (347). Both are so caught up in the cultural norms that were forced upon them that they have had difficulty overcoming the fear-based belief systems and rediscovering their own ideals. By contrast, progress in Hungary was seen to have moved forward at an alarming rate as the author remembered visiting the city 20 years previously to find people who walked with a sense of burden who now are seen as almost Westernized (191). Brown & Levinson and the fall of Communism Everywhere she went, Hoffman encountered people struggling with their own identities, trying to find something to be proud of in a world left behind by progress for too long. For Zdenek Sofar, saving face meant purchasing his own restaurant so he would never have to feel so “small” in spite of his competence to carry out his profession (171). A taxi driver in Hungary describes the same desire for “no big boss” (213) when describing his reasons to Hoffman for leaving his prior job at the Postal Planning Institute. Romania, however, presents a completely different story right from the beginning. “The moment we find ourselves on the Romanian side, our passengers begin apologizing. They apologize for the road, the landscape, the poverty” (264). In a unique way of protecting the face, businessmen in Bulgaria tell Hoffman that the best way to avoid suspicion in the new age is to demand payment. “… paradoxical though it may seem, money has become a guarantee of moral neutrality in the new Bulgaria. Money is somehow American and anti-Communist; and a financial transaction is different from the Communist ways of exercising influence, which were personal and whispered behind the arras” (353). Conclusion Although Exit into History could easily be described as a travelogue, Hoffman has imbued its pages with something more than just a virtual tour through the countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Through her discussions with a variety of individuals representing the intelligentsia as well as the common man, Hoffman has presented a unique look at these individual cultures in a time of great transition and tribulations. She describes her own interest in culture as a natural by-product of her own individual experiences as an immigrant at the age of 13. “I think every immigrant becomes a kind of amateur anthropologist—you do notice things about the culture or the world that you come into that people who grow up in it, who are very embedded in it, simply dont notice. I think we all know it from going to a foreign place. And at first you notice the surface things, the surface differences. And gradually you start noticing the deeper differences. And very gradually you start with understanding the inner life of the culture, the life of those both large and very intimate values. It was a surprisingly long process is what I can say” (Birnbaum, 2005). References Birnbaum, Richard. “Interview: Eva Hoffman.” (February 14, 2005). Identity Theory. Retrieved November 28, 2005 from http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum157.php. Hoffman, Eva. (1993). Exit into History. New York: Penguin Books. Read More