Travel Essays · Chapter
The Return explained
The narrator and Fanny endure a series of delays and stops as they travel with the Jewish family, Kelmar, Mrs.
What happens
The narrator and Fanny endure a series of delays and stops as they travel with the Jewish family, Kelmar, Mrs. Kelmar, and Abramina, who are engaged in placing ship's kettles with local families. Despite hunger and frustration, the narrator reflects on the kindness and simplicity of the Jews, the tyranny of the village usurer, and the incongruous memories a traveler carries.
Themes in this chapter
Human Connection and Community
The Jewish family's genuine delight in the hospitality and innocent successes of the people they meet, and the narrator's eventual appreciation of their simple joy, highlights the theme of human connection.
Freedom vs. Confinement
The narrator and Fanny are trapped by endless delays and the whims of Kelmar, contrasting their desire for freedom with the confining nature of the business transaction.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Kelmar
The Hebrew tyrant and village usurer who orchestrates the placement of ship's kettles, smiling throughout the delays.
- Abramina
A simple, natural, and engaging Jewish woman who endears herself with her story of swearing an oath for passage money.
- Fanny
Traveling companion who, like the narrator, grows pale and silent from hunger and delay.
- Mr. Corwin
Corwin the bold, who falls in the bar as Kelmar triumphs and the last kettle changes hands.
Key passages
“There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and now and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth.”
The foreignness is not in the place but in the traveler, whose memories suddenly highlight the differences between home and abroad.
Reflection on the nature of travel and memory.
“The whole game of business is beggar my neighbour; and though perhaps that game looks uglier when played at such close quarters and on so small a scale, it is none the more intrinsically inhumane for that.”
Business is a competitive game where one profits at another's expense, and while it may seem worse on a small scale, it is not inherently more cruel.
Narrator's moral reflection on the village usurer versus the millionaire manufacturer.