Gender and emotion in exile: Evelyn Scott's brazilian experience

Abstract

In late 1913, the American writer Evelyn Scott eloped with Cyril Kay-Scott, a well-known physician who was, then, married, father of four, and more than twice her senior. Without passports, taking with them very little money, the couple fled first from New Orleans to New York, then to London, finally to Brazil, where they eventually faced poverty, starvation, and almost complete isolation in the backlands of Bahia. Using concepts derived from Critical Discourse Analysis, Anthropology of Emotions, Gender Studies, and Exile Studies, this work aims to examine issues of gender and emotion in Evelyn Scott’s autobiographical account of her Brazilian self-imposed exile which extended from 1914 to 1919. The analysis is based on her autobiography Escapade (1923) and on part of Cyril Kay-Scott’s Life is too short (1943). Results indicate that, although the couple suffered a great deal in exile, the experience proved to be particularly painful for Evelyn Scott, who did not speak a word of Portuguese. Besides, she was pregnant and had to go through a difficult childbirth in the outskirts of the city of Natal. The entire context contributed to make gender and emotion crucial aspects for Evelyn Scott’s experience both as a woman and as a writer.