Racist Expatriate? Henry Miller's National Stereotypes in Tropic of Capricorn and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

This paper argues that the antisemitism and racism found in the writing of
Henry Miller relates to personal issues of self-identification. To understand his
prejudices, the impact of New York City on Miller’s perception of nationality and
ethnicity before, during, and after his expatriation from the United States needs to
be studied. Through the application of imagological theories, the textual function of
his stereotypes is explained and placed in a larger, temporal context which reveals
both the writer’s struggle to detach himself from his German-American origins and
his desire to embrace an otherness that he, for instance, finds in France.