ABSTRACT
Deeply embedded in American thought is the idea that happiness is a place. The songs hope for somewhere over the rainbow, somewhere a place for us; but what American literature tells us is that no matter how far Natty Bumppo may move out west, or however hard Huck Finn may try to light out for the territory, there is nowhere. When Newland Archer tells Ellen Olenska (Wharton, 1920, p. 242) that he wants to go with her somewhere where they can be just two people in love, she asks him, ‘Ah, my dearwhere is that country? Have you ever been there?’
