ABSTRACT
The transition from family to home and homeland is direct and unquestionable for Nolan. These three elements that are missing to him while in exile come to signify the perfect blending of communal ties (family and country) and territorial belonging (home and homeland). It is only natural, then, that Nolan effects the ultimate transition from those three elements to absolute, innite generosity: “forget you have a self, while you do everything for them” (34). Presumably in contrast to the ravages of the Civil War, Nolan recreates the image of a perfect civic society, held together by ties
of family, home and country, a triad that facilitates the fulllment of personal responsibility within the national community. Such completion and closure is best represented, at the end of the story, with Nolan already on his deathbed, when he persuades Danforth, a young ofcer, to name the new states that had been incorporated into the country. Using “a great map of the United States” (42) that Nolan has carried with him throughout his exile, he gets Danforth to delineate the reshaped contours of the USA for him, including the western coastline where Nolan’s map has hitherto been blank. The young ofcer reminisces: “I told him the names [of the states] in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil” (44). The map, though dated and incomplete insomuch as Nolan “had drawn it from memory” (42), was a testimony of his unremitting love for his country. The nal act of completing the map, with the addition of several new states, is more than a representation of geographical completion. It also represents the reciprocal completion of the character himself, who nally acquires an identity as the ideal American, as he himself proclaims: “there is not in America-God bless her!—a more loyal man than I” (43). As Danforth completes the map before his eyes, Nolan nally manages, though on his deathbed, to become one with the country in a perfect image of patriotism and belonging.
