For Esmé With Love And Squalor Summary

Sergeant X in “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” is in England, about to go to war. He attended a three-week training course before being shipped off into the war. On his last day before being sent off to war, he decides to head into town. He stops at the church to watch the choir practice, which is where he first sees Esmé. He then goes to a tearoom and has tea.

He looks through is pocket and finds some old letters from his wife and from his mother-in-law. Sergeant X is about to go off to war. Going off into war means that he is potentially facing death. It’s a scary thing to think about and he wants emotional support. However, he is not getting that from his family. His wife writes to him about the quality of restaurant and how it’s gone down. His mother-in-law asks him for some yarn. It seems like neither one of them seem to care that he is about to go to war. They don’t seem to show any concern for him.

He could potentially die and they don’t seem to grasp that idea. That depresses Sergeant X. His family, who he would expect to show sympathy and empathy, are not giving him what he wants. He feels unwanted and lonely.
Esmé, who coincidentally ends up in the same tearoom as him, walks over to him and starts having a conversation with him. “I purely came over because I thought you looked extremely lonely. You have an extremely sensitive face.” (Pg. 95). Esmé is thirteen years old but she understands death and she understands war. She can relate to him and she understands him. Her mother passed away and her dad died in a war in North Africa. She shows Sergeant X sympathy and empathy. She is wearing a wristwatch that is far too big for her wrist. The watch belong to her father and he had given it to her before they were evacuated. She asks if he would like for her to write to him. Aside from feeling scared due to the possibility of death, feeling unwanted and uncared for by his family, he also feels really lonely because he doesn’t know anyone in England. Esmé offering to write to him is an incredibly kind thing for her to do. Esmé tells him that she hopes he returns from the war with all of his faculties intact.
He goes off to war and suffers from a nervous breakdown. He shows signs of Post Traumatic Stress. His hands shake so badly that he is incapable of writing. He can’t even load paper into a typewriter. He has lost some of his sanity. His faculties are not fully intact. He gets a letter from his brother, asking him to get souvenirs. His brother does not show any concern for Sergeant X. He doesn’t ask him how he is doing, if he’s okay or anything like that. This upsets Sergeant X and he gets really angry to the point where he rips apart the letter. He later sees a package and he decides to open it. It is a letter from Esmé. She, unlike his family, does show concern for him. She also sends him her father’s wristwatch for him to hang onto for a while. Due to the war, Sergeant X has lost hope in humanity. He isn’t sure how he could possibly live normally after everything he experienced in the war. However, the kindness shown to him by Esmé gives him hope. “You take a really sleepy man, Esmé, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac- with all of his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact.” (Pg. 114) Esmé shows him love and if love is possible, then maybe life is possible too.

On January 26th, 1992, Jozef Pronek, from “Blind Jozef Pronek & Dead Souls”, has entered the United States of America. He’s a writer who has been invited over to the states. Throughout his stay in America, practically everyone he met told him how wonderful this country is and if he agreed. They always seemed to give off a sense of superiority, like if America was better than his home country, Bosnia, even though they know nothing about Bosnia. Pronek traveled to different states, feeling like an outsider, a foreigner, in all of them.
He goes to Chicago, where he reunites with Andrea, who he had a brief fling with the summer of ’91 in Ukraine. They had been writing letters to each other since then. They were kind of like love letters but not as genuine. The both of them made what they had in Ukraine seem more significant than what it truly was. They both created these fake memories of what had happened between them, or at least they did in their letters. “Having forged a sufficient number of counterfeit memories, she suddenly invited him to Chicago, prompted, perhaps, by a news report about the war in Croatia and “tensions” in Bosnia.” (pg.155). It was a kind gesture on her behalf to invite him to Chicago. Neither of them ever thought that he would actually go and visit her.
She doesn’t mention to Pronek that she has a boyfriend until they are already inside her apartment.

She lies to him and tells him that her boyfriend is aware that he will be staying with them for sometime. Andrea and Pronek end up sleeping together. He’s invested in her and imagines marrying her. “Andrea was his Statue of Liberty, a symbol of emotional freedom, a proof of the possibility that two people can be (Pronek’s italics) for each other, rather than perform love for each other.” (pg.158) Andrea gives Pronek hope. She gives him hope to fulfill his dream of this transcendental love.

Pronek finds he questions what he is doing. He questions what direction his life is going to take him. War is Bosnia is most likely going to happen so going home wasn’t an option. He has no home here in the US and doesn’t really know anyone. Andrea is his only tie to the United States. When her boyfriend shows up in the apartment, Pronek finds himself questioning what he is doing there. He’s lost and feels like he doesn’t belong to anything, or to

anyone.
As time goes by, the war in Bosnia gets progressively worse and it starts to affect Pronek. His friends and family are back home in Bosnia and there is nothing he could do to help them. He starts having thoughts about life and death and the significance of people. He begins to think that if he were to disappear, that no one would notice, that nothing would change. He starts having nightmares and eventually he gets physically ill. Andrea leaves for about 2 weeks while he’s sick, which shows that she doesn’t really care all that much about him. While he was sick, he calls his parents. His dad tells him not to come home while his mother tries to reassure him that things are getting better. He has another nightmare in which he can’t seem to recognize himself. When he sees Andrea, he sees himself as a foreigner. He doesn’t quite belong but at least with her, he has some sense of identity and isn’t completely lost.
He gets a job at a bakery. While working there, he tries to talk to his co-worker, Hemon, about the randomness of life and death, about how easy it is to become someone else. The thought of war slowly but gradually takes over Pronek’s mind and he beings to lose him. He isn’t able to see the point in superficial things when he knows that people back home are dying left and right. When he finds out that his parents are on the list for a convoy to leave the city, it hits him that his parents can die. Not just his parents but that anyone in any given moment in time could die. He realizes that everyone at some point will die and that it is something that is out of your control. It really freaks him out.
The war and death consume his every thought to the point where he isn’t functioning properly. He starts suffering from depression, anxiety and just starts to break down. Andrea’s parents wanted to sell the apartment so he had to move out. Andrea’s mom was able to get him a job in a housecleaning agency and that job helps take his mind off of the war. He would completely lose himself in his work and forget about everything else.
Three years later, he returns to Bosnia, after the war is over, and finds that everything is different. A lot of things are destroyed or in bad condition. Many of the people he knew were dead. His dad was shot with a sniper, has 2 scars on his cheeks and he now has a lisp. His dad is also too afraid to go out and wander in the streets of Bosnia. He can’t shake away the sensation that he is being watched. He can’t stay in Bosnia and the only other place he can go back to is Chicago, even though he doesn’t want to.

Sergeant X and Pronek both have to deal with the fact and possibility of death. They both, to a certain extent, lose themselves. They both have difficulties seeing how one could possibly continue to live a normal life and carry out normal everyday activities when a war is happening and people are dying. Sergeant X doesn’t want to listen to the radio and Pronek gets upset in the bakery when a customer complains about the type of lettuce he was given. “Romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, what’s the difference?” (Pg. 186 from Blind Jozef Pronek & Dead Souls) These ordinary things seem pointless to them.
Sergeant X faces death more directly than Pronek. Sergeant X was actually in the war and he himself could have died. Sergeant X watched how the people around him died. He experienced first hand the cruelty that humans are capable of producing and he loses hope in humanity. Pronek isn’t directly involved with the war. His friends and family in Bosnia are the ones who are directly involved with the war. Pronek didn’t have people dying right in front of him but he did see a lot of coverage about it on the news.
Esmé and Andrea play similar roles in that they both provide some sense of hope to Sergeant X and Pronek. Esmé provides Sergeant X love, kindness, compassion and generosity. “Charles and I are both quite concerned about you…” (Pg. 113 from For Esmé – with Love and Squalor) Esmé provides him with hope that he can get better and carry out a normal life. Andrea provides Pronek with something similar. Andrea gives him a sense of something real that could happen between them. She provides him with some emotional support, empathy and love. That gives him hope.
Sergeant X’s family affects him differently than Pronek’s family affects him. Sergeant X’s family doesn’t show him any compassion or care. They don’t provide him with any comfort or support. This depresses and upsets Sergeant X. Pronek’s family is at risk of potentially dying and it deeply affects Pronek. He realizes that anyone can die at any given moment in time. A similarity that these two families share that affect Sergeant X and Pronek is that they both made them feel all alone. Sergeant X’s family doesn’t show him any concern, which makes him feel lonely and abandoned. Pronek is in the US while his family and friends are in Bosnia. He has no one, aside from Andrea. He’s lonely and feels out of place.