55 pages • 1 hour read
The Expats
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Symbols & Motifs
Names
Fake names and chosen names are a recurring motif for secrets and lies in The Expats. Most prominently, Kate discovers that Julia Maclean is a name meant to conceal Julia’s purpose in investigating Kate’s husband, Dexter. Once Kate discovers that Julia is not her real name, every detail she has given about her background becomes part of a cover story. The name provides a second layer of concealment, however, when Kate realizes that Julia’s real name, Susan Pognowski, ties her to Dexter through their friendship in college.
This motif is deployed more subtly when Kate moves to Luxembourg and chooses to call herself “Kate” instead of “Kat” or “Katherine.” This change suits her reinvention, burying the past in which she had worked as an agent for the CIA, along with all the sins she had committed in the line of duty. By distancing herself from where she used to work and who she used to be, she believes that she can absolve herself of all the things that continue to haunt her, such as killing the innocent wife of Eduardo Torres. However, Dexter regularly calls her “Kat,” even though she reminds him that she no longer wants to go by that name. Since her past is a secret for most of the novel, this highlights The Emotional Costs of Secrecy in a Marriage, revealing the inevitable barrier between Kate and Dexter that results from Kate withholding the truth. It is a compelling reminder that Kate can never truly escape her past while also hinting at her desire to return to work. Thus, this motif also points to The Search for a Post-Career Identity, as well as the challenges that follow an individual in that pursuit.
Travel
Traveling to exotic and beautiful locations around the world is a staple of the spy thriller genre. However, Pavone deploys it in The Expats as a motif for the borders of privacy that Kate tries to establish around her family. To begin with, the Moores migrate from the US to Luxembourg. This allows Kate to live at both a literal and metaphorical distance from her old life as an intelligence agent, concealing the secrets that have been haunting her conscience ever since. That distance allows Kate to realize how empty her life feels without work. She starts to shorten the gap between her family life and her work life by remaining vigilant about the things that feel suspicious around her.
When Kate’s husband, Dexter, begins traveling on his own for work, her suspicion is increased. She cannot reconcile the distance he keeps placing between himself and his family with her lack of knowledge about his job. It is in this way that the borders of privacy and intimacy are continually breached, forcing Kate to deploy extraordinary measures—such as infiltrating his office—to restore them.
Dexter makes the effort, however, to support the reconstruction of these borders by committing to family trips. Dexter even obliges Kate’s choice of destination, including when she asks to change their Christmas plans at the last minute so that she can surreptitiously meet with Hayden’s contact. But when they bump into Bill and Julia Maclean several times throughout their travels, it becomes clear to Kate that the Macleans are monitoring the Moores. Kate becomes increasingly suspicious of their motives because she wants to protect her family. After Kate and Dexter manage to throw Bill and Julia off on their investigation, they resolve to move once again, putting more distance between themselves and their past lives.
Luggage
Several times throughout the text, Pavone calls attention to the 10-piece set of matching luggage that Kate acquired for the Moores’ relocation to Luxembourg. The luggage first appears in Chapter 10 when Kate realizes that the bags represent a new persona she has naturally adopted throughout her expatriate life. The author points to the symbolic nature of the luggage sets, which represent Kate’s role as a domestic housewife and the caretaker of her family. In the scene where the luggage set is first mentioned, she packs not only her children’s belongings, but Dexter’s as well. She does this out of convenience, anticipating that the family will soon need to leave Paris to escape Bill and Julia. However, the act also allows her to confront who she has become outside of work.
When Kate bumps into another expatriate mother named Carolina at the beginning of Part 3, she imagines that Carolina also has her own set of matching luggage. From there, Kate recalls all their points of intersection in the city, recognizing that they only ever meet when trying to fill their empty hours or shopping for things that their respective families need. This contributes to The Gender Dynamics of Expatriate Families, as Kate fulfills the traditional role of the housewife by taking care of her family.
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