Exile and Displacement

Where it surfaces

• Author's Note

  The author explicitly compares the exiled Jews of Tobit's day to White Russian refugees, emphasizing rootlessness, loss of political standing, and the struggle to survive in a foreign land.

• The Faraway Bride

  Seryozha's journey to Seoul and Anna's abandonment highlight the physical and emotional displacement experienced by the characters.

• I

  The Russian characters are far from home, burying fellow exiles in a foreign land; Old Sergei imagines the dead men's children 'picking flowers in the darling forests of Russia.'

• III

  The family's precarious existence in a foreign land, marked by poverty, reliance on missionary charity, and the son's dangerous journey to Seoul, underscores their displacement and loss of homeland.

• V

  The Malinins' poverty and reliance on a debt in Seoul highlight their precarious existence as Russian exiles in China.

• X

  The Ostapenkos' reliance on a foreign legal ceremony in the absence of Russian religious rites underscores their status as exiles adapting to new circumstances.

• I

  Tobit is led captive from his homeland to Nineveh, living among Gentiles while striving to maintain his faith.

• IV

  Tobit's concern for marrying within the tribe and preserving the faith underscores the challenges of maintaining identity in a foreign land.

• XIII

  Tobit speaks of being scattered among the Gentiles and praises God in the land of his captivity.

• XIV

  Tobit instructs Tobias to leave Nineve and go to Media, anticipating the scattering of Israel and the desolation of Jerusalem.