"The Man Without a Country" is an 1863 short story by Edward Everett Hale.
Once School Study Media, now largely forgotten, it tells the story of an unfortunate army officer, Lt. Phillip Nolan. In 1805 Nolan is a bored, frustrated officer at a remote fort on the Ohio River in what is now southern Illinois. He meets former Vice President Aaron Burr, who has cooked up some cockeyed scheme to create a new country out of the recently acquired American lands west of the Mississippi River. (This, or something like this, really happened.). Nolan eagerly joins, hopeful for glory and fame. However, the Burr conspiracy is exposed and those who participated in it, including Nolan, are brought to trial. At his court martial, Nolan is incautious enough to say "D__n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!"
That's exactly what happens. The judge at the court martial sentences Lt. Nolan to never hear the name of the United States again. He is sentenced to life imprisonment at sea aboard United States Navy vessels. He is not allowed to see the United States again (he is transferred from ship to ship before the ship he's on reaches home port). He is never allowed to set foot on dry land anywhere, lest he hear from a third party about the United States. He is not allowed to read any book that mentions the United States, and the newspapers and magazines he is allowed to read aboard ship are censored, with all mentions of the United States cut out. No one on the various ships where Nolan is imprisoned is allowed to even mention the United States of America.
This punishment lasts for fifty-eight years.
"The Man Without a Country" has been adapted for the screen several times, including a 1917 short film, a 1937 short film, and a 1973 TV movie.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Delivered with all the grace and finesse of a sledgehammer. Love your country, dammit, or you'll regret it. Hale wrote his story in 1863 when The American Civil War was still raging, and the narrator states directly that there are Confederate officers who will become exiles just like Nolan did.note
- Ambition Is Evil: Well, it certainly bit Nolan in the butt.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Nolan wishes to never see or hear of the United States again, and he gets just that, in the form of a particularly pitiless punishment.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Nolan initially scoffs at his Be Careful What You Wish For punishment, but it becomes a cruel lifelong torture, as he spends fifty-eight years at sea, never laying eyes on or hearing about the United States.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator: The narrator of the story is an unnamed naval officer who served aboard a ship with Nolan for several years. While the narrator knew Nolan personally, much of the rest of the story is only half-verified gossip and legend. For example, the narrator is not sure whether the Navy actively decided to imprison Nolan at sea for life, or if they simply forgot about him.
- Flying Dutchman: A particularly cruel variant. Because of one ill-considered remark at his trial, Nolan is given a life sentence to be imprisoned at sea.
- Patriot in Exile: Nolan is arrested for treason. During his trial, he rashly states that he wishes never to hear of the United States again. The judge grants his wish, sentencing him to a lifetime on ships bound away from the US and never within visual distance of the shore, and no one is ever to tell him anything about the US for the past 50 years. The man eventually regrets his rash outburst and warns others not to make his mistake in rejecting his country.
Eventually, as he is confined to his quarters with his final illness, a visitor does tell him the country's development, but censors current news of the Civil War. It only becomes evident upon the officer's death how much he loved the United States when they discover the little shrine he built in his quarters with a flag, an outdated map, and a cherished book that included a prayer for naval officers to recite about blessing the President. And they find his own epitaph, in which he declares:"In memory of PHILIP NOLAN, Lieutenant in the Army of the United States. He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands." - The Stateless: He is literally "the man without a country."
- Title Drop: Nolan is repeatedly referred to as A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, capital letters and all.
- Unperson: The narrator thinks Nolan may have become this, although he isn't sure if Nolan was deliberately made an un-person or he was simply forgotten.
Tropes unique to the 1937 short film:
- Acquitted Too Late: Pardoned too late. Abraham Lincoln finally agrees to let Nolan come home, but he dies at sea soon after.
- Historical Domain Character: In addition to Burr, U.S. presidents Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Lincoln appear as Marian makes repeated trips to the White House to ask for clemency. Lincoln finally agrees—too late.
- I Will Wait for You: Marian says "I promise to wait for you no matter how long it may be," and she keeps that promise. She works for 56 years to get Nolan a pardon, dying literally the instant after Abraham Lincoln agrees to let Nolan come home.
- Love Interest: The movie adds a love interest in the form of Marian, Nolan's girlfriend who is separated from him when he's convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at sea. She asks president after president to let him off the hook, finally getting Abraham Lincoln to agree, only to die immediately after he agrees, while still sitting in the chair.
- Monochrome to Color: Inverted. The whole film is in Technicolor, except for the last minute, after Nolan dies. That's in black and white.
- Remake Cameo: Holmes Herbert, who played Phillip Nolan in the 1917 film, appeared as Aaron Burr in this version.
