In Out of Africa Baroness Blixen's farm works as a home not only to herself and her husband (although he never seems to be around), but also the "squatters", servants, animals, and traveling friends who blow in and out of the farm.
It's kind of a study of how to build a home away from home; the Baroness is an immigrant in British East Africa, and most of the other characters are transplants, too, but the farm becomes their home base, keeping them safe from the wild world. That is, until it doesn't: losing her home is the great tragedy of the Baroness' life.
Questions About The Home
- What does the narrator mean when she says that her friends viewed her home as a communist establishment?
- When the narrator sells the farm, a few of her friends die right around the same time. What does this tell you Blixen's feelings regarding the loss of her home?
- Where do you think that the Baroness considers her home to be after she has left Africa?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The farm is a home to so many immigrants because it is full of the comforts of Europe.
The farm represents the loss of home for all of the squatters who live on the land.