An Ecocritical Reading of Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky

Hossein Sheikhzadeh,Abdolghafour Bejarzehi

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.5p.232

Abstract

Landscapes are not simply something objective and unchallenged out there but the work of the mind made by the strata of memory. This paper attempts to show that an ecocritical reading of Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky (1949) helps one in better understanding of this novel of post-colonial alienation and existential despair. Bowles is an American writer and a composer who is undoubtedly the most arresting example of cross-cultural influence concerning a Western author and the Middle East and North Africa. His fiction mostly focuses on American expatriates travelling in exotic locations. The Sheltering Sky is an encounter with the Sahara, not only the physical one but the desert of moral nihilism into which one may wander blindly. The boundless desert acts here as a metaphor and the journey symbolizes one’s own journey into the depth of his/her soul. The desert also projects an apocalyptic vision in the struggle between the West and the East and the Sahara becomes in fact a Conradian Heart of Darkness, an Eliotian Waste Land, and a Sartrean No Exit. In the novel the actual environment becomes in some ways pale and covert under the psyche of the writer. Consequently we come to know that Bowles's own knowledge and awareness of the same environments left traces in his work. Accordingly we may wrap up that the environment bears a direct impact on our understanding of it.

Highlights

Literary Ecology and Paul BowlesLiterary ecology – as emerged in 1980s (in the USA) and 1990s (in the UK) – is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment and exploration of the ways that writing both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world (Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996)
Defined, literary ecology – as emerged in 1980s and 1990s – is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment and exploration of the ways that writing both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world (Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996)
Landscapes are not something objective and unchallenged out there but the work of the mind made by the strata of memory

Summary

Literary Ecology and Paul Bowles

Literary ecology – as emerged in 1980s (in the USA) and 1990s (in the UK) – is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment and exploration of the ways that writing both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world (Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996). In this paper we contend that the work of the American writer Paul Bowles can benefit a lot if such an ecocritical reading is applied to His works are, at one level, mainly focused on American expatriates finding themselves unfit in exotic environments and on another level highlight the interaction of natural and cultural surroundings and their impact on human organism – the mind and the body of those individuals. It is the portrayal of three Americans – a couple from New York along with their friend, Tunner – who suddenly and haphazardly – unprepared and unqualified – travel to the North African desert after World War II to resolve their marital problems and monotonous life. Mossner (2013) points out that we should not look at the desert in a simple way but as a metaphor for the psychological status of the characters

Desert as Setting

Major Characters’ Interaction

Conclusion