English 015 - Americans Abroad
Ominous Competition
Ominous Competition
Category: 06B: The Sheltering Sky | Simon Parsons
“He looked a bit worried; he wanted so much to be the only traveler” (58). From the moment the Lyles appear on the scene, they represent conflict for Port and Kit. The impetus behind the conflict is shown by the creepiness of the Lyles, which first takes shape physically, but later through a competitive streak in an ominous personality. Furthermore, these two aspects contradict each other which adds to the conflict: a mundane, non-existing appearance clashes with behavioral traits that struggle to show existence. This contradiction seems threatening to Port and Kit, stemming from a rivalry between travelers.
Initially, the Lyle’s creepiness stems from their appearance: Port describes Eric as “a heavy-looking youth with a formless face which was saved from complete non-existence by an undefined brown beard.” Non-descript, they seem to hover with lack of expression; however, later, Port describes that “the novelty of the caricature was wearing off” (73). Their aggressive personalities were taking shape and it revealed a conflict.
Port ascertains that Eric Lyle is creepy because he appears to be competing for top-traveler status by establishing a past full of suffering which seems to Port, “objectionably pedantic” (59) and fictitious. Lyle claims that five years in Africa had given he and his “mother” “an astonishing list of diseases, and that they still suffered intermittently from most of them.” However, instead of just writing off the Lyle’s as fake, a twisted sense of competition in suffering arises between the two groups. The elaborate and disturbing past of the Lyle’s contradicts with the mosquito bite and indigestion that plagues Port. These stages of suffering are important, as Port asks himself in the beginning of the book “if any American can truthfully accept a definition of life which makes it synonymous with suffering” (23).
The desperate approach to creating a rivalry with Port reveals the creepiness of the Lyles. By describing the past and making outlandish judgments on people and places, they attempt to appear as real and genuine travelers. However, seeing that their real homeland is obscure, they have contracted multiple “diseases,” and they degrade Arabs as a stinking, low race, their striving for a fabricated existence ultimately makes them seem ominous and creepy.
Posted by on November 06, 2003 at 12:40 PM