English 015 - Americans Abroad
Love Handles
Love Handles
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Zac Milner
To avoid “falling off at the next bump,” (p. 101) Kit holds on to other people. As the narrator says on page 45, “other people rule [Kit’s] life…she allowed them to do it only because her superstitious fancy had invested them with magical importance regarding her own destiny, and never because their personalities awoke any profound sympathy or understanding in her.” This reliance on other people to save her from omens makes Kit an outsider: her life is spent trying to avoid disaster instead of seeking pleasure. Like Laura in “Flowering Judas,” Kit has “encased herself in a set of principles,” (Porter, p. 142) which prevents her from entering life.
Once Port has died, Kit makes a conscious decision that “instead of feeling the omens, she would now make them, be them herself” (p. 268). After Port’s death, Kit still relies on others; however, it is not due to a fear of omens. The narrator tells us that Kit “lived now solely for those few fiery hours spent each day beside Belqassim,” (p. 284) not out of superstition, but rather because Belqassim does indeed awaken a “profound understanding” in her. When Port dies, Kit fears “timelessness,” (p. 237) which is essentially lifelessness, but with Belqassim she becomes completely aware of time and, for the few hours that she is with him, “gets all the way into life” (p. 101).
Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:45 AM