English 015 - Americans Abroad
November 09, 2003 - November 15, 2003
Running Away
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Karen Tang
Kit never manages to "get all the way into life," because she constantly avoids facing her life. “Kit stared at the spurting white flame of the lamp, trying to conquer her powerful desire to run out of the room. It was no longer the familiar fear that she felt—it...
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Posted by ktang on November 13, 2003 at 02:29 PM
The Transformation
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Andrew Plowman
Paul Bowles’s novel The Sheltering Sky has many dianamic points of transformation. His character Kit plays a crucial role in outlining this transformation. Kit, for the first part of the novel, was governed by her fear and terror, which repeatedly held her back, “: the terror was always there...
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Posted by aplowman on November 13, 2003 at 02:25 PM
The Desert
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Kelsey Abbruzzese
After Port’s death, Kit assumes his hope of escaping civilization. She flees to the desert, an empty expanse of sand and sky. Kit delves into desert life, marrying Belqassim and finding her only pleasure in him. “Always she remained inside the windowless room…her mind empty of everything save the memory...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:19 PM
Rebirth
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Meaghan Tanguay
Momentarily after Kit’s recognition of Ports death she feels “the first moments of a new existence, a strange one in which she already glimpsed the element of timelessness that would surround her” (p237). Port’s death lifts a cumbersome burden off of Kit. Kit is released into the desert without Port,...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:16 PM
Actions, Omens and Eyes
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Hope Stockton
The death of Port causes Kit to finally live her life, and not simply “[hang] on to the outside for all [she’s] worth” (Bowles, 101). To begin her changed existence, Kit turns inwards, something that can be seen in her new approach to actions and omens, and also the closing...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:13 PM
A New Birth
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Tom Lakin
After Port’s death, Kit is finally able to get “all the way into life” and live as an active participant in the world around her. Her immersion into active life is sparked by Port’s passing because, upon his death, she cannot merely follow him around any longer, as she has...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:09 PM
kit
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Ben Ledue
Kit lacks the self confidence necessary to go out on her own and pursue her desires. Never is this more true than the relationship between herself and Port. Her fear of being alone is greater than her desire for honesty and truth. She knows Port is out with other women,...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:06 PM
Irrational Fear
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Ross Stern
Kit constantly lives in fear of the unknown; she is a victim to the “omens” that are omni-present in her life. In many situations before Port’s death, Kit’s superstitions prevent her from “[getting] all the way into life” (p.101). More specifically, Kit’s superstitions actually prevent her from living her own...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 02:04 PM
Living
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Thomas Buehrens
With Port as a constant in her life, Kit was always afraid to live, and she had a convenient refuge in hiding under Port. One such example is when Port and Kit are watching the sunset after biking together: “the very silences and emptinesses that touched his soul terrified...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:58 PM
The Sheltering Sky and Mortal Existence
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Diana Heald
In The Sheltering Sky, life and death are inextricably linked. Bowles’s “sheltering sky” refers to the sky Kit can see with her own eyes, which represents mortal existence and behind which is a blackness that is death. In order to reach death, one must “[r]each out, pierce the fine fabric...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:45 PM
Getting All the Way into Life
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Eric Robinson
In The Sheltering Sky, Kit does indeed manage to “get all the way into life” to a significant degree in that she finally overcomes her obsession and inhibiting fear of omens and holds no fears for her future. Before Port’s death, Kit describes how “there were days when from...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:43 PM
Kit's Transformation
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Matt Nickel
Kit does manage “to get all the way into life.” Before the death of Port, Kit showed a “willingness to become whatever he wanted her to become…” (page 100). She merely follows Port around in his search to find an African city untouched by Europe. She does not complain...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:42 PM
Decisions
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Meg Gray
Kit becomes an active participant in life after Port’s death, instead of “hanging on to the outside” (p. 101) like she did before. “Life was suddenly there, she was in it, not looking through a window at it” (p. 246). Kit is transformed; she is no longer afraid. Her new...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:42 PM
A Sound
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Simon Parsons
After Port’s death, Kit finds herself searching for a “further possibility for existence” (268). She feels obligated to barricade off the past, “refusing to examine it,” (267) in order to make a desperate solo attempt to “get all the way into life.” The means to do so, she believes, are...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 11:41 AM
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...
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Posted by on November 13, 2003 at 01:45 AM
Seventh blog assignment
Category: 07B: The Sheltering Sky | Mark Phillipson
Post before class on 11/13 *** “You know what?” [Port] said with great earnestness. “I think we’re both afraid of the same thing. And for the same reason. We’ve never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life. We’re hanging on to the outside for all...
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Posted by mphillip on November 11, 2003 at 02:13 PM