On The Existentialist Themes Of Bowles's The Sheltering Sky

In 1949,Paul Bowles established himself overnight as a distinguished American writer by the publication of The Sheltering Sky.The Sheltering Sky,his first and most important novel,is the archetype of his works and gives a full expression of his thematic concerns.It embodies a large number of themes associated with existentialism and affirms an existential effort in a God-abandoned universe.The thesis aims at interpreting the thematic concerns of The Sheltering Sky by applying the essential concepts of existentialism to it.The thesis consists of three chapters.The introductory part includes a general survey of Bowles's works,the critical assessment of them,especially The Sheltering Sky,and the purpose and significance of this thesis.Chapter One discusses the affinity between Paul Bowles and existentialism.The influence of the modern phase and his own childhood experience draw Bowles to the existentialist thought.He consistently explores its motifs in his own writings;modern man's living condition and the pursuit of authentic existence,the existentialist main preoccupations,are also Bowles's obsessive thematic concerns.Chapter Two places emphasis on the Moresbys' existential predicament in nothingness.In The Sheltering Sky,Bowles casts the Moresbys as the Other in the basically indifferent environment;the novel therefore subverts the narrative mode of Romanticism and Orientalism and corresponds to the existentialist vision of man's being "thrown" into an absurd world.The Moresbys' journey in the Sahara consequently takes on the dimensions of the existential struggle in nothingness.Chapter Three focuses on the Moresbys' persevering pursuit of the meaning of life and their respective tragic end.Isolated from the human community,Port is enticed by the "infinite things" and at last reaches the extreme of nonbeing.After Port's death,Kit fails to take the responsibility for her own life and exiles herself in bad faith,which leads to her disintegration of personality.Bowles here deeply explores the existentialist themes of individual and the relations between self and other,freedom and responsibility.It can be concluded from this study that The Sheltering Sky presents a most uncompromising examination of contemporary man's existential predicament.By pushing the Moresbys' living condition to its limits,Bowles closely inspects the abyss of despair.Yet The Sheltering Sky should not be taken as a total submission to nihilism;beneath the surface of alienation and pessimism,there is a tenacious perseverance in struggling against nothingness and seeking out the meaning of life. The despairing courage that the Moresbys display in the face of nothingness and Bowles's deep reflection of their tragic pursuit should be of great enlightening significance for the readers today.