greatgatsbygirl's blog

Wagrain, Austria

The air was cold but it felt good. My cheeks were bright red and moist, my nose was sprinkled with beads of sweat. Standing on top of the mountain, I felt like I was closer to the sky than I had ever been before. I felt like I was part of the sky.

We had been in Austria for a week, staying with relatives in Wagrain, a town some 90 miles outside of Salzburg. I looked down and could see the little town. The houses looked tiny from up here and I was reminded of a story my parents like to tell me. Apparently, it was my first time in an airplane and about ten minutes before we landed I looked out the window and exclaimed, “Those houses are so small! How do people fit in them?” The snow began to fall and the scene faded.

We were all the way at the top of the mountain, about to ski an incredibly difficult slope that neither of us had ever tried before. Actually, if you want to be technical, it was not just a mountain – it was an alp. Anyway, at this point, it was just me and my dad – no one else wanted to take on this challenge. My skis were parallel to the mountain, which would normally have kept me stationary, but I started to slide because of the ice. My heart started beating faster. “Ready Chris?” My dad called out to me. I couldn’t see him. Was I?

This was so unlike me. Any other day and I’d have been with my mom and sisters. Well, maybe not. But the old me was cautious. If you knew me at that moment, 15 seconds later you would not have believed it was me flying down the mountain.

The plan was to take on the mountain and work my way down, letting my muscles do the work and using my technique to master the slope…but the snow changed all that. It was a complete whiteout. All I could perceive was whiteness, brightness, and a chilling cold. Very dangerous skiing conditions. Luckily, there were no trees or other people around, which could have been deadly obstacles had they existed.

It was time. I started skiing in my usual style, but it was useless. The incline of the mountain and the icy, snowy conditions made my cautious style impossible. As I was sliding down the mountain I decided that I needed to change my technique. I knew what this meant, it meant relinquishing the tight control I had over my body. I said a quick prayer (or maybe I didn’t) and hoped that I would make it.

I let gravity pull my skis forward so that they faced the bottom of the mountain, and began making only light, fluid turns – as opposed to my usual sharp, upwardly ones. I felt like I was flying. Adrenaline shot through my entire body and even when the snow stopped falling, I kept flying. Whether or not I looked like an Olympian, I sure felt like one.

It’s hard to say what happened while I was invisible, what changed while the snow made the world and I invisible to one another. I guess I just gained a new sense of trust in myself and my abilities. I knew how to ski; it wasn’t like I was a beginner. I guess what happened was that I made that leap from intermediate to “one with the mountain” and it took me by surprise. Half way down the mountain, I realized the key to making that leap possible. It’s all confidence, believing that you are capable. Once I made this realization, it empowered me.

Since that day, it has become increasingly easier for me to take risks and test my own boundaries. The best way to find out who you are (and to like what you find) is to take chances and constantly challenge yourself to be excellent.

walking towards the light

Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, is a very epiphanic book. Each chapter can be seen as a new epiphany documenting Z’s discovery of the meaning of different words. Only they’re not just words. What Z learns goes far beyond language and definitions. As Z uncovers more and more about English, she also discovers what it means to love someone but also, in light of that love, to take care of oneself.

            Z arrives in England scared to the bone. She has barely any confidence, minimal knowledge of the English language, and she feels very out of place. When she meets the person who she writes this entire book to she finds in him the comfort of home. The entire book can be read as a letter from Z to her lover, to whom she constantly refers to in the second person. This person means almost everything to her from the very beginning. She quickly becomes attached to him and he seems to be captivated by her as well. While many obstacles stand between them, such as Z’s problems understanding English, they fall in love. While they are initially happy together, problems begin to arise as they learn more and more about each other. They find out that their philosophies on life are much different which is partially due to East/West differences and also because of who they each are.

For one, he is significantly older than she is. At first this is not a problem; he opens a whole new world to her, a world of sex, art, and passion. For the first time, she also experiences the heartache that accompanies love. Later on in the novel, the age difference becomes more of a problem because, metaphorically, as she is being born, he dying. It is almost as if he passes on his own light and his own language to her. Throughout the novel, he speaks less and less, and seems to lose much of his zest for life. Conversely, Z is growing all throughout the novel – discovering more about herself, her Eastern homeland, and her new Western environment. Her discoveries are not always pleasant, and she is many times dismayed at the fact she and her lover do not always see eye to eye. One key issue is their status as a couple. Z feels like she and her lover are destined to be together forever, falling in line with the Chinese definition of love as “existence, holding past and future” (239). Yet her lover believes that love and beauty are fleeting and that the future should not carry any weight in everyday life. He unwaveringly adheres to the maxim “live in the moment.” This hurts Z. Every time he leaves, every time he resorts to silence in response to her questions about the future, she becomes more and more injured.

Z’s major epiphany comes when she realizes that the differences between her and her lover are unsolvable. She explains, “It feels like I am walking on a little path, both sides are dark mountains and valleys. I am walking towards a little light in the distance. Walking, and walking, I am seeing that light diminishing. I am seeing myself walk towards the end of the love, the sad end”(272). This scene has all the makings of an epiphany. It contains very spiritual, divine imagery with the dark mountains in contrast to the light. Her walking towards the light is a metaphor for death yet because the light fades, it shows that the death of her relationship is not going to end her life. Rather, by walking away from the relationship that is hurting her, she is getting a second chance at life. The life vs. death contrast is very vivid in the relationship between Z and her lover.

In the end, while Z is hurt by her realization, she is better off for having made it. She realizes, “I love you more than I loved you before. I love you more than I should love you. But I must leave. I am losing myself. It is painful that I can’t see myself. It is time for me to say those words, those words you kept telling me recently. ‘Yes, I agree with you. We can’t be together’” (272). Those words set her free; they free her from the pain her relationship was causing her and metaphorically, they give her new life. 

A New Meaning of "Place"

In the novel Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, time and space collide creating a new reality; a new place. Throughout this course we have examined ‘place’ in terms of actual, real locations. This makes sense, but there is an aspect of place that we have not examined, and Murakami locates this place in his novel. By the end of the novel it seems that events take place in two separate worlds. Dreams are one form of this alternate reality; the other is seemingly one with real life. Murakami blurs the lines between what is fake and what is real and makes us question the validity of the distinction altogether.

The place in the novel where this is most obvious is when Sumire relays a bizarre experience that Miu had one night fourteen years ago on a Ferris wheel in Switzerland. First, I should explain that Sumire was in love with Miu, a woman who was twenty years older than her. Miu liked Sumire very much and enjoyed her company, but as she tells “K,” the narrator, “A part of me was happy that Sumire was caressing me so lovingly. But no matter how happy my mind was, my body resisted. My body wouldn’t yield to her. My heart and my head were aroused, but the rest of me was like a hard, dry stone” (116). Her experience on the Ferris wheel changed the whole trajectory of her life.

On the Ferris wheel, Miu had this surreal experience where she was viewing a different version of her same self, through binoculars (from the top of a Ferris wheel), having sex with a man who was stalking her. The next morning, she woke up in a bed in a hospital. The doctor explains how she was found: “Inside the gondola Miu was unconscious, collapsed in a heap. She looked like she was in shock, her pupils nonreactive. Her face and arms were covered with abrasions, her blouse bloody” (156). No one, including Miu ever understood what happened up there. But Miu describes how at that moment, she split into two people, there was the one in the Ferris wheel, and the one who had slept with the stalker, and appeared to enjoy it. Another strange aspect of that experience was that from then on, her hair had turned completely white. “I was still on this side, here. But another me, maybe half of me, had gone over to the other side. Taking with it my black hair, my sexual desire, my periods, my ovulation, perhaps even the will to live” (157). She also could never play the piano again, and before this event occurred, she was training to become a concert pianist.

Miu’s experience of time and place separating and then converging was very traumatic for her. Sumire, perhaps affected by this story Miu shared with her, appeared to love Miu so much that she wanted to find the “other side” also. Based on the laws of time and space, the probability that the event Miu experienced was real is zero. Yet just because it did not happen on the actual planes of real time and real space does not make her experience any less profound, and does lessen its impact on her. Most likely, it is a literary device that Murakami uses to show that just because something takes place in the mind, or in a dream, or somewhere else besides reality does not mean that it’s impact can be discredited or overlooked. Not everything that impacts a person actually exists in real life. Not every experience has an actual place or a chronology that makes sense. Much of the human experience takes place in dreams while we sleep, or in our minds. I do not think that Murakami meant to portray Miu as insane; rather, I believe he used her and her experience to show that there are many different experiences, even simply sexual desire, that influence how we behave and how we feel that do not take place in real time or in a real place. Murakami stretches the idea of place and shows how each of them can profoundly affect the psyche.

Taking things literally is not always the smartest move when interpreting vague statements

            In A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, author Xiaolu Guo explores the differences between Chinese and English language, many of which illuminate key cultural differences between the East and West.

Throughout the novel, many misunderstandings arise. The first occurs in the beginning when Z mistakes the expression “be my guest” as an offer to become a houseguest, and proceeds to move into her lover’s house a week later. Many times throughout the novel Z does not understand words or concepts she hears, and often the conclusions she arises at are comical and cute. One example of this is when she tries to understand what it means that her lover used to be a ‘squatter’: “What squat? I take out dictionary. Says “to sit with the knees bent and the heels close to the bottom or thighs.” Very difficult position, I imagine” (60).

It is not only how she understands English, but also how she forms her own sentences that creates the adorable and humorous tone. One mistake that stood out to me in particular was when Z said “outhale”(240) instead of exhale. The grammar that Z uses throughout the novel is also quite goofy at times, although at the most tense parts it sort of contributes to the desperation Z feels, wishing to understand and to be understood. She often skips articles and her verb tenses usually do not agree with each other (“How you use word ‘love’ on tea”(47). Later in the book when Z is hopelessly looking for an answer as to whether she and her lover will be together forever, she says to him, “Does that mean you don’t want future with me?”(238). When the misunderstandings and miss-wordings are insignificant the tone is light and comical, when they are serious the tone is gloomy and burdensome.

As the novel progresses, the tone shifts from light to heavy as their differences become increasingly apparent and eventually prove irreconcilable. The most serious misunderstandings come from their cultural differences such as their different views on love, family, and the future. The English and Chinese languages seem to be sympathetic to these differences, as the definitions of the words themselves carry very different connotations in each country. Z points out that the word love in English has different tenses, just like all other English verbs. She contrasts this to its definition in Chinese, where it is “a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future” (239). This difference makes it impossible for Z and her lover to create a family- while she sees love as a circumstance, he sees it as fleeting and cannot promise her any security in the future. Z and her lover also disagree about the importance of time, especially the future. Her lover believes that the future will come when it comes and there is no use in planning for it, preparing for it, or talking about it because it is unknown. Z, on the other hand, cannot separate the future from the present. She explains that, “our Chinese live in the expectation. Expectation, is that the word close to future? The farmers grow their rice in the spring, and they water it and expect it grow every day […]. Everything is for the next step. So look this nature, life is about the expectation, but not about now, not about today or tonight. So you can’t only live in today, that will be the doom day” (254).

The tragedy of this novel is not that there is no love, because I really believe there is. It is not even in the misunderstandings, because those never really tore them apart. It is simply that they wanted different things, and their love did not absolve their separate desires – it only made them blind to them temporarily. The language barrier was ultimately a detrimental force that propelled their relationship because it introduced an uncertainty into their relationship when really both of their minds were made up in the beginning – Z wanted a lifelong commitment and her artist/lover was, ironically, afraid to sculpt his own future. 

People in Mashriq have a special festival on the night of the full moon

In The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, by Naguib Mahfouz the main character Qindil Muhammad al-Innabi sets out on a journey hoping to find solutions to what he sees as his own civilizations problems. To accomplish this goal, he travels to other civilizations “to see [his] homeland from afar, […] to see it in the light of other lands” (86). Before delving into his journey it is important to discuss what he had become disillusioned with in his own society. During his youth, he became upset with the way his religion, Islam, was practiced – especially as it intermingled with politics. He also has bad feelings towards the caliphate because his wife-to-be was taken from him to live in the palace. He was also saddened by the greed of the caliph. In Islam, there are 5 key principles. One of them involves alms and consists of giving a certain percentage (20, I believe) to the poor and less fortunate. The dissonance between these principles and the way the caliphate squandered the wealth of his civilization caused him to become distressed with Islam-as-practiced as well as the political structure of his state, The Land of Islam. He left to seek out a new way of life, hoping to bring it back to his homeland.

Throughout his journey he comes across lands with very different religions: one that worships the moon (Mashriq), another that worships it’s ruler (Haira), another where there is freedom of religion (Halba) and one that worships the earth (Aman). Politically, these societies stress different ideals: collectivism, complete subservience, freedom, and order. Notably, each of these cultures are led by rulers with complete authority whom are given special privilege. One example of this is the ruler of Aman. Aman stresses equality and everything from the payroll to the ensembles of its inhabitants is quite uniform. Additionally, almost everyone there is lean and strong because of their uniform diet and mandatory exercise hours – that is, everyone except for the ruler who is fat. This hypocrisy between the beliefs of the civilization and the behavior (including greed and wealth) of the ruler is seen in every society he visits besides the final two. One hypothesis to this is that it is necessary for a society to have rulers and subjects in order to succeed. Another is that when people get great power they often abuse it as acquisitiveness takes over.

In the end, he comes across a land where there seems to be no religion but everyone seems to be going into a trance, trying to “fly without wings” and prepare to enter the perfect land; Gebel. The book ends when he is about to cross the threshold into this land of unknown, and thus we are left wondering what could this new land be. All we know is that the goal is to mute the senses, and this takes great concentration and practice. Perhaps then, the way to find true happiness, true religion, or perfection, is to mute all of the senses – but then that causes a person to wonder, what joy can there be that lies outside the senses? It appears that Mahfouz is trying to say that only by giving up earthly pleasures can a person achieve bliss and a society achieve perfection. By showing this common thread of hypocrisy in drastically different places, Mahfouz sheds light on a prevalent human condition: the constant greed that accompanies power. 

Escapism= Diversionary

In the midst of describing the diversionary tourist category, Erik Cohen poses an interesting question: “Which one of these two modes [recreational or diversionary] is the prevalent one?” He also notes that this question cannot be answered without contemplating how deeply modern man is alienated. In the majority of the books we have read the protagonists are tourists in the diversionary mode, but can we generalize that to mean that most tourists travel in the diversionary mode?

Even the title character in Daisy Miller, who in a way falls into the recreational category, is at her very core, diversionary. Referring back to the article, Cohen presents this idea that tourists can be classified based on their adherence to a ‘centre’, which is a type of spiritual core. The centre, as he defines it, is where a person finds meaningfulness in their human experience. Though Daisy’s centre appears to align with the typical values of an American girl, her experience (especially her tragic death) show that her centre was more of a façade than a real entity. At the end it is clear that she really did love Winterborne and wished that she had not been so stubborn to her centre, showing that her centre was really unstable in the first place. One fault in Cohen’s classification system though, is that he states that the diversionary travelers will experience pleasure, and that the traveling experience will make the travelers everyday life more endurable. However, this is almost never true in the novels that we read. Though they may arrive looking for a diversion, an escape from reality, their findings often threaten their happiness and well-being. Even though in the introduction section of his essay Cohen states that tourism has to be temporary in order for it to work and so that they can return to their everyday lives, it seems that in most of the travel fictions the main characters are almost never able to return to their normal lives, even after only a short time (such as Aschenbach in Death in Venice).

More obvious diversionary tourists are featured in On The Road and Death In Venice. Dean is the perfect example of the centre-less tourist, traveling from place to place, not searching for meaning but simply distracting himself from reality. His experience is a perpetual version of the diversionary tourist mode, and he becomes addicted to the relief (escape) that new places afford him. In Death In Venice, Aschenbach also travels as a means to escape the tedious daily routine that seems to be both taking a toll on his health and speeding up the aging process. He slips so deeply into this escapism that he cannot return to his normal life, there is nothing for him but to die alone in Venice, which he does. Many more of the novels we have read portray the diversionary travel mode such as The Sheltering Sky, The Sun Also Rises, and The Comfort of Strangers. It is interesting, and causes speculation that the majority of the aforementioned books end in death yet Cohen suggests in his article that this type of trip makes alienation more endurable.

The protagonists in Daisy Miller, On The Road, Death in Venice, and The Comfort Of Strangers all qualify as somewhat centre-less, diversionary tourists, yet none of their journeys really divert their attention from the mostly unpleasant realities of their own lives. Why are there so many diversionary tourists in the novels we have been reading? And how can we use that information to address the question or which type of travel is more prevalent? Perhaps part of the reason so many of these protagonists are alienated is a reflection that many of these writers were alienated themselves, a typical plight of artists and intellectuals. As we talked about earlier this semester, it is inevitable that a writers own feelings, emotions, and concerns appear in their writing. So while the plethora of examples of alienated, diversionary tourists in the literature that we have read seems to imply that this type of travel is prevalent, there may be a sufficient bias because of the writers common characteristics. Therefore contrary to intuition, great writers may not provide the best social commentary. 

don't be THIS guy

In The Comfort of Strangers, Ian McEwan uses symbolism and irony to embellish and explain the central themes in his novel. Ultimately these literary devices and the interplay between them foreshadow the ultimate plight of the novels two protagonists: Mary and Colin. Many of these symbols and irony are related to the idea of place and tourism. The fact that the novel ends in death shows that there is a dangerous side to tourism, especially when the travelers are naïve.

One of the reoccurring symbols in The Comfort of Strangers is the map. Mary and Colin are constantly relying on maps to avoid getting lost but for some reason the maps are not particularly helpful because they are either too generalized or too specific. Additionally, some of these maps are fragmented into sections which “unfortunately” do not overlap. In the same way that Mary and Colin found “it was easy […] to get lost as they walked from one page to another,” (20) they also found it easy to lose themselves in their surroundings. By this, I mean that their common sense seemed to disappear. Additionally, they were incredibly unassuming and foolish with regard to Robert and Caroline and completely unresponsive to all of the signs pointing to danger.

Another symbol in the novel is the camera. At the end of the novel, we learn the significance of photography: Robert has been stalking Colin since his arrival, taking pictures from hidden vantage points. This is revealed when Caroline shows Mary the collage of all of the pictures of Colin. Before this, however, Cameras are mentioned several times, especially their frequency (around the necks of approximately 2/3 of all the male tourists). Also, Mary recalls in the middle of the night that there was a picture of Colin hanging in Robert and Caroline’s house. If Mary and Colin had been more cautious and thoughtful about the meaning of that one photo before whimsically choosing to return, maybe Colin would not have been murdered. The lost meaning of the photo on Mary and Colin is another example of their foolishness and naïveté.

The dark irony that lies beneath the symbolism is also present on a more obvious level. Exemplary of this more obvious type of irony in the novel is the title. Taken at face value, the idea that there is a comfort in strangers seems to imply that their encounters with strangers will be a positive experience, perhaps offering some sort of benefit for them. This is far from the truth; their encounter with Robert and Caroline is nothing short of a chilling encounter as the novel ends in blood being spread across Colin’s lips and Mary being poisoned (though, unlike Colin, she survives).

Much of their foolishness seems to be rooted in their mentality that everything is always okay because they are on vacation. They are less perceptive of danger and seem to accredit everything strange solely to place. They put themselves in danger, and make themselves susceptible victims. On a rather basic level, this story contains a real moral similar to the anecdote that most of us learn as young children: do not get into the car of the strange man, even if he offers you candy. This world is a crazy place full of crazy people and it is dangerous to forget that.

He struggled too.

In my opinion, Death In Venice was not so much about travel as it was the struggle of the intellectual. By struggle of the intellectual, I am referring to the increased sensitivity to the experiences of a person who is constantly analyzing and searching for meaning. Because the intellectual is often a type of artist, the struggle of the intellectual is often related to a restless search for beauty. Many a time, it has been said that ‘ignorance is bliss.’ In the same way, while the life of an intellectual is often rich in experience, it also tends to have more negative swings and suffering than the life of a person who is less aware of his or her surroundings. The author of Death In Venice expounds on this idea, stating that:

Art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, overrefinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender (23).

This struggle of the intellectual is explored in the novella through the experience of the protagonist, a writer by the name of Gustav von Aschenbach. Aschenbach has become bored with his monotonous life in Munich, and leaves in search of a place where he can get a break from his tedious life. When he ends up in Venice, he quickly becomes fascinated by a fourteen-year-old Polish boy “of a consummate beauty”(45). Aschenbach relates the unique charm of the boy, called Tadzio, to art, concluding that, “[his appearance] conveyed a unique personal charm such that whoever might gaze upon it would believe he had never beheld anything so accomplished, be it in nature or in art”(45).

Aschenbach’s attraction to Tadzio escalates to the point where he stalks the boy and his family. When a plague hits Venice, he fanaticizes about the things he and Tadzio could do if everyone else died. In comparison to the Aschenbach we see at the beginning of the novel (a meticulous, highly-regarded writer) and the immoral Aschenbach we see at the end, the two are hardly recognizable. At the beginning it seems that his intellectual abilities and eye for perfection are valuable assets, yet at the end both lead to his downfall. In many ways, he was destroyed by his love for beauty. The novel ends in death; Aschenbach dies in his hotel room alone. On a deeper level, Mann is showing how the isolation of the intellectual happens, and implying that though intellectual abilities can lead to success they can also lead to complete failure.

cows looking for some new pasture to graze

While I was reading the book, it occurred to me that Dean is not really a traveler; he is a nomad. While the two are similar, there are several differences. A nomad wanders from place to place looking for, metaphorically, new pastures to graze whereas a traveler seeks new experiences in foreign lands. The difference, in my opinion, is that a nomad could wander down a long ally and feel that he has gone somewhere completely different than he was before, viewing his starting point and end point as two separate events and locations. If a traveler wandered down the same back ally, the slight change in location would feel like a continuation of his traveling experience, not a distinct and separate event. When I started to become aware of this distinction, it occurred to me that On The Road is just as much about placelessness as it is about place. Dean is, in essence, running from himself, by constantly changing locations. Changes in scenery are appealing to him because they allow him to forget about the lack of meaning in his life.

Dean seems to be afraid of what would happen if he made himself a real home. He would have to face the fact that he has three wives and several children. He would have to realize that he is not a very good friend and that he is disliked by a good amount of people. He would have to accept that the charm he uses to make good impressions while ‘On The Road’ will only take him far if it is backed by more solid character. For these reasons, it is hard for me to relate to Dean. It is easier for me to relate to Sal. Sal is a traveler. He is looking for something in his experiences, and by the end his character has developed as a result of his findings. He found confidence, he found love, and he found meaning in life.

By juxtaposing Sal and Dean, I think that Kerouac is showing that what can be gained ‘On The Road’ is more related to the travelers mindset than their experiences. If you are looking to escape, travel can be a slippery slope leading to even more meaninglessness and insanity. However, if a person travels to accumulate experience and bring that experience home, then traveling can be a good way to find oneself, as it was for Sal.

Vanish: stare at the dot...see how easy it is to forget what is real??In the novel The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles, three Americans travel to Africa to find some clarity – a clarity that is never found. In this compelling (and disturbing) novel, Bowles tells yet another story where the adventure-seeking travelers lose themselves in a foreign place.

Kit, one of the protagonists in the novel, at first seems to be so civilized that the idea of her ‘fitting in’ in Africa is almost comical. By the end, Bowles portrays her as a blood-sucking-sex-slave who could never again be part of the civilized world. It seems as if the environment of Africa has a heavy impact on the changing morality and behavior of the travelers. As they immerse themselves further and further into Africa, they seem to only lose clarity, and maybe sanity too. To avoid simply summarizing the novel, I am going to focus on the actions of the travelers that I found to be the most appalling.

Both Kit and her husband Port cheat on each other while in Africa. It is difficult to understand why they do not just sleep with each other, but it seems as if the only thing keeping them apart is a lack of understanding, a lack of communication, and maybe then, just boredom. They only bring along their friend, Tunner, because they both subconsciously enjoy the sexual tension and threat that he poses – it excites them. Ultimately it is boredom that brings them to Africa in the first place. Once there, they all allow their desires to take over and their moral codes seem to vanish. Tunner gets Kit drunk and they have sex on a train. Port leaves his hotel room in the middle of the night and sleeps with a whore. Their efforts to take care of each other later in the book are just as pathetic as their attempts to be loyal early on in their trip. For example, when Port comes down with Typhus, Kit locks him in a room and lets him die. She then runs away to another town and devotes her time to forgetting all her senses except the ones that awaken while she is having sex with Balqassam, a rich African with three other wives. Tunner stays and waits for Kit, but not out of love. He realizes he only has to wait for her because he cannot face their friends without her safe return. The whole novel is just so, for lack of better word, twisted. Altruism is virtually nonexistent by the end of the novel, and each of the characters seem to be messed up in the head.

It seems to be a reoccurring theme in many of the works we have read thus far – The Sun Also Rises, Heart of Darkness, and The Evening of the Holiday- that when people become entangled in travel, there is often a decrease in their morality. In many cases I believe that simply the fact they are traveling can impact this behavior, just as much as the actual characteristics of their new environment. In other words I believe there is something about traveling (in general) can make a person behave in ways that are not typical of them. Maybe it is because we feel less bound to act properly because we are not home; perhaps we can more easily separate ourselves from our experiences because we are fooled into believing they will have no lasting impact on our reputation or on ourselves. But as Bowles illustrates, traveling can have implications even greater than reputation or self-image; sometimes it can become a matter of life or death.