It alarmed me how
much I liked this reading. I feel like I can relate to the professor and the
setting imagery in so many ways. I first noted that in the beginning when the author
was talking about the flaming sky and sharp mountains I had a feeling of Costa
Rica in the mountains. The author then
spoke about the smells, Orange blossoms, pepper, sun-baked excrement, burning
olive oil, and rotton fruit. I feel like with these sensory details it sort of
gives the reader a clue of where the story may go. Then, when the professor arrived at the
town gate it said that all the little kids kind of rushed the truck and were
grabbing on his property and what not, it seemed a lot more like what TV would portray
as a poor northeast African/ middle eastern town. It made the professor seem uneasy or at least
out of his element, when the author described him as “clutching his luggage in
vain, and walking quickly into the Grand Hotel”. Bowles then went on to give a description of
the small 8 bedroom hotel, and talk about how the first thing the professor did
was wash the “grit from his face and ears”. I feel like I can relate to this,
It reminds me of all the random places I stop on the drive back and forth from
New Orleans to Balitmore, MD. I always
end up stopping at a little serial killer type town setting, and feel uneasy,
also after a long day on the road my eyes get tired and a nice face wash is
always welcome. However I feel as though
the professor washing his face somehow symbolized his cleansing, before his
almost inevitable seeming fate. Then
after he finds out about his friend Hassan Ramani being deceased, and after receiving
his tea the professor left the qaouaji an enormous tip. I felt like this was a
serious indicator of things to come. It shows his ignorance of the type of
place he’s at, almost if he wanted to set himself up for trouble. Then when he
has paid the man for taking him to the place, and he’s walking into blindness,
not knowing if there is a cliff or whether the man is going to come back and
rob him or harm him, I feel like the other was shown as his fear in the unknown
about what is to come. I also felt like while he was being attacked by dogs and
shoved with the gun, this was also a way the other was shown, due to the fact
that he kept his eyes closed the entire time and he didn’t know who or why they
were harming him. The Author did a great job in this story of using the setting to make the story so much more vivid, and almost visible as if it were a Movie, or TV show.
I agree that The Professor was blinded as to where his journey was taking him, but it seemed ironic to me because of the way he valued his monetary possessions. The author gives you a sense of The Professor's arrogance at the beginning when he continuously offers money. It's almost like The Professor achieved vision through his possessions, only to be turned into a possession when captured. His tongue was his means of obtaining his proud possessions, and the author intentionally makes him lose it and achieve clarity through hearing a familiar formal Arabic dialect, as if his journey and becoming "the other" was necessary for self-identity.
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