A Distant Episode

I really enjoyed all of the fantastic sensory details in A Distant Episode by Paul Bowles. The author described everything so intricately that I felt as though I were there, accompanying the professor on his wild journey. There were quite a few details of the setting that I found very interesting and important. For example, when the sky is referred to as “red”. This is noted in the very beginning and near end of this story. Perhaps this is stated to exhibit the contrast of the beginning from the end. Also, the use of the word “red” to describe the sunset may be symbolic of the blood shed in the midst of the text. Nevertheless, this recurring description of the color of the sky gives the story a somewhat circular ending.

When the professor revisits the café, he comes to find out that his friend, the original owner, is deceased. The arrogant professor is shaken with this news and, at that point, the story starts to take an ominous turn. Hassan Ramani’s death signifies the professor’s severed connection with the foreign land. This also indicates that the things the professor thought he knew of the land may have drastically changed. Upon being seating in the backroom of the café, the professor hears dogs barking in the distance. I find this to be quite an important foreboding detail as well. Later on in the story, the professor encounters the dogs he had heard from the café—and their violent owners.

Another very critical detail is the fact that the professor is a linguist. To be specific, an arrogant linguist who seems to have no interest in relating to the culture of the people he wishes to study. He basically regards the people as being primitive and does not respect their opinions. Because he is not attuned to the foreign land, his trip takes a rather dreadful turn. It’s somewhat ironic that the professor, who studies language/speaking, loses his tongue. The loss of the professor’s tongue could symbolically suggest that one should not rely solely on verbal communication. The truly connect with foreign people, speaking their language is not enough—it is necessary to learn about their culture.

Identifying “the other” in this story is a bit complicated for a couple of reasons. Initially, one might regard the foreign people as “the other” being that we are seeing things primarily from the perspective of the professor. However, as the story goes on, the reader is disconnected from the thoughts and feelings of the professor as he is violently stripped of his ability to properly function. At this point, the reader can no longer relate to the professor and begins to connect with the newfound realm of the Reguibat. This shift of “the other” is made clear in the way Bowles starts to depict the professor after he is abused. The following quotation suggests that the professor is now the foreigner: “When they emptied the Professor out of his sack, there were screams of fright, and it took several hours to convince the last woman that he was harmless” The story transitions from a man’s mission to tame a foreign land, to the foreign land taming a man.

The landscape definitely has some connection with the problems the professor faces. For example, the path he takes as he is guided by the qaouaji makes him feel very uneasy inside. He is quite concerned and nervous as he takes the curious journey into the desert. The professor encounters another internal conflict when he reaches the edge of the cliff and looks down into the dark abyss. He questions his own, complicated bundle of feelings. The professor is torn, wondering whether he should proceed or turn around and go back to town. The professor ventures forward, down the cliff, and, upon reaching the bottom, is thrown into a rather brutal conflict. This change of landscape, from the town to the dark abyss lying below the cliff, sets the stage for the professors gruesome fate.

         I think we have probably all behaved similarly to the way the professor does in the beginning of the story. I'm sure most people have, at some point,  felt confident of something only to be shown otherwise. One instance in which I felt that I knew all there was to know, was in high school. To be more specific, I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the art world and now that I’m in college, I realized that the old me had no idea. I’ve learned so many new things and discovered that there was so much more than I had originally thought. The professor in this story was extremely arrogant though and thought he was superior to everyone else. In contrast, unlike the professor, I’ve always been fascinated with foreign culture and like to learn about the traditions and lifestyles of other people.

         Oh, and one more thing, I was thinking a bit about the title of the story, “A Distant Episode”. Does anyone else think maybe the title refers to the end of the story? I thought maybe the title comes from the “episode” the professor had when he maniacally out of the town into the “distance”. Perhaps “A Distant Episode” describes what the French soldier observes of the professor’s crazy, frantic entrance back into the desert. 

P.S. This story kind of reminded me of the show Locked Up Abroad 

National Geographic's Locked Up Abroad