Into the Desert: Ecopsychological Explorations in Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 35 Sayı: 2, 382 - 396, 18.12.2025

Tülay Dağoğlu

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2025-1690623

https://izlik.org/JA22ZD28HL

Öz

Paul Bowles’s novel The Sheltering Sky (1949) portrays Port and Kit Moresby’s existential journey through the North African desert, a landscape that not only shapes their external experiences but also reflects their unconscious processes and emotional dissociation. The desert in the novel functions as a metaphor for the abyss of the human soul and a stimulus for metamorphosis. This resonates with Jung’s ideas of ecopsychology, which offer a rich landscape for understanding the psychological dimensions of nature and how it influences the human psyche. Within this trajectory, the paper argues that the novel serves as a psychological investigation into the consequences of detachment from both the inner self and the natural environment. It argues that none of the characters in The Sheltering Sky achieve genuine individuation, the integration of conscious and unconscious dimensions and the reconciliation of ego and shadow, revealing instead the tragic effects of spiritual disconnection and ecological alienation. Grounded in Jung’s archetypal framework, particularly the Self and the Shadow, as pivotal elements of individuation, the study delves into Bowles’s depiction of psychic disintegration that arises when characters confront the untempered, primordial forces of nature. Through this Jungian ecopsychological lens, this work offers new insights into the intrinsic bond between the psyche, nature, and existential identity.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Paul Bowles , The Sheltering Sky , Jung , ecopsychology , individuation

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