Circular Valley II

  In this blog post about The Circular Valley I want to talk about the second half of the story. I believe as earlier, that religion is a subliminal force here still. Once the man and woman are introduced, I immediately connect this with Adam and Eve. "She leaned forward, putting her hands on his face, and for a long moment they kissed." She is the temptress. Before the introduction of 'woman', Atlajala would enter animals, flowers, men (soliders and hooligans). Atlajala enjoyed entering 'man' the most but still grew bored. This quote stood out to me "The Atlajala hovered near them, watching the woman closely; she was first ever to have come into the valley." After reading the second half and seeing the presence of Adam and Eve, I am more inclined to see the scenery as the Garden of Eden. These quotes, for me, can metaphorically symbolize Eve's entering of Eden, after Adam, and tempting him with the forbidden fruit (the kiss).

   Bowles goes further to say: "Out of habit, the Atlajala entered into the man. Immediately... it was conscious only of the woman's beauty and her terrible imminence. The waterfall, the earth, and the sky itself receded, rushed into nothingness, and there were only the woman's smile and her arms and her odor. It was a world more suffocating and painful than the Atlajala had thought possible." Here we see woman as the temptress again. Atlajala is entranced by beauty, something religion sees as a sin. I sense a small obsession beginning to stir between Atlajala and  'woman'. The quote ends by Atlajala expressing this has been a feeling more painful and suffocating than ever before, perhaps mirroring the 'ultimate temptation'. We see that the couple here are having an affair, this adds to the sinfulness and temptation in this story.

   Now the part I hate: "The Atlajala left the man and slipped into the woman. And now it would have believed itself to be housed in nothing, to be in its own spaceless self, so completely aware of the wandering wind, the small flutterings of the leaves, and the bright air that surrounded it. Yet there was a difference;  each element was magnified in intensity ... Now it understood what the man sought in the woman.". I love this as a literary work, however, from this I understand that Atlajala sees woman as the ultimate sin. The Atlajala felt nothing and everything once it entered the woman because she is the mecca of sin and tempt. Further in the reading, the woman pushes her wanting to go into the monastery when the man says "No". A snake passes by. Again, the woman is the temptress and the serpent is also seen in the Garden of Eden.