Under the Sky

It's easy to lose that opening par. that discusses the sky. However, it would be a mistake b/c Bowles wants to tell us something crucial about the sky. The Indians (of which Jacinto is one) are still in touch w/ the natural world. The people of the town are disassociated from it. I tend to skip over long depictions of nature which is probably not good. I wonder if others read like I do?...

In some ways though, the story is like a play. We open and close w/ the cemetery. The town feels small; you could easily hold the entire setting in your head. And above it all, the sky.

I'm made uncomfortable by this story. I think Bowles taps into a certain mid-century anxiety, the anxiety that dark men want to rape white women. I think this is an old and tired story. Still, I think we can learn about how to put a story together from seeing how Bowles does this one.

One more thing: Jacinto is clearly a sociopath, the type of person who will eventually kill and only feel sorry for himself b/c he's not loved. He rapes the woman and is only relieved that she doesn't ask for money (suggesting that he'd pay her if she did). He seems completely unaware that he's raped her. Bowles talks about his "empty face." Jacinto is unaware that she's human, that he's doing anything wrong at all. It's horrible.