The Sheltering Sky

Kit wakes up underneath her tree as dawn is about to break; she believes the desert is most beautiful at that time of day. A new day promises new beginnings; that is, until the day wears on, and one realizes that all is quite the same. Kit has determined to travel further into the desert, to lose herself amid the dunes: “Even as she saw these two men [natives traveling with a caravan of men and camels] she knew that she would accompany them, and the certainty gave her an unexpected sense of power: Instead of feeling the omens, she now would make them, be them herself” (281). She does indeed go with them, riding in front of one of the men on horseback, keeping herself motionless and wondering if she were already dead.

At the height of the day’s heat, the band reaches an oasis and stops to eat and rest. After food, Kit succumbs to the sexual assault of first the young man she has been riding with, then the older man who was also on horseback. During the first encounter, she gives in to her assailant, “considering him with affection” and deciding that “there was a perfect balance between gentleness and violence” in his actions (285).