This study shows how Paul Bowles' work diagnoses the ills of Western civilization by dramatizing the encounter of its representatives with less technologically advanced societies. The confrontation between civilized and primitive, and Bowles' concern with extreme states of consciousness, link him with Edgar Allan Poe.
Wayne Pounds applies R.D. Laing's model of the divided self to Bowles' novels, stories, and autobiography to illuminate Bowles'...