The Sheltering Sky employs colonial tropes throughout its narrative—from the heat and dust to the vastness of the (uninhabited) space to the limitlessness of time—and reveals the fraught nature of how Western travelers move through colonial territory. It is invariably the case that colonial encounters provide an opportunity for misunderstandings, misapprehensions, and mistakes. The intersection in which the privileged Westerner interacts with the colonized native is troubled by assumptions, prejudices, and fears born of entrenched narratives of power and control.

In Book 1, Port’s encounter with Smail is freighted with threat, potential aggression, and misunderstandings:

No one stared at them. One would have said that the presence of the Arab beside him made him invisible. But now he was no longer sure of the way. It would never do to let this be seen. He continued to walk straight ahead as if there was no doubt in his mind (20).

The hierarchy demands Port be in control, though he is lost—and clearly afraid. Smail takes him to a brothel, where he will nearly be robbed by the prostitute with whom he cannot even communicate. In his panic, he loses his wallet himself.