Analysis of The English Patient Novel Authored by Michael Ondaatje - Essay Example

The English Patient Introduction The English Patient richly encapsulates the past within its folds. It refers to Almasy’s book of Herodotus The Histories which the narrator notes, is twice its original thickness (Ondaatje, p.95). Almasy added to it, cutting and gluing in pages from other books or writing in his own observations so that they are all cradled within the Herodotus text (Ondaatje, p.16). His common place book contained other fragments, diary entries,maps, writings in many languages and paragraphs cut out of other books. Ondaatje’s novel is similar in its structure to Almasy’s book. He takes fragments and paragraphs cut out of other books and includes them in his novel. There is intertextuality richness in the novel including statutes, myths, christian imagery, desert images and references to portraits. His novel is swollen with different images just like Almasys common place book swollen to twice the original thicknes. Mapping The emphasies on the importance of maps is evident in The English Patient. Books, people, faith and art work are all reduced to maps to their skeletal structure. The reduction is a form of econstruction similar to the one of bombs in the novel. For giving the germans the desert maps, Almasy is considered a traitor and his treason justifying the preoccupation of the novel with maps. In the analysis highlighting the importance of maps, the gravity of his crime is evident. As a form of knowledge, maps give power to those who have them. Almasy claims that his map drawing ability motivated the Bedouins to save him. He goes further to explain that “they kept me alive for a reason. I was useful you see... I am a man who can recognize an unnamed town by its skeletal shape on a map” (Ondaatje, p.18). The Bedouins try making use of Almasy’s vast reservoir of information. For some, he draws maps going beyond their own boundaries and for other tribes explains the mechanic of guns(Ondaatje, p.22). Almasy claims having information like a sea in him and that he knew maps of the sea floor. maps depicting weaknesses in the earths shield, charts painted on skin containing various routes of the crusades. These maps have great destruction power since they depict weaknesses in the earths shield. The weaknesses would be exploited to create a destructive earthquake or to errupt a volcano in the land of the enemy. Heble observes Ondaatje’s based character of Almasy on that of a real person. Almasy’s slippery identity is an analogue to the English patients in the novel. Totosy argues that Almasys fictional position, indeterminacy, overlaps his real position of historical marginality and othernness. His compass represents his knowledge of maps. He claims that al one needs to do is to give him a map and he would build a city. Essentially, maps afford Almasy with great navigational abilities. When he joins the Germans, Almasy’s knowledge makes him a dangerous traitor. The Allies had every reason to worry about him. For once, Almasy knew every water hole and had helped mark the Sand Sea. The knowledge of the various water spots in the desert meant life or death to those attempting to cross it. Consequently, as a traitor, it would be easy for him to lead troops across the desert and pursue the enemy. Secondly, he had through knowledge of the desert and all the dialects. As such, the Germans found him resourceful as a guide for spies. This is because his knowledge of the desert would enable him to guide them across the desert to Cairo. Knowledge of the dialects provided an efficient camouflage for the spies as they could easily dissolve among the Bedouins. Generally, Almasy was more important to the Germans than their military strength. Maps also serve as strategic military tools. Almasy and other explorers conduct lectures at the Geographical Society in London covering their expeditions. The lectures are apparently meant for scientific knowledge. Especially important is the introduction of longitudes and latitudes as they reduced the entire surface of the earth into measured boxes. Consequently, map-making is useful to the military as it aids the movement of troops and location of strategic points for attacking or defense. It is for this reason that Almasy wonders whether he had turned the place “into a place of war?”(Ondaatje p.260). Everybody, by implication, is an explorer of the desert. People have become sunburned and exhausted, like the sailors in Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness. They have lost their wit and etiquette and, therefore, become uncomfortable with other normal people. When they go to the desert, it is like entering their own hearts of darkness. They grow wise, sad and uncomfortable with the way of life of the city. This is the extent to which deserts impact on people’s lives. The desert also has the effect of erasing people’s identities. When Almasy falls in the desert, he no longer has his white skin and the race marker: “None of the pilots who fall into the desert come back with identification” (Ondaatje, p. 29). He resembles the mad desert prophets, according to other Europeans. Similarly, Katherine loses her blue eyes upon meeting her death in the desert: “Only the blue eyes removed, made anonymous, a naked map where nothing is depicted” (Ondaatje, p.261). The desert, therefore, has the effect of neutralizing everybody that comes into contact with it. After the discovery of Caravaggio’s identity, his body was rewritten and thumbs cut off. “He had been trained to invent double agents or phantoms who would take on flesh” (Ondaatje, p.117). He is therefore trying to invent a skin for the English patient. The ultimate erasure which is of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a wiping out of a nation is foreshadowed by the desire of erasure. Characters in the novel live in deserts that are both metaphorical and literal. The metaphorical desert is implied in the reference to Stephen Crane’s poem. All the characters living in their metaphorical deserts try to cope with their traumatic war experiences. Kip and his fellow sappers walk through a description of places echoing that of the desert with its anonymity. Each river they came to had no bridge as if its name had been erased, as if the sky had no stars, homes without doors”(Ondaatje, p.129). Almasy experiences both types of deserts. Hall claims that people tend to isolate themselves…as if they are running to the desert when searching for their identity. Their homes also become the deserts they run into. Almasy’s desire is to return to a pure state like that of the desert in which his self is not marked by nationality, race and other social frames limiting label and framing him. His love for the desert reveals his wish to live in similar conditions. He is particularly against racial labeling. He regards racial labeling as creating walls or barriers between people, and as a source conflict and distrust. History The depiction of history in The English Patient is also critical. Ondaatje presents history in various ways. First, Almasy keeps an old edition of Herodotus Histories to keep various historical pieces, such as maps, writings in many languages, and paragraphs cut out from other books (Ondaatje, p.96). The book serves as his sole connection to the world of cities. Secondly, Almasy uses Histories and some literary legends. He uses them to explore reality. They fire his imagination: “…he had walked under the millimeter of haze just above the inked fibers of a map, that pure zone between distances and legend between nature and story-teller. Sand ford called it geomorphology” (Ondaatje, p.246). According to him, the ancient book remains important not just for scholarly purposes but also for colonial use to explore and exploit the natural resources of other countries. The English patient’s attitude towards racial labeling resonates with those of Clark who maintains that the West had a systematic process of imposing their religion, values and legal and political systems on the Eastern nations (Clarke, p.7). The source of power for the whites is attributed to their possession of histories and printing presses. This implies that the British derived their power to colonize others from their knowledge, which they had acquired over the centuries. They knew the rules of colonization. They needed the knowledge; hence, justifying the study of anthropology and ethnology. This would enable them to easily colonize other countries. Moreover, possession of the histories and printing presses makes them to consider themselves as the custodians of history and civilization. Therefore, they believed it was their responsibility to bring light to the uncivilized world. However, when the colonized resist the light from the colonizers, they get bombarded. The use of nuclear bombs in Japan attests to the fact that the colonizers can do anything to obliterate the colonized. It is also clear that only the strong can write history. Historians can manipulate history to suit their whims. The power of the printing presses aggravates matters as they help generate stereotypes which the colonizers then promote. The printing presses also help them to legitimize their inhuman practices on the colonized. Historically, all wars serve the same purpose. The author draws a parallel between medieval wars and those fought in Italy between 1943 and 1944. He states that the same towns had been fighting since the eighth century and that if one dug deep under the ruts of the tanks, one would find a blood-axe and a spear (Ondaatje, p. 69). The author seems to be implying that history will always repeat itself and that past events remain alive. The English patient reveals that the Germans would be judge harshly by history. This is because they barricade themselves in villas and convents which they seriously defend. However, this is an old mistake because the Crusaders did the same and now the German need fortified towns. In one of the scenes, Hana is fixing the staircase of the villa. The staircase had lost its lower steps when a fire raged through it. Hana gets twenty books and nails then on the floor in an arrangement that builds up the two lowest steps (Ondaatje, p.13). The action of using books to build a staircase to the upper floor is metaphorical. Books represent knowledge. Readers and critics of this novel have to nail together the various books and images used by the author in order to discern meaning. A good example is Almasy’s book of Herodotus Histories and the various maps used in the novel. In effect, the novelist drops hints to the thematic importance of the references made in the novel in order to assist readers to dig into the historical implication of the novel. For example, a book, Kim, lies on Hana’s lap. She is looking at the porosity of its paper and she notices the crease at the corner of page 17 (Ondaatje, p.7). the importance of this book comes to the fore when Kip comes onto the scene. Conclusion In writing this novel, the author transcends time and is able to create the impression of a literary peace-keeper as he explores the impact of violence on people. Ondaatje is able to zoom back in time and chart the turbulent historical waters of man’s existence. The novel, therefore, presents the reader with the dangers of colonial sciences, such as map-making, and the power derived from them. The author successfully shows that history is used to further the interests of the colonialists and is never objective, as it is always thought to be. Just like history, maps are strategic military accessories. They help armies divide the surface of the earth into measured boxes, making it easy to administrate them. Maps help them locate vantage points for attack or defense. They are also used by the colonialists for administrative purposes. Consequently, it appears that maps are undesirable inventions from the author’s point of view. Works cited Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. London: Picador, 1993. Read More