Introduction to The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje (born in 1943 )

1. Introduction to The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje (born in 1943 )

2. Son of a tea and rubber plantation superintendant • Born in Sri Lanka • After his parents’ divorce, at 11, moved to England with his mother • Came to Canada in 1962 • B.A. from the University of Toronto (1965) • M.A. from Queen’s University in Kingston • Taught at the University of Western Ontario (1967-1971) (on writing roots, DVD, 5 min. + on the Booker prize , DVD, 3 min.))

3. Introduction • exiles, international bastards (p. 176) • cultural hybridity(on Ladislaus de Almasy, the “oasis” society, DVD, 8 min.) • all the individuals in the villa have endured physical and psychological wounds ( p. 41) • nationalism is implicated in their suffering • the theme of betrayal

4. The Ex-centric Subject(unstable, shifting identities)

5. - no clarity in the definition of one’s identity (pp. 8-9)- the migrant’s double perspective (the EP and Kip)- no face – no identity- erasure of physical and national identities (“a void” filled by others through projection of their needs)- an identity that resists final definition (e.g. Kip’s in-between identity of a migrant; the EP)- the reversal of the espionage plot (p. 252)- finding new identities (p. 117)

6. The body as site of resistance

7. - the body is shown to be subjected to a range of technologies of control - the body can also be a site of resistance: celebration of the body’s potency (pp. 37-38); - transformation from the habitual self into a more timeless figure (p. 248)- the body is the site of very different forms of semiotic exchange

8. Masculinity, sexual desire and identity

9. - masculinity and sexual desire and exploration of the politics of identity - “the male chaotic”(Lorraine York )- the male hero’s defiance of social law and principles of order

10. - a shift from Ondaatje’s earlier valorization of an extreme masculinity- a re-evaluation of male sexuality, masculinity (Susan Ellis)

11. - the territorial possessiveness of the European cartographers and the sexual possessiveness (p. 230)- the contrasting relationships of Almasy and Katharine, and Hana and Kip

12. - Almasy and Katharine’s relationship is based on a disassembling of social selves, on dissolution of identity, on breaking down demarcations of geography, race and body.- Hana and Kip’s relationship is based on the preservation of the integrity of their separate selves,intersubjectivity, a mutual respect for the interests of the other.

13. Reversals:viewing vs. being viewed ( the EP- Katharine, p.144)subject vs. object positions (Caravaggio-Hana, p. 81)

14. Postmodernism, history and The EP • Postmodernism shows a distrust of dominant narratives of the past • The Canadian cultural context is characterized by “pluralism, decentralization and the creation of a multi-cultural ‘mosaic’” (Maver) • Postmodernist novels seem to be part of historical discourse, but at the same time they proclaim their status as fiction. (They make use of the conventions of realism only to parody them)

15. The conflict between oral and written records (L. Hutcheon) • The oral mode is based on “gossip and communal (mythic) memory; • is tied to myth, legend and fairy tale (pp. 232-237) • Katharine’s assimilation into communal, oral memory • The written mode is linked to cause-and-effect rationality, rationalism of the historical narrative • Ex. Almasy’s written diary

16. Blurring of the distinction between fact and fiction (Herodotus himself was called both “the father of history” and “the father of lies”) –the EP about Herodotus pp. 118-119 Histories are characterized by • a persistent instability in the evidentiary status of its narrative (instability and constant change – p. 142) • The rejection of the single authoritative version of the past in favor of a record of the multiple voices that constitute a communal, oral record.

17. There’s a similar instability in The EP, where passages in the mode of the classical historical novel (p. 135-140, the account of the expeditions) contrast with the EP’s handwritten narrative which draws on the memory bank of oral tradition (p. 97, on betrayals) often drawn from Herodotus

18. Amasy’s identity proves to be elusive in the historical sources, which provide contradictory accounts of his aristocratic status. • By making this shadowy figure the hero of this novel, O. reverses the centre/margin relationship of conventional stories. • O.’s combination of the historical and the fictional exemplifies a characteristic strategy of postmodernist fiction, the “use of the double referent”.

19. Intertextuality • Its main assumption is that any particular text will derive its narrative structures , themes, models of character in part from previous texts (e.g. the Canadian postmodern fiction is characterized by the parodic use of traditional forms and conventions – biblical narratives, or narratives of quest) The irony and distance involved in parody allows the text to separate itself from the original while recognizing its complicity with it.

20. The EP and the Grail legends (Bill Fledderus) • The Waste Land by T. Eliot and The EP vs. the Grail legends

21. The Fisher King

22. The ‘Grail King’ - the guardian of the Holy Grail. The Grail is regarded as Holy because it was said to have carried Christ’s blood and was thus imbued with his qualities. In psychological terms it symbolizes the infinite possibilities of the emerging Self.

23. The Fisher King is our unconscious guide, forever casting his net in an effort to draw the sparkling facets of understanding, compassion, individuality, love, or simply, the realization of Christ, up from the formless sea of unconsciousness into the light of awareness. It is an underlying theme recognizable in most of the World’s religions.

24. The Grail Legends and The EP

25. The Fisher King and the fertility myths • The land is ravaged; the king is maimed and impotent • The curse is lifted with the arrival of a knight who must successfully undergo certain trials, sometimes aided by the Grail maiden. • Once he has done this, fertility is restored to the land.

26. Similarities between the Grail legends and The EP The Grail legends The EP the villa, p.11 The novel’s use of the motif of sterility provides an implicit commentary on the physical and spiritual state of a war-torn Europe, p. 29 The EP is maimed by burns which are the most severe in the region of the thigh, p.3 Similar in The EP • “the destroyed chapel” • the pattern of sterility and desolation followed by renewal of life and fertility • Fisher King’s thighs are the most damaged parts of his body (associated with impotence) • Some of the Grail legends describe a dead king lying on an altar in a candlelit room

27. In the Grail legends , the state of the land is attributed to political and sexual-moral guilt. • The EP recognizes his complicity with the forces that have brought destruction (“This country – had I charted it and turned it into a place of war?) (p. 230) • His adultery is an example of sexual guilt.

28. Perceval – the knight traveller who comes upon the Fisher King, and by performing a feat restores the king and the land. • Lamenting women that Perceval finds attending the Fisher King • The Fertility Queen of the Grail romances • Kip is associated with warrior saint and is pictured like a travelling knight (p. 273) Kip saves the land by removing bombs • Hana’s cutting hair is associated with fertility rituals. Her shorn hair may represent the failure of earlier relationship with men, symbolized by the aborted child (p.85), and her response to the prevalence of death during the war, including that of her father. • Hana’s hair grows after her relationship with Kip (pp. 217-218); she gardens in the wasted soil.

29. Hacker Arthur Perceval with the Grail Cup

30. The Fertility queen - Freya

31. Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901)and The EP

32. PARALLELS KIM, p. 7, p. 118 THE EP Kip (a reversal pattern) (p. 182) Lord Suffolk Assimilation in the English culture • Kim, an orphan boy of Irish descent, who follows a Tibetan lama on a journey from Lahore across India in a quest for wisdom. • In the course of the journey, K. becomes involved in espionage and is recruited by the British officer Creighton, who educates him in schools based on the English model

33. Kim gains oriental wisdom which promotes peace • Creighton is an ethnologist and geographer, who shows a sympathetic understanding of the Indian customs, language and religion, but his knowledge is shown as a vital instrument of political control. • Kip gains Western wisdom which issues in a holocaust that destroys the world. • Like Almasy • + p. 111 (Hana – Kim, Kip – Creighton)

34. The problem of identity is central to both works as experiences by colonized and by colonizer KIM The EP Kip is in a process of reverse colonization (assimilates and mimics English customs and values) Idem Idem (Kip re-establishes his self, pp. 283-284, p. 299) • Kim assimilates and mimics Indian customs • Kim’s identity is in continual transformation • Kim’s objective is to reclaim his birthright and to define his identity (process of self-discovery)

35. Kipling’s text can be read as a classical defense of British colonialism in India. • Ondaatje’s use of Kipling’s intertext involves a subtle subversion of its ideological intent.

36. Varieties of genre and languages

37. Elements of postmodernism • Parody • Intertextuality • Crossing of generic boundaries (heterogeneous cultural influences; rejection of stylistic homogeneity; exploitation of the diversity of genres)

38. The EP includes the elements of:(Ganapathy-Dore) • the historical novel • the colonial novel • the autobiographical memoir • the epistolary novel • the detective thriller • magical realism

39. The EP is characterized by mixing of : • different discourses • newspaper article • popular song • comic strip

40. The diverse styles and discourses employed in the narration include: • Scientific • Geographical • Cartographic • Military-technological • Military slang • Medical • Historical (the voice of Renaissance culture and of the classicist) • English gardening and ornithology • Upper-class English • Arab culture • Mediaevalism • Erotic, etc.

41. The use of scientific language The use of “the perception approach” Establishes the aesthetic-religious response to the world Suggest s a perspective outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition (felhomaly) • Introduces an empirical perspective on reality and a utilitarian conception of value

42. The EP • undermines unitary cognitive modes • is characterized by heterogeneity of linguistic styles, by heteroglossia (Mikhail Bakhtin) and its decentralization which prevents the reader from assuming that meaning derives from a stable centre • suggests the late twentieth century postnational cultural politics

43. Ondaatje’s characters

44. Count Ladislaus de Almasy of Hungary • a renowned pilot • a desert explorer • a cartographer • a member of Field Marshal Rommel’s staff in the desert campaign of WWII

45. Geoffrey and Katharine Cliffton • appear to be based on Sir Robert Clayton East Clayton, a British baronet, and his wife, Dorothy Mary Durrant. Sir Robert was a pilot who flew with Almasy in the desert, but died in 1932 of a respiratory illness.