In the first chapter of the thesis I discuss how the history of resistance is (re-)constructed in Ondaatje’s The English Patient. The novel demonstrates characteristics such as decentered subjects, repetitive narrations, and the disruption and rejection of a single authoritative history, which are all inclusive in the main concerns of postcolonial spectrum. In the novel the patient’s cherished book, Herodotus’s The Histories, is presented by Ondaatje as a symbol of the combination of fiction and history. It is also implied as the microcosm of the novel. Gathering from primarily oral resources, that is, hearsays and stories, Herodotus records and accounts an unofficial and fictional history in a similar manner as does the English patient in recollecting his remembrances. Ondaatje, too, mimics the technique in composing the
“history novel,” that is The English Patient. Herodotus’s The Histories is thus in this sense the model for the way history is reconstructed in both the patient’s remembrances and Ondaatje’s novel. Ondaatje obtains his sources and inspiration of
the novel from historical facts (the Second World War, the Crusaders in Italy, the figure of Count Almásy in Royal Geographical Society, and his findings of the lost oasis of Zezura and the cave paintings) and incorporates them with his imagination.
The novel thus is presented as the merging of fiction and history, in which fictional and historical narratives coexist and parallel, and the history of resistance is re-narrated in the novel.
Having discussed the temporal aspect of the novel, I broaden my discussion to spacial aspect, concentrating on the text ’s mapping and remapping of a wounded space, both geographically and physically. In Chapter Two I intend to problematize the concept of boundary, discussing not only the patient ’s attempt to “erase the nationhood,” but also to break of the boundaries of nation, geography as well as body.
The broken body and space is an evident motif in The English Patient. The patient ’s burned body mirrors the ruined villa’s open-space, both suffering from the attacks of the Second World War. The identity of the patient, not as a European colonist, but a suppressed and injured Other, is also demonstrated by means of his wounded body, which will be discussed in the Third chapter. The novel takes place at mainly two locations, the broken and destroyed Italian villa and the boundless and limitless Libyan desert, both signifying the renouncement of national as well as geographical borders. It is also noticeable that in the novel, body is employed as a limitation and a boundary The characters are imprisoned by the confinement of their bodies, such as Hana’s long hair, which is shortened in order for her to be mentally liberated, or Caravaggio’s chopped fingers, which signify the loss of his fixed identity. In addition, the patient’s lack of a face to be gazed upon enables him to be liberated from his identity as a Belgian, a spy, an adulterer, or simply a betrayer of both his allies and his colleagues.
In the third chapter, I narrow down the topic to the representation of identity
and the loss of identity. As the concepts of nationality, boundaries, and social confinement are no longer stable in the wartime desert, identity, morality and national borders in the novel become flexible and blur red. The patient’s identity, for instance, remains mysterious and vague throughout the first and second chapters of the novel. It is not until Chapter Three of the novel that Ondaatje reveals the possible identity of the burned patient, but still confuses the readers’ acknowledgement of the patient’s identity by means of elusive and fragmented imagery of both the patient’s stories and the narrative of the novel per se. Physically, not only has he no face to be identified with, the penis that demonstrates his gender has withered because of the burning and is asleep “like a sea horse” (Ondaatje 3). Mentally, he has no desire to be
“categorized” as a subject of any nation, or of either side of the war. In a sense, war is what sets him free from a fixed identity, but also what confined him to the state of in-between.
Not only is the identity of the patient presented as a question, the identity of the other characters, surrounding the patient, is constantly shifting and developing. That is, the war that breaks the boundaries of nations and identities also brings the feeling of lack for a definable identity, emotional dependence and for homeland (nostalgia). The motif of desire is not only revealed in the relationship of love affairs, but also in the father-daughter or mentor-pupil relations. Without the lack, there would be no desire.
Suffering from losses, the characters in the novel thus constantly desire and search for compensations, such as Hana’s gradually recovering from her father’s death by taking care of the burned patient who is of similar age as her father Patrick and of the same suffering. Kip, however, develops the skill of adaptability to adjust the lack of living as an outsider in Europe. According to Cook, “Kip is particularly adept at the art of finding substitutes or replacements: he is able to ‘switch allegiances’ or ‘replace loss’
with ease” (Cook 1999: 39). The love affair between Hana and Kip thus may be seen
as the replacement of Kip ’s need for the intimacy of a stranger that he once felt comfortable with his ayah when he was a child. Similar situations of compensation are also discussed in Chapter Three, in which other characters’ identity formations are elaborated.