The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje seemed a progressive type of a novel; the author’s objective in the book was centered on the essence of bringing the sense of the meaning of freedom to its readers. Each of the main characters discussed in the novel has a voice at one point; consequently, the main point of view shifts from one character to another, describing a certain event from multiple perspectives. Throughout the novel, the author used characters such as Caravaggio, Hana, English Patient, Almasy and Kip to drive the main theme and break created stereotypes besides enhancing reconstruction of identity. According to Michael the main characters’ relationships is discussed to have had deeply damaged during Second World War.

Critical Analysis of the Major Issues in the Novel

The major issues discussed in the novel include national identity, love, and war. Some o the major issues discussed by Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient are interconnected, for instance, nationality and identity. Therefore, the established interconnections created inescapable structure’s web which tied characters to a certain place regardless of their notable efforts to evade above confinement. Isolated Italian villa and desert in the novel represent areas where national identity was unimportant (Diamond, pp 132). Kip, who seemed to have entangled in the welcoming community of the villa’s inhabitants and western ideas, ended up dismissing his hyperawareness of his mother’s racial identity; therefore, the author uses Kip’s scenario to describe the issue of national identity. On the other hand, Hana’s love for her father and Almasy’s love for Katherine emphasizes on issue of love, idea of love implies a main massage that place and time are often irrelevant to human connections. The war is discussed as the root cause of divisions in society (Saranya np). Though war is discussed to have managed to tear many people apart; it helped to bring together Kip, Caravaggio, Hana and the English patient together in a feeble villa in Italy, north of Florence.

The Most Crucial Issues Discussed In the Novel

Generally, The English Patient novel discusses the story of four main characters whose lives are discussed to have come together in an abandoned Italian villa after Second world war. Each of the explored characters once had displaced from home due to conflict (Khaleel and Intisar pp 230). Hana developing a romantic relationship with Kop and Caravaggio opting to be obsessed with the patient’s true identity creates a belief that not a must for a patient to be English but can happen to be a Hungarian working as a spy for the Germans.

My Book Critical Analysis

According to my critical analysis on the book, The novel mainly focuses on the issue of international groups or characters isolated together after world war II in an abandoned Italian villa. Themes of nationhood, displacement and national identity constitute the author’s main objective (Parvez np). Therefore, in deriving the above themes, the novel appears a saga of passionate love at the end of World War II (Vivekanandhan and Rajalakshmi, pp 4582). Conclusively, The English Patient narrative is intense of amalgamation of war experiences and foreground psyche of main characters. The English patient focuses on love narratives concerning English Patient Almasy and captures undertones of postcolonial critique woven into its intricate fabric.

Work Cited

Diamond, Diana. ” Critical Analysis of the Major Issues in the English Patient Novel” Psychoanalysis and Film. Routledge, 2018. 129-146.

Khaleel and Intisar R. “Identity between Assimilation and Self-Discovery: A Study of Michael Ondaatje The English Patient.” Journal of Tikrit University for humanities; 24.8 (2019): 229-239.‎

Parvez, Nafees, and Asma Haseeb, Kanza Umer Khan. “Post-colonial Cultural and National Identity in Ondaatje’s The English Patient.” (2020).

Saranya, Ms. P. “Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient as a Post-Apocalyptic fiction.” 2019.

Vivekanandhan, N. K., and Rajalakshmi Sathyananthan. “Postcolonial Analysis in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.” Elementary Education Online 20.5 (2021): 4581-4583.