The Desert

The Desert

       The desert is an inevtrucable elements of The English Patient. Firstly, it provides a background for the special love between Almasy and Katharine.

       The first time Almasy met Katharine, that was a beautiful night in the desert with fires, she was reading a poem from his book of Herodotus. Almasy was deeply attracted to her beauty and grace. I guess so did Katharine, though it wasn’t mentioned in the book. On some levels, the fire in the desert symbolizes the secret spark between them is growing. Later, they travelled together and have love affair in yellow sand, they even imagined they were swimming in the sea. Later, the tragedy also happened in the desert. Almasy carried Katharine to the cave, promising her that he would come back and never leave her alone. But eventually, he cannot keep his promise and Katharine died in the cold and dark cave alone. In her last words for her lover, there is a sentence impressed me a lot:” I know you will come and carry me out into the palace of winds.” This solemn and moving imagery finally comes true, the man carried Katharine’s dead body, standing in the desert wind and wailing terribly. In the brown and monotonous desert background, he looks extremely lonely.

      In addition, desert also symbolizes “no boundary”, this is the reason why Almasy loves it a lot. No county boundaries are fixed in the desert because sand is moving all the time and it moves without any restrictions. It makes people feel free and relaxed. Its broadness let people forget about different nationalities or races. 

Character Images

 KIP: In my mind, he is a man always being around bombs.

 Hana: In my mind, she is brave  girl with short hair and a stern look.

Almasy: In my mind , he is a handsome man who has a sad memory in the desert.

Something about Ownership and Label(2)

Something about Ownership and Label(2)

     In spite of this, when Almasy is lying in the hospital, with his severely burnt body and unrecognized face, all the people wonder what is his nationality. Later in the villa, Hana and Caravaggio want to know where he is from, is he an English or German. Especially

Caravaggio, Caravaggio, who has suspected the English patient is not really English, has his suspicions confirmed. He even uses morphine to make the patient tell the truth .It is so cruel for the patient to recall all the things-- how he falls in love with Katharine, how she read the poem from his book of Herodotus, how she stabs his shoulder, how frustrated she is

to lie to her husband, how lonely and cold she is when she is in the cave by herself....Almasy has to go through the whole painful story with each details again. I believe every images about Katharine is like a dagger stabbing into his heart. The mentally pain is always much severe than the physical pain.

     Here is Katharine's letter for Almasy when she is dying in the cave:

My darling, I'm waiting for you — how long is a day in the dark, or a week? The fire is gone now, and I'm horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there would be the sun. . . I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings and on writing these words. We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we have hidden in, like this wretched cave. We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you will come and carry me out into the palace of winds. That's all I've wanted — to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on earth without maps.

     This scene is so sad and beautiful. I cannot imagine how desperate and helpless she is when she knows that she will die in the dark and cold cave alone. Every minute, she hopes he will show up and carry her out into the “palace of winds”. Sadly, Almasy is locked by the English army because of his foreign-sound name. The last sentence is really impressed; it is Katharine’s nice wish for the whole world, as well as all the people suffering the war. An ideal world is place without maps, conflict nationalities, and specific ownership. 

Something about Ownership and Label (1)

Something about Ownership and Label (1)

    Almasy hates to "own or to be owned". After The first time they have a relationship, he says:"When you leave, please forget me." Actually, the love between them is struggle in "ownership" and "label".

    Besides ownership, Almast doesn't like adjectives (give label) .He says:"A thing is a thing, no matter what you put in front of it. Big car, chauffeur-driven car ,is still a car." Katharine counters:"Love? Romantic love, platonic love, filial love, quite different?" Geoffrey(Katharine) continues:"There is also noxiousness, excessive love for one's wife”, which is how ironic.

    "Ownership" is not only happen among people, but also happen in countries and people. Your nations and race is the labels attached on you When Geoffrey  finds out  her wife’s affair with Almasy. He attempted to kill all three of them by crashing the plane into Almasy, who was standing on the ground. The plane missed Almasy, but the crash killed Geoffrey, Almasy places Katharine in a nearby cave, covering her with a parachute for warmth, and promises to come back for her. He walkes across the desert for four days until he reaches the nearest town, but when he gets there, the English army does not want to help him get back to Katharine, just because” Almasy”  sounds like a foreigner’s name, the British are suspicious and locked him up as a spy, stops him from saving Katharine.

 

     Eventually Almasy is released, but he knows it is too late to save his lover. He uses the map he draws to exchange a plane(an English plane captures by German),just for going to that cave in desert and keep promise to Katharine:"I'll be back. I promise I'll never leave you". Unfortunately, when goes back with Katharine's body, the plane is machine-gunned by German since they think that is enemy. Finally, the plane malfunctions during the flight and catches fire. Almasy parachuted down from the plane, his body covered in flames. That is the point at which the Bedouins found him and cared for his burns. It is so sad and ironic that Almasy is refused by English army when he is actually working for them, while is attacked by German soldiers when he becomes a German spy. Because of “label” that other people put on him, he is misunderstood again and again. Furthermore, it is the war that makes the world beset by a lack of trust. They catch everyone who looks like a spy and refuse to give any support.

Is Caravaggio an unnecessary character

Is Caravaggio an unnecessary character？
   In the book, there is a part about a man whose name is Caravaggio with broken figures and who wanted to revenge. Many people doubted if the existence of this character was necessary because he belonged to another plot, they said.

     Having a war needs to play trick all the time. Intelligence is half way to success. Many people discarded their own names, changed their identities, and forgot their true selves. Some sacrificed themselves for the nation's benefits. That’s what this man did.

    He was a Canadian spy in North Arica served for Allied Forces. In 1942, he was ordered to stay in Tobruk when Germany Army occupied Cairo. Then his identity was busted. Germany tortured him in order to know the name list of all the intelligence personnel in North Africa, but he showed his loyalty by the cost of losing his thumbs of both hands.

    Then, he started to look for the one who he thought betrayed him. Finally, he found the patient who might be the one who betrayed him. He tried everything in brutal way to make the patient telling the truth. After all the effort he did, the patient believed and admitted that he killed Katharine even though he did not.

    Caravaggio is a lonely and selfish man, but it was not his fault. It was the war's fault.  War, the devil must be spitted, deprived every hope and dream we ever had such as love, loyalty and trust. What will we get from the war? My answer is - nothing. The man with broken figures is just a symbol of the result of the war, a character whose life was gone, a sacrifice of the war. He could only live with hating others. But the trauma that the war brought to the people takes some time to fix. 

Main Literacy Devices- metaphor

 Literacy devices.

    This book’s author Michael Ondaatje is highly rated as a poet, so of course the language is unbelievably sensual and the story is like nothing I’ve ever read. Someone said of it as: “This book is a slow moving dream-- like a great, surrounding poem. ” It is full of emotion and description.

    There are lots of metaphor and in this book. Here is a great example:

“The desert could not be claimed or owned—it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East…. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.”

    This paragraph is narrated by the English patient when he is thinking about the desert. He sees the desert as “a piece of cloth carried by winds” and “never held down by stones”. This indicates his passion and love for desert. In his eye, desert represents no restrictions; they are free to go anywhere they want, even the hard stones cannot hold them. As a person who longs for freedom, he loves the thing with uninhibited character. Furthermore, to Almasy, it has huge power not only to erase individual’s identity, but to transcend time. In the desert, he feels more connected to the ancient people who came before him than anywhere else in the world.

     In addition, the desert plays an important role in the book, not only as a background but also as a meaningful entity in itself. “Open, barren, and empty, the blank geography of the desert highlights the foolishness of war between nations." In the desert, Almasy notes, "all of us…wished to remove the clothing of our countries." When men are up against such a harsh enemy as the vast nature of the desert, the different ethnicities among them become meaningless. Living in the desert helps Almasy to realize this, and thus shape his own view of the world.

    Like the mentioned example, metaphor are applied frequently in the book to give more significance to the terms instead of dry scenery description.

Theme - healing from a war.

Theme

   There quite some themes are released in the novel, for example, love's ability to transcend time and place, nationality and identity, loneliness vs. connection etc. But I think the major theme is about the healing from a war. 

   When each character arrives at the Italian villa, it seems that they are physically or emotionally wounded: Hana lost her father in an accident, Caravaggio lost his thumbs at the hands of the German army, Kip lost his mother and his surrogate father, and the English patient lost both the love of his life and his own body.

     Each character has the chance to remember his or her story or share with others, and it is the process of shedding light on the dark corners of their respective souls that seems to bring healing to each one of them.

    Another important theme in the novel is love, if it is truly heartfelt, transcends place and time. Hana feels love and connection to her father even though he has left away forever.  Almasy desperately protects his love for Katharine even though he cannot go back to the cave and save her. Likewise, Kip, thought leaving Italy to have his own finally in India, thinks of Hana from time to time.

    Those love transcend even death, as the characters hold onto their emotions even past the grave. This suggests that time and place themselves are irrelevant to human connection in some level. No matter what happens, the love between them will tie their fate together.