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.

Kip

    Among the four main characters in the novel, I want to talk about Kip, an Indian "sapper" in British, and works in demining and bomb defusion. He is a really conflicted and complicated person compared to other characters. Though his brother holds deep resentment toward the West, he is willing to serve in the British army.  

    Kip is trained as a bomb defuser under Lord Suffolk, a true English gentleman, and is then virtually welcomed into this English family. Living in the unit with Suffolk, he begins to love the English and their ways. He starts to adopt Western customs and culture. Nonetheless, he feels uncomfortable with the respect his skill earned him among the ranks of men. Because of his race, he was used to being anonymous and invisible in England, and he was comfortable with that.  It is self- contradictory that he is happy about being a part of the English family but still prefers to be invisible. Maybe that is something called racial barriers—no matter how nicely people treat you, you just feel somewhat awkward. Personally, I can totally understand his feeling. When my homestay brought me to her family party, the whole family was very enthusiastic to me, but I just wanted to disappear. They were talking about something I don’t know and I felt like that I didn’t belong to the party, though I knew what I was thinking probably not right.

     In the villa, Kip risks his life to defuse bombs every day, but meanwhile, he is confused about the killing among people and countries. He always thinks of Suffolk, and realize what a terrible weight rests on him. Later, he falls in love with Hana

There is an scene near the end of the book impressing me a lot: when Kip hears on the radio of the atomic bomb that the United States has dropped on Japan. He becomes enraged, knowing that a western country would never commit such an atrocity against another white country. He takes his gun and threatens to kill the English patient, whom he sees as a symbol of the West. Kip does not kill Almasy, but takes off on his motorcycle, leaving the villa forever. Every time, just when he thinks he has been accepted by the west world, something will remind him that an inescapable part of each of the characters. I feel sorry and confused that he gives up the relationship with Hana, though later in his life he often thinks of Hana. 

Compare to The Great Gatsby

Relating to something we are studying in class

    In The English Patient, Almasy falls in love with the wife of his friend—Katharine.

  He as attracted to Katharine after hearing she read a poem from his book of Herodotus. They soon begin a love affair and later they are obsessed with each other. They cannot bear to be separated from each other, sneaking private moment as long as possible. Meanwhile, Katharine is confused about what to do, as she hates a lie but knows that Geoffrey will go mad if she tells him about her affair. Finally, Katharine breaks off their affair, telling Almasy that she will go back to her husband. Although their affair is over, Almasy remains haunted by her.

    The similar story also happened in The Great Gatsby. By being a bootlegger, Gatsby turns into a wealthy and “successful” man.  After a reunion arranged by Nick, Daisy realizes how rich Gatsby is and she is kind of moved by Gatsby’s insistence on her. Then they begin an affair. Just when Gatsby think he can repeat the past and stay with Daisy forever, Tom reveals all his secrets. Sadly, Daisy’s turns to Tom immediately—or it seems that Daisy has never thought about leaving her husband and being with Gatsby formally. In the end, Gatsby is killed because of Daisy’s fault, while Tom and Daisy have gone to somewhere else to enjoy their rest of lives.

    Both men in the novel have their own girls. They love the girls deeply and are willing to do anything for them. Gatsby runs illegal business to become rich, he host huge parties to catch Daisy’s attention, he took the blame of killing Ms.Wilson and eventually loses his life…… 

     Katharine takes her frustration out on Almasy, making various colors of bruises on his skin with her blows, throwing plates at his head, and stabbing forks into his shoulder. But still, Almasy loves her so much and counts her as the most important part of his life. However, both two women choose go back to their husbands, the difference is that Katharine loves Almasy deeply too, while Daisy just attracted to Gatsby’s wealthy.

Plot

 Plot

Unlike other normal novels, The English Patient has four narrators at the same time, and the stories jump between present and past from time to time. Basically, that is about four people sharing their story from the war. This is also a process of finding out the identity of the English patient.

The novel opens with Hana, a young nurse, gardening outside a villa in Italy in 1945. The European theater of the war has just ended with the Germans retreating up the Italian countryside. Though this is a quite dangerous place, Hana decides to stay in the villa with her patient.

Here she meets  Caravaggio, who is an old family friend of Hana's father. Caravaggio

tells her how his stealing skills were used for working for British Intelligence. He tells her that the Germans caught him after an attempt to steal a camera from a woman. They tortured him and cut off his thumbs, leaving his hands nearly useless. Although he has recovered a little bit, he is still addicted to morphine. In the villa, he reminisces with Hana and mourns with her over the death of her father in the war.

Later on, Kip, an Indian Sikh trained as a bomb-defuser in the British army shows up. To get rid of the bombs around the villa, he makes camp in the garden and becomes a part of the "family". Kip and the English patient get along very well, since they are both experts in guns and bombs and enjoy talking to each other and sharing stories. Kip's job is extremely dangerous, as he has to goes into town every day to clear more bombs from the area and to bury fellow sappers who have died . He also tells the story how he becomes close to Britain and becomes a sapper. Later, he and Hana fall in love with each other.

At the same time , the English patient starts to telling his past. His real name is Almasy, his job was to make observations, draw maps, and search for ancient oases in the desert. When he is working with Geoffrey Clifton, he falls in love with his wife—Katharine . They soon began a torrid and tumultuous affair. Unfortunately, Geoffrey somehow found out about the affair…….(I’m not telling you the best part of the book!) .This is an amazing but sad love story, I can actually feel how war destroys the love between Almasy and Katharine . “How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled.” ( Michael Ondaatje)

The first time, I realize the war everlasting pain is not from the physical aspect, but the mental aspect. People are telling their stories and sharing their emotions, the loss of relatives, the despaired love, the missing of friends……all of these appear in their minds . They know they should feel lucky to survival in the realistic and cruel world but it is just hard for them to take a breath. This gives me a new point view to understand what the war means to the people get involved in.

Reflective post

The English Patient is one of the most haunting and lyrical novels I've ever read. But it's so moving and vibrant, and I know it will stay with you. It is a really excellent novel talking about the pain that war brings. It is during the world war two, when the European theater of the war has just ended with the Germans retreating up the Italian countryside. There are four people living together in a small villa in hills of Italy in the world war two: a nurse called Hana who once worked in the army; Kip, a man from India who works as a “sapper”, defusing bombs for the British forces; Caravaggio, a Canadian thief who puts his skills to use for the British intelligence work during the war and the English patient called Almásy.

For some reason, their lives tangle together. It appears that they are the people who run away from the war and live a peaceful life. However, when they start to share their stories, I was shocked by the facts they released. I have watched plenty of movies about war, but most of them show the pain that people are suffering during the war, like how seriously the soldiers are wounded, how brutally the citizens are treated and how horrible the debris of war are… … I have barely thought about the after-effects of wars before. In the novel, everyone is struggling with their memories of war even though they have tried to stay back. It is the first time I realize that the deepest pain is not the physical injured part, but the scars in their hearts.

I feel a little bit lost when I read the book, because there is no single narrator, the story is demonstrated from the point of view of each of the characters. Moreover, the past and the present are continually intertwined when they recall their experience in the war. Thought it takes some time to figure out what is going on, changeable tense and narrator really help me to get in those four people’s stories and mind.

The Reason Why I Choose The Book

   Since we 'd better  choose the Canadian author books, I asked my homestay for some suggestions. She recommends Life of Pi and The English Patient.Compared to religion I want to have a deeper understanding of war through love, or I can say I want to have a special understanding of love through war. And The English Patient  is a book talks a lot about war and love.

     The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out the end of World War II in an Italian villa. To be honest, I do know the history of war, but probably just in terms of some historical facts.  It's necessary for me to know more about wars personally and emotionally.In this story, Four people seem to be unrelated to each other live together for some reason. It makes me interested to get involve their life during the “nightmare”. I believe that every person has a special story of their own .What is the English patient’s true identity? Why does Hana would be so insist to save this patient? Why does Kip -- an India man defuse bombs for the British forces?

      Another significant reason is fairly simple, just because of this quote:

“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 cold, horribly cold. I really want to drag myself outside but then there'd be the sun. I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings, and I'm not writing these words. We die. 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. I want all this marked on my body. We're the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you'll come and carry me out into the Palace of Winds. That's what I've wanted: to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on the earth without maps. The lamp has gone out and I'm writing in the darkness. “This is what Katharine says before her death.

Thought I haven’t cover this paragraph, but I was deeply touched by this so that I know I have to read this book.