Exploring Identity in the works of Michael Ondaatje

Two main characters from both novels realize the importance of their ethnic background in the most unlikely of places. Patrick Lewis, a tunnel worker, bridge builder and leather cutter, discovers the meaning of being Canadian in the Macedonian community of Toronto. Patrick’s cultural liberation happens while attending a play put on by Alice Gull, his lover, at the Waterworks, a theatre. The play demonstrates the language and cultural barriers experienced by immigrants to the city as they mouth the words of the actors to themselves in order to learn English. It is through this experience that Patrick realizes the notion of multiculturalism and its importance to his Ca

nadian heritage. In the same fashion as Patrick, Kirpal Singh recognizes his ethnic background in the western community of the Italian villa in The English Patient. Kirpal, a Sikh, comes to the villa to defuse bombs planted around the area by the Germans during World War II. He is taken in by the residents of the villa and begins to develop their cultural tendencies in living. Upon hearing news of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Kirpal realizes that western aggression still exists and furthermore, recognizes the awareness of his own cultural heritage. It is after this incident that Kirpal chooses to return to Asia and his roots. Through the examination of these two characters and their relation to their surroundings, the importance of nationality being prevalent in identity is realized.

Knowledge of occupation lends itself to the larger idea of nationality’s importance to identity in the novels. In the beginning chapters of In the Skin of a Lion, immigrants take the treacherous, low-income job of building the Bloor Street Viaduct over a “viscous black river” between Toronto’s eastern and western parts. For their life endangering duties, the men are paid a mere thirty cents an hour. When Patrick begins work at the Cypress Street Leather Factory, he observes the men who take on the lowly position of dyers. These men, mainly Greek and Macedonian immigrants, are paid a dollar a day to “stand ankle deep in salt, filling casings, squeezing out shit and waste from animal intestines.” (131) Patrick later explains that nobody lasted at the job longer than six months and only the desperate took it. Immigrants, obviously desperate for jobs in the time of the depression, willingly accepted the position. Kip’s occupation during World War II as a sapper explores ideas of national identity in The English Patient. By enlisting Indians as bomb diffusers, it is implied that the British do not deem their lives worth saving. Kip is used to explore Anglo-Indian relations in a period of chaos for the British Empire. Carravagio, aghast with Kip’s sense of duty, tells him that he is being used. Through the gained knowledge of occupations in Ondaatje’s novels, one recognizes a greater sense of nationality and its dominant existence in identity.

Certain structures give credit to the presence of national identity in the novels. Throughout In the Skin of a Lion, Ondaatje illustrates the construction of the Bloor Street Viaduct, a bridge connecting east and west Toront

Some topics in this essay:
English Patient, Street Viaduct, Carravagio Almasy, Kirpal Carravagio, Skin Lion, Greek Macedonian, Hiroshima Kirpal, War II, India Hiroshima, Alice Gull, english patient, skin lion, national identity, lion english patient, lion english, war ii, bloor street, trompe l’oeils, italian villa, world wars, skin lion english, bloor street viaduct, world war ii, nature identity, ondaatje’s skin lion,