The brilliance of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient lies in the fact that it connects the large themes of war and nationality with something close to all of the characters, the construction of their own identities. Understanding the bodies of each character and the environments, which they dwelled in the past demonstrates the experiences that they have gone through prior to their life in the villa. These experiences have shaped and redeveloped their identities in such a way that would never have been possible if they were on their own. Their relationships with each other and the connections to the past has all been a driving force in the reconstruction of their identities. The process of healing the wounds of the past that the villa delivered to them re-established their true selves under the thick scars they carried. Familiarity ceased to be a protective force between the characters and their inner demons. Through facing those demons, they in essence freed themselves from their former shells in order to shed the tragedies of their past and their previous expectations of who and what they should be. In the end each character was able to reinvent their true identities and move on into the future separately.

character traits. They are both “international bastards-born in one place and choosing to live elsewhere” (176) and they feel a loss of connection with their national identities. For Almasy, the desert becomes a place of refuge from his feelings of not belonging. Kip’s rebellious character seeks answers to where he truly belongs because he feels as though he has abandoned his nationality. All the characters are dealing with the struggle to maintain and rebuild their identities after the traumas of war. They are brought together in the Italian villa in order to recapture their sense of belonging in the world and to regain an understanding of who they really are.

Escaping one’s nation becomes a metaphor in the novel for escaping one’s past and creating for themselves a new identity. Kip chooses to serve the British Empire in an attempt to feel needed and valued for his talents. He doesn’t feel this same sense of value in his mother country India. Almasy, like Kip, also feels that serving the British Empire allowed him to express and be valued for his skills. Almasy notes in Chapter IV that the desert has the power to “Erase the family name! Erase nations” (139). The desert in a sense becomes a character in itself in the novel. It can not be “claimed or owned- it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones” (138), ne

Some topics in this essay:
English Patient, English Patient’s, Katherine Carvaggio, Kip Carvaggio, Chapter IV, Kip Almasy, British Empire, english patient, Almasy Kip, Michael Ondaatje’s, ondaatje’s novel, national identity, characters ondaatje’s novel, characters ondaatje’s, body symbolic, almasy kip, main characters, tragedies war, sense belonging, lack identity,