Each character struggles to remove themselves from the ghosts of their pasts. They have come to the villa in a last ditch effort to escape their identity. The war has caused each character a great deal of pain and suffrage. Hana has lost her beloved father along with numerous patients, Almasy has lost his love Katherine, Carvaggio has lost both his thumbs and is left disabled, and Kip has lost his mentor and sense of belonging in a foreign nation. The villa has become a refuge for these characters. It is a place meant for healing in the novel, and it is no coincidence that it was used as a hospital during the war before they all gathered there. They all experience some form of healing, mentally and physically in the deserted villa. Both the villa and the desert therefore become places where the character's identities are re-born through their connections with one another. Almasy avoids his identity while wandering in the desert; instead he chooses to recreate another one for himself through his close readings of the histories of Herodotus. In the desert he was his own person, he could become anyone he chose. "A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water" (155). This is why the desert was so appealing to him in the first place. The villa became a place where Almasy had no choice but to come face to face with who he really is. Kip, like Almasy, also forgets for a period of time who he truly is. In the villa Kip momentarily forgets his own racial identity. He is no longer different and a foreigner, he is equal. However, what becomes quite evident during their stay at the villa is that no one can escape their true identity for too long.
The main theme throughout is the reflection on identity. The English Patient, being the central character, in the end comes to terms with his past and eventually is able to accept who he is.