Destruction through Imagery and Theme in The English Patient
The imagery in Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient serves to illustrate the theme of destruction in this novel. The setting of the novel as well as the characters themselves present to the reader a vivid picture of demolition. Critics also find that Ondaatje's imagery is a vital element in the presentation of this theme.
The English Patient is set at the end of World War II in a war-ravaged Italian village. Ondaatje gives vivid descriptions of the damage the village sustained due to the war:
As the hill town began to be torn apart like a battle ship at sea, by fire shells, the troops moved from the barrack tents in the orchard into the now crowded bedrooms of the old nunnery. Sections of the chapel were blown up. Parts of the top storey of the villa crumbled under the explosions. (12)
Ondaatje's detailed and memorable description completes his picture of the county side. "Dead cattle. Horses shot dead, half eaten. People hanging upside down from bridges" (Ondaatje 19). This elaborate and vivid imagery makes an appropriate backdrop for the characters.
Hana the nurse is the first character introduced by Ondaatje. She is distraught over the death of her father and the strain of nursing the wounded. The nature of her injuries is revealed through the dialogue of two doctors:
". . . She was in rough shape herself."
"Is she injured?"
"No. Partial shell shock probably. She should have been sent home. The trouble is, the war is over. You cannot make anyone do anything anymore. Patients are walking out of hospitals. Troops are going AWOL before they get sent back home." (Ondaatje 180)
The doctors' words present the reader with an image of lost, confused souls wandering about without a purpose. Hana brands herself damaged to the outside world through the act of haphazardly cutting off her hair and through actions such as reverting to games from her childhood such as hopscotch.
Physical damage is most evident in the English patient himself. It is through soothing the patient whose skin is completely blackened except where the bone is exposed that Hana soothes her own interior wounds. According to one critic, it is as if the skin of her soul has been burned by exposure the death in the same way the English patient has been burned by fire. (Spice 200)
Kip, a sapper in the English army, suffers many of the same inner wounds as Hana. The destruction of his adopted family is presented in a vivid manner. The detonation of an enormous bomb has destroyed everyone he cares about. The reader is constantly reminded of this through images of Kip defusing bombs: ". . . they lowered Kip into the pit in a harness until he was waist deep in the muddy water, his body draped around the body of the Esau bomb" (Ondaatje 210).
Potent images provide insight to the theme of the destruction in The English Patient . Through images of bombs, burns and crumbling villas, the reader gains a greater understanding of the damage within the characters.
