Michael Ondaantje’s "Anil’s Ghost"

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Recommended: An essay about sri lankan politics

Michael Ondaantje’s Anil’s Ghost is a story of Anil Tissera, a forensic anthropologist, who returns to her home country, Sri Lanka, after living fifteen years abroad. As a worker of the United Nations Human Rights Centre, Anil intends to investigate the skeletons buried deep; political murders, abductions and cases of silent missing . The novel is placed in the backdrop of an ailed and contravened Sri Lanka, repeating the assertion throughout that ‘The reason for war was war,’ (43) This clarifies why Ondaantje does not to delve into the question of why the country is locked in gruesome political dispute that involves daily disappearances, fear, mass killings and cover up murders. In the elusive background of war, Ondaatje plays with the aspect of healing; healing of the ever green Sri Lanka, its people and their lives. In this paper I will look at healing, which is harmoniously in synch with aspect nature and is a recurrent theme featured throughout the novel.

The novel is set in the lush green island of Sri Lanka that is rich with the presence of nature. The generousityof nature in the small island gives a chance for regenerating life Amidst the deathly environment the abundance of nature represents the abundance of life, thus the land of Sri Lanka being so fertile not only signifies life, but also nature as Anil claims that a bush could grow even if she spits on the ground (<). The twin role of nature, both regenerating and degenerating is intertwined in the melancholic and murky atmosphere of the novel. All the Sri Lankan characters consciously or unconsciously relate to nature and Anil to some extent too is in tune with it. There is a subtle presence of the natural elements; water, earth and fire being the most promine...

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... to reconstruct and repaint the sacred eyes of the maimed Buddha in the ritual of Netra Mangla. His restoration of the Buddha’s sacred eyes results in an epiphany: ‘the evolving moment when the eyes, reflected in the mirror, would see him, fall into him’ (306). He suddenly looks afresh at the natural world while exposing his senses to the elements on the island: ‘with human sight he was seeing all the fibers of natural history around him ... He could feel each current of wind ... the smell of petrol and grenade ... The crack of noise ... There was a seduction for him here’ (307; emphasis added). At last, at the end of Anil’s Ghost, the restoration of the statue and comfort Ananda receives from his nephew’s loving and healing gesture: ‘He felt the boy’s concerned hand on his. This sweet touch from the world’ (307) evokes hope of healing for Sri Lanka and its people.

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