The English Patient
Auteur
Michael Ondaatje (12 september 1943, Colombo ~ Sri Lanka) is een Canadese schrijver, hoewel er ook Engels, Nederlands, Tamil en Sinhalees bloed door zijn aderen stroomt. Toen hij negen was, verhuisde hij met zijn moeder, zuster en broer naar Londen. In 1962 emigreerde hij naar Canada, waar hij Engels en geschiedenis ging studeren. In zijn studietijd begon hij gedichten te schrijven en in 1967 verscheen zijn eerste dichtbundel ‘The Dainty Monsters’. De eerste tien jaar van zijn schrijverscarrière schreef Ondaatje alleen gedichten. Deze waren veelal surrealistisch, waarvan zijn debuut ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems’ (1970) voor toneel werd bewerkt en tevens ontving hij hiervoor een prestigieuze Canadese literatuurprijs. Het is in feite een collage, waarin Ondaatje door middel van foto’s, gedichten, prozastukken, liederen en tekeningen een beeld schetst van Billy the Kid, de legendarische held van het Wilde Westen. Ondaatje bewonderde de Canadese zanger en schrijver Leonard Cohen, zodoende schreef hij een monografie over hem in 1970. Zijn eerste roman ‘Coming to slaughter’ presenteerde hij in 1979, dat cinematografisch evenals poëtisch mag worden genoemd. In deze levensschets van Buddy Holden, de trompettist waarmee de jazz begon, hanteerde Ondaatje dezelfde werkwijze als bij ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems’. Zijn jeugd op Sri Lanka (destijds heette het nog Ceylon) in een geprivilegieerd milieu schilderde hij in een kleurrijke mengeling van autobiografische feiten en fictie in zijn boek ‘Running in the family’ (1982). Zijn rokkenjagende en dranklustige vader speelt hierin een belangrijke rol. De pijn van zijn scheiding en het ontdekken van nieuwe liefde worden uitvoerig beschreven in ‘Secular love’ (1984), dat bestaat uit een verzameling van liedachtige teksten. Het werk van Ondaatje is vrij lastig in te delen, aangezien hij voor een postmodernistische combinatie van stijlen heeft gekozen. Zijn immigrantenroman ‘In the skin of a lion’ (1987) gaat over klassenverschillen in de jaren twintig en dertig. Zoals in zijn eerdere werk, hanteerde hij hier opnieuw de collagetechniek, waarbij stukje bij beetje alle onderdelen toch op hun plaats in het grote geheel vallen. Gedurende een nachtelijke autorit wordt aan het dochtertje van zijn pas overleden vriendin het levensverhaal verteld van de Canadees Patrick Lewis. ‘In the skin of a lion’ was zijn meest populaire boek tot de verfilming van ‘The English Patient’ in 1997 voor een groot publiek. Zo ontstond er grote belangstelling voor deze roman uit 1992, over vier personen in een halfverwoeste Italiaanse villa aan het eind van de Tweede Wereldoorlog.
From an early age the artist felt ostracized from nature and his only connection to wild life was through the natural museum of history and his uncle’s house, which was filled with taxidermy. His parents were divorced and his father suffered from alcoholism. His tough childhood forced Walton Ford to find humor in the challenging aspe...
The title of the book that I have chosen to review is called What Patients Taught Me: A Medical Student’s Journey, the title related to the topic on hand which is about medical rotations in faraway locations that are uncivilized and even remote. The book was published in 2009, and this is significant because it can be relatable to those that are entering the medical field and want a novel that shows the experience and what they have to do for them to become medical professionals. The company Sasquatch Books, which is in Seattle, Washington where she ended up becoming a professor at the University of Washington.
In the book, Chillingworth is a physician who had been captured by Native Americans sometime ago and subsequently released by them into Boston, Massachusetts, who was strictly a Puritan settlement at the time. In the years of his imprisonment by the Indians, he was taught many native herbs and plants of the New World, and their uses on the human body. Through this, he entered Boston as a physician, known to have "gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes." ( The Scarlet Letter , p. 120). Chillingworth had the knowledge of a particular drug, Atropine, which caused a sickness that closely resembled the condition of Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's motive for retribution to Dimmesdale for his adultery was very clear throughout the book, "There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine." (p. 80). Chillingworth's vengeful nature consumed his life and his only goal in life became the torment of Hester's adulterous husband, Dimmesdale. He was already showing signs of sickness, assumed by the reader to be attributed to his guilty conscience, and these were only amplified by the poisoning Chillingworth had inflicted upon him.
Because the United States is a rather rich nation, health is generally good by world standards. Still, according to medical dramas House, M.D. (House for short) and Untold Stories of the ER, there seems to be a good number of rather pressing illnesses/health concerns that are prevalent in our society. House, M.D. features diagnostician Doctor Gregory House who is a phenomenal doctor. The illnesses that were discussed most often in this particular show include lung cancer, brain cancer, tuberculosis, blood clots, heart attacks, pneumonia, and so many more.
Nathaniel Hawthorne"s, The Scarlet Letter is a book about a woman, Hester, who moves to Boston from England during the Puritan times. She has a husband, and tells the colonists of Boston he will be arriving to be with her soon. After years go by and he doesn"t arrive, Hester finds another man whom she becomes close to. She becomes pregnant and the town finds out she has committed adultery. She is forced to wear a letter "A," meaning "adulteress," on her bosom for the rest of her life. The book focuses mainly on the sin that was committed because it effected the whole community. The scarlet letter had one basic meaning, "adultery," but to the characters of Hester and Dimmesdale it was a constant reminder of the sin; and to Pearl it was a symbol of curiosity.
Both stories share the key characteristics of a personal narratives, however Rachel Riederers “Patient” provides a more in depth look into darker time in her life, “Simone, with her sensible shoe suggestions-this is all her fault” (Patient, 163), this form of comedic relief lessens some of the tension and makes the essay easy to get enthralled in ; Whereas David Owens “Scars” first two pages really only give a brief background into his personal story and uses a more jovial position as well as some comedic relief “.. I told her that some of my happiest memories involved accidents.” (Scars, 2) Owens brand of comedic relief made for an interesting essay by seeing scars as memory books, something to look back on fondly .Rachel Riederers diction
"She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped" - this is almost the first description of the main heroine that the reader gets. Hester Prynne is not dispirited by the grave crime that she is claimed with. She is going her way to the scaffold with a high lifted head and confident look. But why? Didn’t she committed an adulterous act, that came to light to all the society she had lived in? Didn’t she give birth to illegitimate child? Didn’t she have to wear on her breast the immutable sign of her disgrace – scarlet letter A? She did, but she still had a reason to be proud and graceful. Hester was in the middle of her journey to self discovery.
In the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey the use of Christ imagery is overall effective. One of the first images was the fishing trip planned by McMurphy because only twelve people went and Jesus took twelve disciples with him on a fishing trip. Billy Bibbits turning on McMurphy near the end by admitting that he was involved in McMurphys plan was like Judas admitting he participated with Jesus. Towards the end of the story McMurphy is a martyr just like Jesus because the patients aren’t free until he dies. Those are a few examples of how Kesey uses Christ imagery in his book.
Arthur Dimmesdale's soul was jeopardized by Roger Chillingworth's intentions, which were to ruin him, but his only messiah, is Pearl. Dimmesdale must embrace Pearl as his daughter and publicly confess to be free from his self-inflicted torture.
In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne three main characters are taught that they are forced to live with the mistakes they have made. 'One must be response for his/her own actions and be willing to accept the consequences of those actions.'; Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth must all face these 'consequences.'; If you do something in life and you know its wrong that means yu are willing to accept the consequences.
People waste their lives all the time by making bad decisions, focusing their lives on destroying others, and wallowing in self pity and regret. Nathaniel Hawthorne shows in his novel, The Scarlet Letter, that people go through their lives casting off their true potential. Through the characters Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne shows that sin is not only evil because it is against God=s word, but because it can destroy the sinner. Sometimes the sin itself isn=t the worst act of the sinner, it is the wasting of their life.
An exceptionally tall, Native American, Chief Bromden, trapped in the Oregon psychiatric ward, suffers from the psychological condition of paranoid schizophrenia. This fictional character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest struggles with extreme mental illness, but he also falls victim to the choking grasp of society, which worsens Bromden’s condition. Paranoid schizophrenia is a rare mental illness that leads to heavy delusions and hallucinations among other, less serious, symptoms. Through the love and compassion that Bromden’s inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, gives Chief Bromden, he is able to briefly overcome paranoid schizophrenia and escape the dehumanizing psychiatric ward that he is held prisoner in.
The English Patient is a love story set in Europe as World War II ends. It is a wartime romance mystery. Told in flashback, Ralph Fiennes plays the English patient, Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian cartographer of few words, who works for the British government, and is stationed in the North African desert. Count Laszlo is the unidentified burned survivor of a plane crash turned over to the Allies, taken into custody by a medical convoy in Italy, and essentially left to die in peace, in an isolated monastery in Tuscany, under the care of an inspiring French-Canadian nurse. This vibrant young woman named Hana has a heart of gold but she thinks that she is a curse as anybody she ever loved tends to die on her. Hana adminsters Count Laszlo de Almasy with morphine, and reads to him a book considered to be his only possession. Hana seems to stimulate his memories while she reads to him. As a badly burned man, he has only memories. His joy and heartbreak are completely clear and visible in his eyes. He remembers falling under the spell of an attractive English married woman. Although they try to avoid each other, they fall
in the novel he is not shot down, and I think there is no need to add
James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man presents an account of the formative years of aspiring author Stephen Dedalus. "The very title of the novel suggests that Joyce's focus throughout will be those aspects of the young man's life that are key to his artistic development" (Drew 276). Each event in Stephen's life -- from the opening story of the moocow to his experiences with religion and the university -- contributes to his growth as an artist. Central to the experiences of Stephen's life are, of course, the people with whom he interacts, and of primary importance among these people are women, who, as his story progresses, prove to be a driving force behind Stephen's art.