Prose as Poetry in The English Patient
"Never again will a single story be told as though it is only one." John Berger.
The English Patient consists of the stories of its four characters told either by themselves or by Ondaatje. Two stories, the accounts of Kip's military service and the many-layered secrets of the patient, are developed while Hana's and Caravaggio's stories are less involved. However, none of these stories could stand alone. The clash of cultures and changing relationships between the characters provide the texture for the novel. They create a complex web in which everyone becomes entangled.
Ondaatje uses an extremely complex structure and poetic language to further the interweaving of the characters' lives. According to one critic, "The author's four stories are not a story that gathers momentum from start to finish. They are the widening and fading circles on a pond into which history has plunged like a cast stone." (Eder 203).
"The overall structure of the book is circular and allusive, advancing, rounding back on itself, coming to endings that are not necessarily resolutions, and which may be connected to other starting points." (Draper 204). The novel begins en medias reis with the burned English patient already installed in an upper room of the villa. It is near the end of the war. The other doctors and nurses have left leaving only the patient and his nurse. He can only give short, vague descriptions of exploring the Liberian desert. When Kip and Caravaggio enter Ondaatje interlaces flashbacks to give the reader glimpses of their pasts. The novel has third person, but often characters revert to the first person to tell their own story.
The least is learned about Hana's past. Most of what is known about her childhood in Toronto is given by Caravaggio. As the novel progresses the English patient's flashbacks become longer, more detailed and coherent. The farther into the novel the farther into the past he recalls. Ondaatje moves toward the denouement obliquely, avoiding standard conventions of plot and narrative voice.
The English patient's story is the oldest narrative material, the center around which the rest of the book builds. His story lies at the center of the book, just as the patient himself lies at the center of the villa. " The dialog is pften not substantial enough to carry the deep emotions of the characters, so Ondaatje often relies on intierior monologue.
... of language and education is the most important in this story and society. The make use of two different languages in a narrative, provides a reader a perplexing yet fascinating image of characterization and customs. Multilingual story telling pushes the reader to decelerate and acquire supplemental focus on the expressions which are in the small fragments, however as soon as the reader has figured out the foreign words, he or she acquires a priceless picture of the theme of this story. The panorama of native words and phrases, cultural perceptions, and class dispute taken from the incorporation of two different languages are helpful for the reader to obtain significance that he or she couldn't gain if exclusively one language was employed in the story. Just as the power of language is applied to unveil a society, a better comprehension is provided to the reader.
Both Bubar and Fackenheim claim that there argument is not one that argues from a religious experience; hence they are immune to the fallacies of that argument. Yet critics counter that they are presenting an argument from a religious experience, one that is incompletely stated. One might remark that many people, who claim to have had glimpses of God, as Fackenheim puts it, are in both of these philosophers mind delusional. Charles Guiteau who assassinated President Garfield acted upon what he thought was instructions from God. As John Baillie puts it, there must be some criteria to distinguish fake encounters from real. We simply cannot take Bubar’s word that certain glances are illusionary while others are not.
However, the most important aspects of this story that will be explored in more detail are as follows. First and foremost, Nathan’s intoxication and nudity is perhaps most important. Secondly it is important to note that his parents are divorced, and his father has a new child on the way. Nathan Shapiro also believes himself to be completely in love with Chaya Feldman after their counter. Last, but certainly not least, Nathan is looking for an excuse to feel angry and nostalgic.
Again Owen is symbolically presented as being more than human. The armless motif is symbolizes Owen’s belied that he is “God’s Instrument” and that the choices he makes are that of God. In his belief that “God has taken my hands”, represented by armless figures, he is able to justify and overcome his actions that killed John’s mother; similarly to Pi, Owen projects unwanted events onto another in order to move on. In both Life of Pi and A Prayer for Owen Meany, symbols are used to bring attention to themes centered on religious faith and the importance of it in surviving psychological and physical hurdles.
Michael Ondaatje is very much like the narrator of his novel. Both share similar aspects of their lives beginning with the fact they share the same name: Michael. It is perhaps because Ondaatje himself experienced the same voyage as eleven year old Michael that the novel seems so very realistic. Both are born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and each, at age eleven take the voyage of a lifetime by boat from Sri Lanka to England. It seems appropriate that as the narrator of the book recalls his past as a journalist deep in adulthood, the same may be said of the novels true real author. Only Ondaatje himself knows how connected the two journeys are and this blend of truth and fiction are married perfectly to create a dreamlike quality to young Michael’s story.
The war of 1812 played many key factors in the shaping of our nation. This had been the second time that the young nation had taken on the most powerful country in the world. Outnumbered in ships, munitions, men, supplies and funding, our militia joined with the army and stood toe-to-toe with the British, and twice prevailed. The war was considered to be the ‘Second War of American Independence’, and it all certainly was. Surrounding nations were aghast at the audacity of America, and even more so with their triumph. Because of the war from 1812-1815, the United States of America had earned a position – however small – of power, influence, and respect in the realm of the world. The war strengthened our country, which ultimately led to our great nation today.
The English Patient is set in the Villa San Girolamo at the close of World War II. The war has damaged the lives of the four main characters. The setting of a war torn villa reflects the damage in their lives. All around the people are unexploded bombs. Ondaatje researched Kip's job of diffusing bombs carefuly. He gives bit by bit narration of the process of diffusing a live bomb. This careful detail and verisimilitude creates an air of tension and apprehension.
Edwin Louis Cole once said, “God never ends anything on a negative; God always ends on a positive.” In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night this quote is very significant to me. He wrote the book to inform people about the horrific nature of the Holocaust in a way that was more real than a few sentences in a history book. The biggest themes are loss of religion, destruction of self, and the darkness which Wiesel felt internally, but in the end Elie wins his well-deserved liberation. Therefore, Wiesel wrote Night to show us readers how he lost his once, close knit faith during his imprisonment along with many other things.
In these essays, the authors are telling a story about the characters life. The stories are directed towards the audience to express the kind of pain and suffering the characters went through to learn and apply what they had been yearning for.
War of 1812. In (2011). Columbia electronic encyclopedia (6th ed.). Columbia University Press. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.troy.edu/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=19&sid=55c26b42-7cb0-45da-8e2e-c574f1fe28ae@sessionmgr10&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==
The entire basis of this book deals with communicating from both character to character, and narrator to reader, on a very high cerebral level. Because of this analytic quality of the book, the most important events also take place on such a high level. In fact, the major theme of the novel, that of the narrator searching for his past self, as well as the cognitive change between the "...
Effi Briest, when we meet her in the novel is a 17-year-old girl, who can be considered a carefree, and happy child. Her adolescence is revealed early in the novel, when she is doing some embroidery with her mother (Luise), and appears to be restless when taking part. This image is furtherly painted by the author when the reader sees Effi playing a game of tag with her middle class friends Hulda, Hertha and Bertha, in chapter 2, when she knows she has to meet someone important later, but wants some more time to play with her friends. “…Effi was off up the nearest gravel path, dodging left and right until suddenly she was gone. ‘Effi, that doesn’t count. Where are you? We’re not playing hide and seek, we’re playing tag.’” (Chapter 2). This childishness that Effi embodies is significant, as it casts ...
In this story the author hasn’t implemented the traditional chronological order in which the structure of the plot can be described as a simple line from A to B. Instead, the author has used the in Medias res plot structure where the story begins in the middle of an important event. This short story begins with a long flashback in which we learn about the first time the main character sees her father after his dead.1 As soon as this flashback ends we jump straight into another flashback. This is very typical in this short story as we jump from one flashback into another one throughout the whole story. Through the use of these constant flashbacks, we learn about the important characters and events in the story. The reason why the author has done this is to prolong the drama and excitement as the important events happen in different times and places. As a result of the author having used an in medias res plot structure, the use of flashback is very frequent in this short story. The use of dialogue is very frequent in this short story. The dialogue helps make the story more captivating and dramatic; it adds tension to the story. The type
Newton’s three laws of motion state that: 1. an object’s state of motion tends to remain constant, unless an external force is applied. 2. The force applied to the object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration, and the force and acceleration vectors are in the same direction 3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When considering these laws in the analysis of a hard collision in football, we make a few observations.
The Maya culture has a long history that started in about 1000 BC. The history of the Maya is divided up into four different time periods: The Middle Preclassic Period, Late Preclassic Period, Classic Period, and Postclassic Period. The Middle Preclassic Period was when the small areas started to become city-like in the way that they started to build larger temples. The Late Preclassic Period was when the cities began to expand with paved roads and massive pyramids. The Classic Period was the time the Maya civilization hit it’s peak. Populations were growing rapidly and the structure of politics was formed. The Postclassic Period was when warfare was on the rise and cities were being abandoned(Coe 2005). This paper will focus on the Classic Period due to the fact that that is the greatest time period in Maya history.