Reports Deposit

Redemption and Transformation

In the novel The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje describes the ceaseless change of environment and people during World War II. The story is set in a village in Italy where Germans have left many land mines behind as they retreated. Although the story takes place in Italy, pathetic love affairs in the desert near Cairo are also described through Almasy’s narcotic-induced memories. One of the major themes of the novel is redemption and transformation of nature and human beings. There is nothing that does not change. In the same way as the desert is always changed by winds and oases change locations, Hana recovers from shell shock, Almasy dissolves his conflicts, and Kip loses his faith in England.

The desert that appears in Almasy’s stories is the place where winds always blow sand and the landscape always changes its appearance. Almasy says, “The desert … [is] a piece of cloth carried by winds” (Onddatje 138). Not only the shape of the desert but also the cities in the desert change their prosperity. Herodotus writes, “‘For those cities that were great in earlier times must have now become small, and those that were great in my time were small in the time before’” (142).

Similarly, oases change locations and appear and disappear in the desert. Almasy says, “When no rain [falls] the acacias [withers], the wadis [dries] out … until water suddenly [reappears] fifty or a hundred years later (141). Almasy and his colleagues are “looking for the lost oasis that has been called Zerzura” (135). There is nothing that is permanent in the desert, but everything is changing.

Hana, a nurse who takes care of Almasy, also changes her thoughts about her father’s death. During the war, like many injured solders, “[n]urses too [become] shell-shocked from the dying around them” (41). In Hana’s case, the reasons for her illness are her father’s death and her abortion. She says, “I lost the child. I mean, I had to lose it. The father was already dead. There was a war” (82). The war changes everything around her. Because of the shock, she retreats from the military hospital and starts living with the English patient, Almasy (41). The injury in her mind is so serious that she cannot talk about her father, as she says, “I still can’t listen to those stories [which involves her father]” (266).

However, Hana recovers from her sickness through living with Almasy, Caravaggio, and Kirpal. Her father dies in France, burned terribly. She says, “the bottoms of his shirt have been part of his skin, part of his dear chest” (295). She regrets that she could not take care of him: “I could have saved him or at least been with him till the end” (296). Therefore, her taking care of the English patient, who is dying from burns, like her father did, is her compensation for her father. Caravaggio also gives her wise advice: “‘Fathers die. You keep on loving them in any way you can. You can’t hide him away in your heart’” (266). In addition, she finds the answer in her own words when she comforts Kirpal: “What [have] we [had] to do with it?” (288) She realizes that her absence at her father’s death is not her fault. The letter she sends to her stepmother describing her father’s death shows her redemption from her illness.

Alamsy, who regrets what he has done towards his lover and friends, also dissolves his conflicts as he tells his stories. Because he has loved Katharine, she and her husband dies. If he had not loved her, they would not have died. Madox, Alamsy’s close friend also dies in the church by “[pulling] out his desert revolver and [shooting] himself” (240). Alamsy agonizes about what he has done:

What Had I done? What animal had I delivered into her? I had been speaking to her I think for over an hour. Had I been her demon lover? Had I been Madox’s demon friend? This country – had I charted it and turned it into a place of war? (260)

However, after he reexamines his experience by telling his stories about the desert, he realizes that what he has done is not wrong:

Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swam up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, freas we have hidden in as if caves. (261)

Caravaggio plays the role of psychological counselor, and Almasy’s mind transforms from guilty confusion to a calm condition. Almasy is satisfied and needs “‘Nothing’” at this point (261).

Similarly, Kirpal loses his loyalty for England when an atomic bomb explodes. He was born in India where he joined a Sikh regiment and was sent to England where he learned about delayed-action bomb and how to defuse them (182). Although his loyalty for England started when he became a member of the Sikh regiment, it increased when he was introduced to Lord Suffolk. The lord welcomes Kirpal: “[Kirpal has] stepped into a family, after a year abroad, as if he were the prodigal returned, offered a chair at the table, embraced with conversations” (189). After living and having some experiences in England, he begins to love England (190).

However, the explosion of the atomic bomb which is dropped in Japan and ends World War II changes Kirpal’s faith in England. When he listens to the news about the bomb, his extreme shock turns into “a scream … from his body which had never raised its voice” (281). The dropping of the bomb, which destroys an entire city on an Eastern nation, is an act of betrayal of Western nations for him. He realizes the reality of racism, as his brother words foreshadows: “‘“One day you will open your eyes”’” (217). He loses confidence about what he has done as a part of English military. He expresses his anger: “Indian soldiers wasted their lives as heroes so they could be pukkah” (283). His travel “against the direction of the invasion” indicates his redemption (290). Eventually, he goes back to India where was born (299).

Everything is changing, and nothing can abide forever. In other words, that is the only universal truth which is certain. The desert changes its shape in storms, and oases wander in the desert. Similar to nature, human beings also change. Hana recovers from her illness; Almasy reconciles his conflicts; and Kirpal loses his loyalty for England. The changes are always unpredictable and mystical. Almasy has lost his lover and friends and is burned beyond recognition. However, he says, “I do not believe I [have] entered a cursed land, or that I [has been] ensnared in a situation that [has been] evil. Every place and person [has been] a gift to me” (257). Only in nirvana, the last maturity, people realize that constant changes are the gifts from heaven.

Work Cited

Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. 1992. Toronto, ON.: Vintage Books, 1993.