The English Patient

About The English Patient

The English Patient, published in 1992.*

.The novel won Ondaatje the prestigious Booker McConnell Prize in 1992, making him the only Sri Lankan writer ever to receive the honor. In 1996, Saul Zaentz produced The English Patient as a film, adapted by Anthony Minghella, starring Ralph Fiennes as Almasy and Kristen Scott-Thomas as Katharine Clifton. The film went on to win a slew of Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
*The English Patient. takes place during World War II, during which Ondaatje himself was born. The story involves four people converging on a villa and discovering the secrets of their past in an effort to move towards healing in the future.
.The book, like many of Ondaatje's novels, isn't slavish to plot constructions. Indeed, in several interviews Ondaatje has revealed that the plot didn't really exist until he finished the first draft of the book. He frequently begins with only a generative image.

~.~

Michael Ondaatje (1943-)

.Michael Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1943 in the midst of World War II. He moved with his mother, brother, and sister to England in 1952 before attending Bishop University in Quebec, Canada. He received his BA from the University of Toronto in 1965 and his MA from Queens University in 1967.Ondaatje currently lives in Toronto with his wife, novelist/editor Linda Spalding.
.Ondaatje is best known for The English Patient, which won the Booker Prize upon its publication in 1992 and was adapted into a film by Anthony Minghella that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1997. Ondaatje began by publishing poetry in 1967 with the book Daisy Monsters.
.Ondaatje's poetry became an important part of defining his writing style, allowing him to experiment with fragmented consciousness, juxtaposition of unlike images, and experimental rhythm. He went on to publish the poetry collections The Collected Works of Billy the Kid in 1970 along with several others before publishing his first novel in 1976, Coming Through Slaughter.

~.~

. Hana is an army nurse who take care from a burned man who chose to erase his identity and nationality and named him self ''The English Patient'',while his real name is Almasy.His job was to draw maps of the desert.

. Caravaggio was afriend of Hana's father .He entered the world of spying and bears physical and sychological scars from german forces.

. After Kip,who is asoldier entered Hana villa he and the English Patient become afriends.

. Geoffery Clifton plane made the jop of the patient easier but Almasy fell in love with Katharine Clifton ,Geoffrey wife.

. The members of the exploration team decided to pack up when the world war II broke out.

. Geoffery with Katharine tried to kill each other by crashing plane and leaving Almasy in the ddesert to die immediately was Geoffery .After few days Katherine die too.

. Kip become more close to Hana and forms a romantic relationship.

. years later Kip is happily married with childern ,however,he still often thinks of Hana.

~.~

~.~

1-Almásy:

. He is the protagonist of the "English patient" the novel's title.

. Almásy exists as the center and focus of the action.

.Little by little, he reveals his identity, and finally his name, in the end of the novel.

.When Almásy's name is revealed we discover the great irony of the novel: the "English patient" is not even an English, but rather Hungarian by birth.

.The English patient character serves to highlight the great differences between imagination and reality.

. Almásy's is clear-minded and rational thinking, however, he is clouded by the entrance of Katharine Clifton into his life.

2-HANA:


. She is a nurse who cares for the English patient, bringing him morphine and washing his wounds.

. She still clings to vestiges of innocence that allow her to feel like a child—some nights, she goes out in the garden to play hopscotch.

. Hana is a dynamic character, and the novel is in many ways the story of her maturity into adulthood.

. Hana sees her English patient as a "despairing saint. Even as CHRIST.

. Where in reality,Almásy is a mapmaker who has helped German spies and carried on an affair with another man's wife.

. Therefore, by projecting the noble images into the blank identity of the English patient, Hana builds innocent and childlike dreams. As the novel concludes, Hana sees the reality in her situation, and she longs to return home to the safety.