Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion"

1283 Words6 Pages
The following essay delineates the relationship between language and subjectivity in In the Skin of a Lion as well as examining the roles of community and narrative in the development of Patrick Lewis, the novel's pivotal character.] My discussion of Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion is intent on seeking a correspondence between narration and the acquisition of subjectivity. To achieve this correspondence I centre my argument specifically on Patrick Lewis in order to illustrate how his incremental movement from private to communal symbolic registers facilitates his quest to subjectify himself within society. This approach is dependent upon understanding the role narration plays in the framing of personal and collective experience, and also how narration functions as a medium for desire. The theoretical foundation of my discussion borrows heavily from Lacanian poststructural theory. Here again, I am attempting to gain a fuller understanding, not only of the relationship between language and subjectivity, but also the important roles that community (or collective discourse) and narrative play in the development of subjectivity. In addition to my analysis of Patrick, I also intend to situate the reader as a subject who gains knowledge through narration by identifying his/her own position within textual discourse. My reading necessitates viewing Patrick as the pivotal agent through whom the reader is encouraged to enter the fictional realm, seek and discover knowledge, and finally, carry that knowledge into the real world. In this regard my discussion is very much in the service of the social and political aims of Ondaatje's text. However, before dealing directly with the novel it is necessary to present a fairly broad understanding of how I will be employing the term narration in the contexts of reading and framing experience.
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