The English Patient

1113 Words5 Pages
In Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, the characters struggle to discover the identities of one another. Hana and Caravaggio solve the mystery of who the English patient really is. Hana is reluctant to face realities, and balances her life with a mixture of childhood and adulthood attributes. Kip, an Indian man in a White man’s war, challenges his beliefs, customs, and nationality. Although each individual’s identity is their own, the members of the villa rely on each other to unravel each others’ stories and mysteries. The identity of the English patient becomes clearer as the novel progresses; however, the patient’s true identity remains a mystery for the majority of the story. Depending on whose point of view the reader best identifies with, the clues about the English patient can be interpreted in different ways. Hana, who is young and naïve, views her patient as a saintly man. She falls for his clever charm and assumes, based on certain characteristics of the English patient, that he is a true Englishman. He was brought to an ally camp and speaks with an English accent and has the manners of a gentleman. Because Hana believes that the English patient is so saintly and good, and she is fighting for the ally cause, she subjectively sees him as an Englishman. Caravaggio, on the other hand, uses his head rather than his feelings to decipher the identity of the English patient. Caravaggio, who was a thief turned spy for the ally army, thinks that the facts about the English patient’s life coincide with the life of a Hungarian man, Almásy, who helped the German army by escorting German spies across the desert. The English patient and Almásy both are well acquainted with the desert and it was well known that Almásy was able to fake an English accent. Unfortunately, the English patient is burned beyond recognition so Caravaggio cannot be sure that his suspicions
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