LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:1 January 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Immigrants’ Experience in Michael Ondaatje’s Novels
In The Skin of a Lion and The English Patient

S. Poorna Mala Devi, M.A., M.Phil.

Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Courtesy: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2010/10/25/michael-ondaatje-reads-at-tulane

Abstract

Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan Canadian writer. His novels are all about life and death, the agony of dying victims of war and terrorism. In his novel, In the Skin of a Lion, Ondaatje narrates the forgotten stories of the immigrants who contributed to build the city of Toronto. Patrick as a trans-cultural immigrant struggles to understand and accepts his own patchwork identity and finds his place in a society through the characters in the novel. Thematically, the novel may be categorized as post-colonial with its focus on immigrants and their native cultures and languages. The migrant workers are forced to communicate in English. The voicelessness and powerlessness of migrants are portrayed in the novel. The novel is a clear example of migrant experience and their many struggles. Ondaatje writes about the happenings of the Second World War in his novel The English Patient. He questions the very notions of identity and shows how the dominant discourse of Western imperialism and civilisation have dispossessed the people of different races and cultural identities.The English Patient has the resonance of the myth of the Egyptian traveller in the form of the central character Almasy who is a reservoir of the fragmented accounts of expeditions through deserts. The characters are all exiles from their homeland who have gathered together at the Villa San Girolamo at the end of World War II. The novel focuses on the relationships among four characters that have all been deeply damaged by World War II. The characters in Ondaatje’s novel have also travelled extensively and have ended up in a damaged villa in an unfamiliar country where they must reconstruct new identities. Ondaatje deals with some of the most sensitive problems of the contemporary epoch in the novel The English Patient and he skillfully portrays the immigrants experience in the novel In the Skin of a Lion.

Key words: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, victims of war, terrorism, migrant workers, identities

Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan Canadian writer. His novels are all about life and death, the agony of dying victims of war and terrorism. This paper entitled Immigrant Experiences in Michael Ondaatje’s novels: The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion.

In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient

In the Skin of a Lion

In his novel, In the Skin of a Lion, he narrates the forgotten stories of the immigrants who contributed to build the city of Toronto. The voicelessness and powerlessness of migrants who are portrayed in the novel. The novel is a clear example of migrant experience and their struggles. He writes about the happenings of the Second World War in his novel The English Patient. He questions the very notions of identity and shows how the dominant discourse of Western imperialism and civilisation have dispossessed the people of different races and cultural identities.

Commonwealth Literature has assumed immense importance and significance. It widens our horizon about the world. Through novels, plays and poems and short stories, we come into contact with the experience of many other people across Commonwealth nations. One important aspect in Commonwealth Literature is that it is written in one place by people from another place. Many contemporary authors have chosen to live in Canada or the United States. Some internationally known writers in Canada who originate from elsewhere include Rohinton Mystery, Cyril Dabydeen, Philip Michael Ondaatje, Olive Senior, Neil Bissoondath etc.,

Ondaatje is the author of numerous novels, poems, plays and species of literary criticism. In most of his writings Michael Ondaatje revealed traces of his origins. As a poet, novelist, and filmmaker, Michael Ondaatje often combines and contrasts the factual and imaginary, poetry and prose real and the unreal. His longer narrative works, often based on the unorthodox lives of real people, may contain documentary as well as fictional accounts. Although he is a Canadian, his writing is not often set in Canada. Ondaatje has contributed greatly to his nation through his fictions and has become international famous.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

S. Poorna Mala Devi, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor in English
Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal College
Sivakasi-626130
Tamilnadu
India
poorna2841991@gmail.com

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