Why would Ondaatje do a riff on Conrad s book? Is he paying it homage? Or critiquing it?

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1 Why would Ondaatje do a riff on Conrad s book? Is he paying it homage? Or critiquing it? 1

2 It might help to ask ourselves, how is The English Patient different from Heart of Darkness? What does Ondaatje do that is deliberately unlike Conrad s approach? In Heart of Darkness, the European identity is based on the presence of the colonized or at the very least, the exploited, speechless savage. Europeans see themselves as the antithesis of the Africans Africans defined as primitives in need of direction; Becomes means of rationalizing exploitation In The English Patient, the explorers see themselves as insignificant and Africa as: a place where there were sudden, brief populations over the centuries a fourteenth-century army, a Tebu caravan, the Senussi raiders of and in between these times nothing was there (141). Rethinking of history and civilization, not as building to some ultimate moment, but episodic, in flux Predominate character is the desert; explorers are one of many, transient groups of inhabitants The English patient doesn t imagine that he has discovered Africa or can claim a first sighting; instead, he sees himself as joining a river of history, 2

3 In The English Patient, Kip and Hana speak As analogues for the speechless, nameless primitives that people Conrad s Africa and the women who function as props for Marlow s more important activities, Kip and Hana are quite different Kip superficially, analogue to Marlow s loyal helmsmen, the silent pilot, but Kip speaks Bill Fledderus sees Kip as Grail knight (i.e. analogous to Marlow), but I disagree. Hana does make Kip into a heroic figure as means of establishing order: each morning he would step from the painted scene towards dark bluffs of chaos. The knight. the warrior saint (273). 3

4 However, Kip rejects this role: If he were a hero in a painting, he could claim a just sleep [ ]. The successful defusing of a bomb ended novels. Wise white fatherly men shook hands, were acknowledged, and limped away, having been coaxed out of solitude for this special occasion. But he was a professional. And he remained the foreigner, the Sikh (104-5). rejects the heroic role because it does not include the brown races ; He was accustomed to his invisibility. In England he was ignored in the various barracks, and he came to prefer that. The self-sufficiency and privacy Hana saw in him later were caused not just by his being a sapper in the Italian campaign. It was as much a result of being the anonymous member of another race, a part of the invisible world. He had built up defences of character again all that, trusting only those who befriended him (196-7). 4

5 also recognizes the inadequacy of the myth need a war to be a hero In wars, people get maimed, wounded, killed The plot line of a traditional novel would fail to account for the complexity of Kip s experience Rethinking of the heroic quest which is about white men Questioning the valorization of war and violence Kip recognizes order as transient finds solace in art, largely of late medieval period, Christian theme Arezzo, sees frescoes in Chiesa de San Francisco, by Piero della Francesca; Francesca was first Renaissance painter to use single point perspective 5

6 frescoes illustrate medieval tale: The Golden Legend history of wood used for Christ s crucifixion wood believed to originate with the tree of original sin in Garden of Eden; chopped down by King Solomon to build bridge; Queen of Sheba, learning of origins of wood on the bridge, refuses to cross it. King Solomon orders the bridge removed and the wood buried; the wood is later found and used for Christ s crucifixion; returns to Jerusalem 600 years AD. For Kip, the medieval world provides a cushion against the war: It was always raining and cold, and there was no order but for the great maps of art that showed judgment, piety, and sacrifice. The Eighth Army came upon river after river of destroyed bridges, and their sapper units clambered down banks on ladders of rope within enemy gunfire and swam or waded across. Food and tents were washed away. Men who were tied to equipment disappeared. Once across the river they tried to ascend out of the water. They sank their hands and wrists into the mud wall of the cliff face and hung there. They wanted the mud to harden and hold them. The young Sikh sapper put his cheek against the mud and thought of the Queen of Sheba s face, the texture of her skin. There was no comfort in this river except for his desire for her, which somehow kept him warm He would pull the veil off her hair. He would put his right hand between her neck and olive blouse..he leaned forward to rest on the skin of her frail neck. He fell in love with her downcast eye. This woman who would someday know the sacredness of bridges ( 70). 6

7 in Naples, defusing a bomb, Kip finds comfort in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara amongst the terracotta figures of a woman and an angel: if he is going to explode he will do so in the company of these two. They will die or be secure. There is nothing more he can do, anyway, He has been up all night on a final search for caches of dynamite and time cartridges. Walls will crumble around him or he will walk through a city of light. At least he has found these parental figures. He can relax in the midst of this mime of conversation (280). Woman and the angel are like a family; they are physically larger-than-life and provide imaginary succour Kip also taken with another painting, that of the Madonna del Parto Figure of birth and regeneration in the midst of the war 7

8 Kip witnesses the Marine Festival of the Virgin Mary in Gabicce Unusual movements in the sea at night are detected by the Eighth Army and thought to be German soldiers Kip watches through the scope on his rifle as sees a halo [that] was suddenly illuminated around the head of the Virgin Mary. She was coming out of the sea a blue and cream plaster figure (78-79). Ritual re-enactment of the emergence of the Virgin allows the community to bring the feminine principle of regeneration from the sea of unconscious into the communal consciousness Mixes elements of the pagan celebration of the Stella Maris with the Christian The Virgin is almost shot by the Eighth Army The figure is placed in a grape truck full of flowers, while the bank marched ahead of her in silence (79) For Kip, the Grail becomes manifest in art and ritual in the aspect of the nurturing mother, in the themes of resurrection and birth But the lance of war threatens the presence of the Grail; lance in its destructive aspect 8

9 It is Caravaggio who tries to pull both Kip and Hana out of the narrative of the war: The British army teaches him the skills and the Americans teach him further skills and the team of sappers are given lectures, are decorated and sent off into the rich hills. You are being used, boyo, as the Welsh say. I m not staying here much longer. I want to take you home. Get the hell out of Dodge City.What is Kip doing dismantling bombs in orchards, for God s sake? What is he doing fighting English wars? A farmer on the western front cannot prune a tree without ruining his saw. Why? Because of the amount of shrapnel shot into it during the last war. Even the trees are thick with diseases we brought. The armies indoctrinate you and leave you here and they fuck off somewhere else to cause trouble, inky-dinky parlez-vous (121). Caravaggio points out how tempting it is for Kip to align himself with the accomplishment and skills he is being taught Fears that Kip doesn t see how he is being exploited; rather than being valued, he is being exploited, used to further the aims of one side over another Caravaggio uses metaphor of the Western to question the motives and ultimate purpose of Kip s activities; Dodge suggests a drama and hence someone constructing a plot in which cowboys shoot it out at the O.K. corral Who writes this story? 9

10 Why should Kip have any allegiance to England? What has England done for India? And Caravaggio takes the argument one step further, pointing out the futility of war; Questions who profits from the sacrifices of Hana and Kip? Here they are, full of youth and possibility, and they are being used up Previous wars have already ruined the landscape, destroyed the orchards and for what end? The line inky-dinky parlez-vous is from a W.W. I song, Mademoiselles from Armentieres Mademoiselle from Armentieres Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parley-voo? Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parley-voo? Mademoiselle from Armentieres, She hasn't been kissed in forty years, Hinky, dinky, parley-voo. Additional, rather crude lyrics that speak to the plight of the enlisted soldier In referencing a phrase from this song, Caravaggio highlights how nothing has changed since the last war, WWI 10