Exploring Identity in the novels of Michael Ondaatje

318 Pages·2014·12.77 MB·English

by  Chitra Krishnan

Chitra Krishnan
Exploring Identity in the novels of Michael Ondaatje

Chitra Krishnan
Exploring Identity in the novels
ichael daatje
Scholar's
BM0661881
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Table of Contents
Preface .................................................................................... 2 - 4
Chapter 1 : Diaspora and Identity .......................................... 5 - 49
Chapter Il : Deterioration of Identity .................................... 50 - 87
Chapter III : Reconstructing Identity .................................. 88 - 124
Chapter IV : Quest for Identity in skin of the Lion ............ 125 - 166
Chapter V : Unravelling Identity ....................................... 167 - 212
Chapter VI: Anil's Ghost.. ............................................... 213 - 251
Chapter VII : Reinventing Identity .................................... 252 - 293
Summing Up .................................................................... 294 -313
PREFACE
A reading of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992) initiated
me in my exploration of diaspora literature. The book is a highly
acclaimed Booker Prize winner, and a haunting novel of four people
who come to live together in an abandoned villa in Italy at the end of
the Second World War. The book stirred a curiosity in me to read
more of Ondaatje's novels. A prolific writer, Ondaatje has covered
an array of themes spread across various locations and this reflects
the diasporic nature of this multi-faceted author. Reading Ondaatje's
novels made me highly appreciative of his creativity, humour, and a
humanitarian treatment of people. Ondaatje's invaluable
contribution to South Asian-Canadian diaspora literature has earned
him a top place among diaspora writers.
A careful reading of his novels made me realise the imaginative
ways in which this author shows how his protagonists undergo
different trials in life. The most striking aspect of his works is the
underlying search for identity in ail of them. Ondaatje's intellect and
critical depth are unsurpassed, and his contribution to South Asian
Canadian Diaspora literature is unmatched in its portrayal of
displaced people with unstable identities. Ali his novels echo the
intensity of the inner struggles of people who may be transnationals
or even people within the same country. Reading of his books
touched a deep chord in my heart, and 1 felt an irresistible urge to
take up the study of Ondaatje's novels. In the consideration of a
versatile writer su ch as Ondaatje, this study focuses only on the
search for identity which is the most distinctive feature of his works
despite his representation of unique themes.
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Divided into eight chapters, the tirst chapter Diaspora and
Identity attempts to present some of the major theories of diaspora
literature, namely migration, displacement, expatriate, immigrant,
exile, nostalgia, longing, memory, past, loss or alienation, the
insider-outsider which is also called the in-between condition, Third
Space, space, place and time, self and identity, home, host country,
maps, culture, language, hybridity, multiculturalism,
transnationalism, colonialism, post-colonialism, orientalism, history,
and postmodernism. There is a focus on Third World writers, South
Asian writers, Canada, South Asian diaspora, Sri Lanka, the Sri
Lankan Ethnie Conflict, writing in English in Sri Lanka with a
mention of some famous Sri Lankan diaspora writers, especially
MichaelOndaatje.
The second chapter Deterioration of Identity deals with
Ondaatje's first novel Coming Through Siaughter (1976). It probes
the identity of a legendary Jazz musician Charles Buddy Bolden
who gradually deteriorates mentally which leads to the loss of his
identity as a musician. The third chapter entitled Reconstructing
Identity which deals with Ondaatje's semi-tictional memoir Running
in the Family (1982) is an attempt by the author to recreate his own
identity from his hybrid lineage. The fourth chapter Quest for
Identity discusses Ondaatje's next novel ln the Skin of a Lion
(1987). The novel is set in Canada, and deals with the pursuit of
identity not only by immigrants but also by a native Canadian
searching for an identity of his own. The fifth chapter Unravelling
Identity discusses The English Patient (1992) which won Ondaatje
the Booker Prize, and depicts the revelations of the protagonists
who come to live together in a deserted villa at the end of the
Second World War. The sixth chapter Unearthing Identity is a
study of Anil's Ghost (2000) which deals with a returning
immigrant's challenge of discovering the identity of several unknown
political murders in her native land. The seventh chapter titled
Reinventing Identity is a study of Divisadero (2007) which shows
how people rise from the ashes of their traumas, and reinvent new
identities for themselves. The eighth chapter Summing Up reviews
various diaspora theories, Ondaatje's supreme craftsmanship and
the several ways and means by which the protagonists search for
their identities.
While every effort has been made to avoid repetition,
nevertheless, it has become inevitable to make use of the same
point in different contexts for discussion. However, without preju&ce
to the argument, 1 have endeavoured to minimise repetition, and
synonymous words of the term 'diaspora' (Iike: exile, immigrant,
expatriate, sojourner, migrant) are used to avoid reiteration as far as
possible. Ali the textual quotations are taken from the editions
listed in the bibliography that has followed the Seventh Edition of
the MLA Handbook
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CHAPTER 1 : DIASPORA AND IDENTITY
Human history has included a number of diasporas and some
historians have made the phenomenon a focus of study for they
consider diaspora to be a multiple journey leading to complicit
spaces where various discourses are created and negotiated.
These territories evoke emotional, social, political, economic,
cultural and literary affiliations that find expression in multiple ways.
Diaspora is marked by struggle over meanings both amongst the
diasporics and with people in the countries where they now inhabit.
Being uprooted from one's native land and culture is a colossal
experience for an individual and his or her culture, so the study of
Diasporas is very important. Originating from the Greek word
meaning 'to scatter and to sow,' it originally referred to the traumatic
exile and settlement of Jews outside Palestine following the
Babylonian exile (586 B.C.) and ended in the Holocaust of World
War II. Connotations of a 'diaspora' situation were usually
associated with forced displacement, victimisation, alienation, loss.
Today, it a term often used today to describe any population which
has originated in a land other than which it currently resides, and
whose social, economic and political networks cross the borders of
nation-states and are considered to be 'de-territorialised' or
'transnational. '
Author James Procter writes that, '''diaspora' can appear both as
naming a geographical phenomenon - the traversai of physical
terrain by an individual or a group - as weil as a theoretical concept:
a way of thinking, or of representing the world." i It is this latter
epistemological sense of the term which demands that issues of
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