“We are the real countries. Not the boundaries drawn on maps”: A Study of Ondaatje’s The English Patient as well as the film adaptation of it by Anthony Minghella

Abstract

Nationality and identity—these tug-of-war issues are inextricably interconnected in
Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient (1992) and Anthony Minghella’s
adapted film version, both of which are set in World War II Italy. These create a web
of inescapable structures that tie the characters to certain places and time despite their
best efforts to break free of the confinement. Questions concerning the identity of the
English patient Almasy form one of the narrative threads and lend the novel a sense of
mystery. Almasy forges his identity through his character, his deed and his interaction
with others. Rather than inheriting the identity, Almasy creates an alternative identity
in the desert.
 The film The English Patient (1996) opens with a pre-war biplane flying above a
vast desert, carrying two passengers in its cockpit. The image of the desert is a crucial
and recurrent motif in the movie. Opposing to nationalism and nation-state realities, the
desert subverts the colonial practices such as mapping and locating. Through the villa
as a microcosm, Ondaatje seemsto communicate the idea of a form of global belonging.
But, the movie somewhere fails to suggest the war-ravaged Italian villa as a space
without borders. Here, we find the villa merely as a site of complete destruction. The
present paper is going to show how different identities and roles of the characters
determine the movements and actions of the characters in tumultuous WWII period
both in the novel and the adapted movie version.