Relevance of Characters, Settings, & Conflicts

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   In his novel, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje uses complex narrative system and bold, but rather vivid words to describe the characters, settings, and conflicts. Through his writing, he successfully connects these three main parts of his novel, absorbing the reader more into the deep ocean of pensiveness.

   Settings of this book, first of all, acts as the base to build up the characters and develop the conflicts. The time setting, at the verge of ending World War II, helps Ondaatje to naturally build external and internal conflicts. Not only the war causes massive injury to the English Patient, but also it acts as a factor that helps to isolate the villa from outer side of world. Furthermore, the war itself just adds a bit of uneasy feeling into the story, as if something important has not been done. Both the location setting, the villa and the desert, serve to build the isolated environment which enables the author to elaborate more intensely on the personalities of main characters, the English patient and Hana.

   Then, the characters are built above these bases. Due to the isolated environment, readers can explore deeper into the characteristic of the English patient and Hana. The English patient develops an image of honorable soldier due to his injuries while fighting for the war. After his plane crashed, the Bedouin tribe took care of him and he is very gracious to their kindness. Through his stories, readers gain sympathy for him. Hana is described as the determined woman who takes care of her patient with great care, almost to the extent of love. Two characters and the special relationship between them create conflict when other characters, such as Caravaggio or Kips come in to join the story.

   With all these intricately interacting relevance between characters, settings, and conflicts, Odaatje leads the readers into the mysterious and intriguing tale. Odaatje then leaves the readers to get sucked into the novel, letting them to explore deep into the intensity of The English Patient.