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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter II. In Near Ruins
Explanation and Analysis—Buried Speech:
In Chapter 2 of The English Patient, the narrator reveals pieces of Hana's backstory as a nurse, before she arrived at the villa San Girolamo. Hana's experiences caring for battle-torn patients during World War II leaves Hana with an immense amount of trauma, which Ondaatje evokes using a metaphor regarding Hana's speech:
Throughout the war, with all of her worst patients, she survived by keeping a coldness hidden in her role as nurse. I will survive this. I won’t fall apart at this. These were buried sentences all through her war, all through the towns they crept towards and through [...]
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Placenta:
As the English patient lies bed-bound in the Italian villa after being rescued from his aviation crash, Hana grapples with the reality of becoming his full-time caretaker. Burdened with war trauma herself, she finds it difficult to sleep and often spends time in deep reminiscence over her first encounters with the fragile and scarred patient. In Chapter 2, Ondaatje compares the English patient to an unborn baby, crafting a metaphor to illustrate how war injuries have almost infantilized the patient:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the Pisa hospital she had seen the English patient for the first time. A man with no face. An ebony pool. All identification consumed in a fire. [...] Sometimes she collects several blankets and lies under them, enjoying the warmth they bring. And when moonlight slides onto the ceiling it wakes her, and she lies in the hammock, her mind skating. [...] Her legs move under the burden of military blankets. She swims in their wool as the English patient moved in his cloth placenta.
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Chapter III. Sometime a Fire
Explanation and Analysis—A Drifting Star:
As Kip adjusts to life at the villa San Girolamo, he realizes that his racial identity will continue to negatively impact his relationships with Caravaggio, Hana, and the English patient—even though he will eventually spark a passionate romance with Hana. To heighten Kip's experience of isolation at the villa, Ondaatje crafts a metaphor for his non-belonging in Chapter 3 of the novel:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He seems casually content with this small group in the villa, some kind of loose star on the edge of their system. This is like a holiday for him after the war of mud and rivers and bridges. He enters the house only when invited in, just a tentative visitor, the way he had done that first night when he had followed the faltering sound of Hana’s piano and come up the cypress-lined path and stepped into the library.
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Chapter IX. The Cave of Swimmers
Explanation and Analysis—Almásy's Transformation:
In Chapter 9 of The English Patient, the newly-revealed Almásy shares his entire history with Caravaggio—from his early days of exploration in the desert to his tumultuous romance with Katharine Clifton before World War II began. Although Caravaggio does not physically force Almásy to divulge his past, his pressures cause Almásy to feel taken advantage of—an experience Ondaatje illustrates with a metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones.
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