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Metaphor
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:
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.
By using the image of a placenta as a metaphor for the English patient's fragility, Ondaatje heightens the image of the patient’s fetus-like nature. Because the patient is so badly burned, he relies on Hana—almost like a mother—to feed, wash, and take care of him. His blankets represent a placenta because they keep him in place, they keep him warm, and he is unable to move from their confines—like an unborn baby in the womb. This figurative image is particularly striking because the English patient is a grown adult; yet his injuries have reduced his physical capabilities almost to the point of elimination. His mind remains sharp, and he can recall memories of his past and communicate with Hana, but he remains entirely immobile. This metaphor also gestures to the gendered dynamic between Hana and the patient, for Hana—the novel's primary female character—has no choice but to tend to the male patient before she tends to herself.
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