Tripartite Color, Racial Segregation and Violence: Tracking the Paradigm of National Identity in Michael Ondaatje’s the English Patient

Abstract

This article examines the colonial insights in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient (1992). In the main, the study tackles the representation of national identity in the novel. In the course of the analysis, the study will shed light on three inextricable colonial issues. First, color will be discussed as the discrepancy between the colonized and the colonizer portrayed in the novel. Both the colonized and the colonizer perceive each other on colonial grounds. The analysis will pinpoint the colonizer as being misjudged on the premise of color considerations. To explain, the colonizers perceive and treat the colonized in the light of their color. The colonized people’s blackness is a symbolical token of their racial status. Therefore, they are judged by the colonizer because they are black. The issue of color leads to another colonial matter i.e., racial segregation. As the colonizers treat the colonized in terms of their color considerations, they develop a sense of racial segregation. They begin to consider them as being superior to the blacks. As a result, violence springs out between the colonized and the colonizers after such racial segregation. Thus, the blacks’ national identity gets negatively influenced by this violence.

Keywords: Colonialism, Identity, Ondaatje, Racial Segregation, Violence