This parallel unit, pairing Ondaatje and Atwood's fiction, examines Canadian identity as a colonial construction—fragmented by French, English, and Irish heritages, and effacement of indigenous life, yet defined by its status as a forgotten sister of Empire, an implicit comparison to India's status as the Jewel. Thus, we have Canada Within-Atwood's exploration of the Grace Marks case, English-Irish animosities and misogyny reiterated in the New World, and Canada Without-Ondaatje's interrogation of an emerging Canadian post-colonial identity at the close of World War II. In "The English Patient," through the figures of Kip and Almásy, we explore how the nomadic subject navigates the collapse of European structural, legal, and social structures in the wake of global trauma. The unit presents well in an IB DP English classroom, particularly with advanced students at the Higher Level, and works equally well as an Undergraduate English Literature or Cultural Studies course, where transdisciplinary considerations are featured.
Deleuze & Guattari: Smooth vs. Striated Space
Contrasting the desert (Smooth Space) with the map-making of Empire (Striated Space). We analyze how the villa functions as a rhizome—a non-hierarchical space where interpellated colonial identities are shed in favor of nomadic connections.
The Naming of Kip: Metonymy & The Colonial Gaze
Examining Kip as the metonymic tool of Empire. We analyze how his identity is "constructed" by English military needs before he reclaims his subjectivity through the rejection of Western "Gardens."
Jacques Lacan: The Real of Trauma
Positioning the desert as the Real—that which cannot be symbolized by the English language. Trauma acts as a "Textual Haunting" that disrupts the characters' Symbolic identities as soldiers and nurses.
Michel Foucault: The Archaeology of the Archive
Using The Histories of Herodotus as a site of colonial power. We explore how Almásy’s overwriting of the text serves as a counter-history against the rigid archives of the state.