A Map Of Humanity---a Narrative Semiotic Analysis Of The English Patient

As the most successful novel of Michael Ondaatje, the famed Canadian writer, The English Patient has crowned Ondaatje the Booker Prize and the Governor General’s Award, and the film adaptation of The English Patient has made remarkable achievement by winning a handful of Oscar Awards when it hit the big screen in1996. Unlike many other novels, the thematic meanings of The English Patient (the novel) are extraordinarily deep and profound. It contains within it the massive multiple elements of the war, love, morality and identity and hence is well-recognized as a magnificent epic masterpiece. The English Patient is without doubt a great literature work of great value of deep serious study.Since its extensive reputation and praises gained all over the world, various kinds of studies of The English Patient have been completed by scholars both at home and abroad. However, there are very few studies which are conducted from the semiotic point of view and discover the deep narrative grammar of the novel. In this dissertation, Greimas’s narrative semiotics is considered as a promising and also an effective approach to a semiotic analysis of the deep narrative structure of The English Patient. Greimas’s narrative semiotics focuses on the study of meaning. It shows that a narrative text is composed both of the narrative or surface level and of the deep or abstract level of meanings. The Greimassian approach,which mainly consistd of the actantial narrative schema and semiotic square, is established and wildly applied as useful practical methods to fulfill various studies in relevant fields like anthropology, cultural research and so on.In the dissertation, Greimas’s narrative semiotics is used as the theoretical basis of analysis. Great attempts has been made to first identify the binary oppositions between every two of the three major actors, then gradually decode the deep implications beneath the surface oppositions and eventually unveil the deeper thematic map of human nature designated by the realistic mixture of war, love, modality and identity.The main body of the dissertation conducts the analysis step by step from the surface structure to the deep level of the novel from different dimensions of love, morality and identity so as to depict a profound map the humanity. Firstly, the novel contains three moving love stories, the one of Almasy and Katharine, the one of Hana and Kip and the one of the English patient and Hana. This map of love shows that in war, the pursuit of love in people’s humanity can surpass anything. Secondly, the map of morality in the novel portrays the extramarital love affair between Almasy and Katharine and Almasy’s trade of geographic map with the German. The so-called immoral infidelity and treason, however, as is shown on the deep level, are actually deeds of real human morality as they are out of Almasy’s pursuit of true love and value of human life. What’s more, the map of identity includes Almasy’s deliberate concealment of his name and nationality, Hana’s multinational background and her acceptance of no national boundary and Kip’s hard quest of a different culture and nation. Their experience shows that in the time of war, personal fate cannot get away from the limitation of national identity. Finally, a whole map of humanity, consisting of the pursuit of real human love, morality and personal identity, comes into being.By this analysis of The English Patient from the perspective of the Greimassian approach, the conclusion can be drawn that in war, love can be soul touching and sublime within the bound of morality and national identity; love can also be solemn and stirring without the restriction of morality and national identity. And also in the time of war, love, morality and national identity can supplement each other, and altogether they exquisitely interweave a profound and complex map of true humanity.