The Quest For Identity In Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost

Michael Ondaatje is a talented and famous immigrant writer who has made outstanding contributions to contemporary Canadian and world literature.In 1992,The English Patient written by Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize.He became well known worldwide.Subsequently,the adapted film from The English Pat.ient won the Oscar of that year,which has made Ondaatje more famous all over the world.All of his works have drawn a lot attention since then.In 2000,Ondaatje published his fourth novel,Anil's Ghost,which won the Canadian Giller Award,the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award,the French Prix Medicis etranger and the Irish Times International Novel Award.Set in Sri Lanka's civil war,the novel tells the story of Anil,the protagonist,and the locals in Sri Lanka working together to investigate the identity of Sailor and the cause of his death.The identity anxiety caused by the war and the cultural rupture is also revealed in this novel.As a prominent immigrant writer,Michael Ondaatje focuses on the existential plight and identity recognition of marginal people.He provides scholars and critics with a new perspective on the identity dilemma of people in immigration,war and ethnic conflicts.From the perspective of post-colonialism,this paper studies the characters' quest for personal identity,focusing on the process of identity construction under the oppression of war and colonial culture.The main content of this paper is divided into three chapters.Chapter one analyzes the identity exploration process of the novel's main character,Anil,who tries to reconnect with Sri Lanka and the West after suffering from the anxiety of uncertain identity,but fails.Anil's hybrid identity,which is neither this nor that,is finally accepted in the third space of“in-between".The second chapter mainly argues that Sailor who was murdered by the government is on the verge of non-death and non-life because his identity is difficult to confirm.Anil and Sarath help Sailor achieve its individual integrity by remodeling his body and replacing him to vocalize,thus establishing his meaningful“self' identity.Chapter three focuses on the medical humanitarian deeds of Sri Lankan local doctors during the war.The Sri Lankan local doctor who transcends racial,gender and political contradictions is the ideal identity that Ondaatje pursues.Local doctors not only arouse the awakening of Sri Lanka's national consciousness as a whole,but also spread national power,which makes the center of the world sense the weight of a real oriental nation,and also contributes to the peace and development of the world.Doctors have gradually grown into advanced cosmopolitans in a special era.They are also the best gift from Ondaatje to his motherland.Anil's Ghost aims to maximize Sri Lankan people's unremitting struggle against unreasonable violent wars and their identity anxiety in the face of social uncertainties.Through the analysis of the identity exploration process of the characters in the novel,Michael Ondaatje's ambivalence as an immigrant writer is also revealed.In the more international framework,national experience is fragmented,and literary critics have to understand contemporary reality from the echoes of the past.Immigration,war,diaspora and apartheid have become a part of the culture and marginal entities,thus people can only reflect on the history of a nation from the different and fragmented cultures of modern society.Therefore,the identity of modern people is always full of contradictions and anxieties.