A Postcolonial Reading Of Landscapes In The English Patient

The English Patient is Michael Ondaatj e’s representative work which makes him one of the leading figures in the world of contemporary Canadian literature.It has attracted many literary critics and scholars to study it from the perspectives concerning postcolonialism,multiculturalism,identity,history,narratology,etc.However,from the postcolonial perspective,landscape as a significant cultural-geographical element of the novel has been touched upon but no comprehensive and thorough exploration of it has been carried out yet.Therefore,this thesis aims to explore the landscapes in the postcolonial context of the novel on the basis of W.J.T.Mitchell’s landscape theory.To interpret the landscapes,this thesis follows Mitchell’s methodology that explores what the landscape is,what it means and how it works.To start with,this thesis focuses on the textual representations of landscapes and conducts an elaborate analysis of their aesthetic dimensions.The landscapes in The English Patient are classified as the Picturesque including Villa San Girolamo,gardens,cities,and the Sublime including North African desert,sacred places,battlefields.The representations of the Picturesque are marked with a kind of chaotic harmony in the postcolonial context,while the representations of the Sublime reveal the harsh reality in the postcolonial era.The landscapes are represented with distinct aesthetic impressions,but both categories have received similar colonial practices related to territory,culture and ideology.These colonial practices are for the same imperial design in the postcolonial era-inventing a postcolonial world which is still under the imperial hegemonic control but appears to be a utopia for the subjugated people or the subaltern.Such a postcolonial world is constructed by the invention of postcolonial landscapes through the characters’ erasure,oblivion and nostalgia,but it is unreliable and transient.With the dark side of landscapes being revealed,the obliterated memories being recollected and the dislocated characters returning to homeland,the invented postcolonial landscapes ultimately end in collapse.The invented postcolonial landscapes in The English Patient as a tentative solution to postcolonial problems of identity,belonging and dislocation turn out to be unsuccessful,but nevertheless enlightening and inspiring.In this sense,in the postcolonial era,the representations and practices of landscapes may provide alternative approaches to postcolonial crises.