The English Patient (2) Crossing and Setting Boundaries

Outline Plot Chaps 3 – 7

Plot Summary (chap 2 –ends with Kip’s arrival) Chap 3 –Sometime a Fire Kip’s ways of surviving the war, Hana communicating with Caravaggio (remembering Patrick) and Kip (e.g. two bomb episodes bring them closer to each other); Hana reading to EP; EP remembers seeing Hana for the first time; the four of them connected one way or another.

Plot Summary Chap 4 – South Cairo EP’s reminiscence of desert expedition; Clifton and his wife join them in 1936; falling in love (voice  dance  “gave you my life”); Chap 5 – Katherine nightmare; their relationship (calmness  violence) her first ride with him; (hates his assumption) what each of them hates; Almasy's wounds and being disassembled - wall pp

Plot Summary Chap 6: the Buried Plane EP’s story continued –Cairo evenings  1937; Caravaggio's intrusion p. 163 –on Almasy EP tells his story to C 1942 walks to the well and then the cave; Hana’s question; Story resumed “he”  “I” carry her with a tank of petrol; 1939 C’s suicide-murder The cave  the separation  the cave  1942 buried plane  “he”

Different Types of Boundaries Boundary-drawing and breaking by wars, humans and by nature: Spatial; --desert and mapping pp ; mapping bombs p. 102 Human constructions – Bodily – the war – p. 83; EP 48; Caravaggio ; Katherine 175; “Holy Trinity” 177; morphine 161 Interpersonal; 104 Temporal -- history

The International Bastards (p. 176) Before the war – young, energetic, a- political Hana: 29 tonsil; 53 party singing Caravaggio EP: 139-; 143 Kip During the war— used by the warring nations; 49-; C: p used as a thief; p. 54- EP: 95 - ; 163; 167; K: 104; 110; After the war: H: like a nomad, a migrant, 14; C: 59-;

Love and Betrayals 97 betrayals in life // in war Histories 119 Katherine and Almasy – Why do they fall in love with each other? What kind of love is theirs? The other characters – How do they try to heal themselves and each other?

Attraction, Obsessive Ownership and Hatred Attraction -- Katherine's reading and “studying“ Almasy: p. 144 her dream -- her attraction to Almasy 150 ownership: the two's dialogue p. 152, A. just wants to be with her 155 his question of Madox;p. 162 Violence and mutual devouring : wounds 152; p. 170 Differences & conflict of will: K’s inner conflicts 154; cannot change each other; pp , 170, 172

Communication between Hana & EP EP’s recognition of her 95- EP as a despairing saint; “father complex” Mutual dependence p. 5 Reading half of her life, while the EP teaches her how to read pp

Communication between Hana & Caravaggio uncle and an emotional support; Sharing memories of the past (about her father and her childhood) On their experience of the war pp ; Caravaggio concerned with Hana and Kip p. 117; 121

Communication between Hana & Kip Her need of his support (103); His need of her shoulder (114-15) Intimacy and distance (125 – 27)

Their Interrelationships Kip and Almasy: Their relationship a reversed version of that in Kim. "I think when I see him at the foot of my bed that Kip is my David" [p. 116]

Reading & Historical Boundaries EP – Histories by Herodotus 96 Hana -- reading--like a Crusoe finding a drowned book, her body immersed in others' lives, Her writings in The Last of the Mohigans p. 61; Kim ;

Views of History – multiple, fragmentary E.g. Herodotus History of the desert 141 Implied by Hana’s writing, and Ondaatje’s use of many histories and novels (intertext).