The English Patient

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Water

Despite the predominance of desert imagery, the novel uses water imagery for a number of symbolic purposes. It often denotes healing, nourishment, and the completion of rituals. As he remembers his rescue by the Bedouins, for example, Almásy recalls the role of water: “He could smell the oasis before he saw it. The liquid in the air” (6). Like the Bedouins, Hana uses water to try and heal, or at least soothe, Almásy’s burns: “Every four days she washes his black body, beginning with his destroyed feet. She wets a washcloth and holding it above his ankles squeezes water onto him, looking up as he murmurs, seeing his smile” (3). Kip also treats bathing as a symbolic act of purification, frequently washing his long hair and beard with a basin of rainwater “placed formally on top of a sundial” (72).

However, water also has associations with death and grief, particularly in its relationship to Katharine. Katharine, the novel says, was “always happier in rain, in bathrooms steaming with liquid air, in sleepy wetness” (170). This love for water becomes sadly ironic after she is left to die in the Cave of Swimmers. Almásy’s inability to return to the cave to save her mirrors his inability to find the oasis of Zerzura. Thus water just as frequently denotes tragedy as joy, emptiness as abundance, defeat as victory.

Christian Mythology

The novel includes a motif of Christian mythology in general and Biblical stories specifically, and these references emphasize its interest in both timeless religious truths and the way the modern world has become demythologized and, ultimately, dissociated from historical Christian belief systems. For example, as he recounts the group’s search for the lost oasis of Zerzura, Almásy describes them as “desert Europeans” (135) and says “[it] was a place of faith” (139). His use of the word “faith,” especially in connection to the desert, recalls the desert imagery of the Old Testament. He also describes the khamsin, a type of dust storm, as the “ninth plague of Egypt” (16). This is a direct reference to the plague of darkness recorded in the Book of Exodus.

Almásy is implicitly compared to Moses, and the text uses words and phrases like “anointed” (6) and “despairing saint” (3). Finally, while not part of the novel’s desert narrative, the Villa San Girolamo has similar associations to Christian mythology. A former monastery, the villa functions as an Eden-like sanctuary whose occupants are protected from the horrors of war.

Herodotus’s Histories

Almásy’s 1890 edition of the Histories, by Greek historian Herodotus, symbolizes the chaotic, mutable, ever-changing way stories unfold throughout the novel. Written around 430 BCE, the Histories constitute a record of both actual historical events across the known world and fictional storytelling methods that ancient Greek people used to describe the world as they saw it. It contains, for example, descriptions of local practices among various groups in Greece, the Middle East, and North Africa, as well as myths and religious tales that explain the origins of those groups and practices.

By the time he arrives at the villa, Almásy has spent years adding clippings from other texts, photographs, maps, his own musings, and even a small fern. He thinks of his Histories as “his guidebook, ancient and modern, of supposed lies” (246). This phrasing, which calls into question the truth of Almásy’s recollections, underscores the unreliability of his narration and raises the question of whether history, either personal or collective, can ever truly be complete or accurate.