earticle

영어

This paper aims to look afresh at Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient (1992) and reassess the novel from a Deleuzian perspective. I argue that the book is a kind of counter discourse against nationalism, Eurocentrism, racism, and war. Particularly, such Deleuzian terms as deterritorialization and nomadism are quite relevant and valid to my discussion. The English Patient, a Hungarian count whose real name is Ladislau de Almásy, is a nationless nomad who wants to “erase [his] name and the place [he] had come from.” This is a clear indication that he metaphorically wages a war against the State apparatus. Namely, to borrow a Deleuzian term, the war machine is working effectively. To substantiate my points, I borrow such key terms from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari as nomadism, deterritorialization, the State apparatus, the war machine, capture, the line of flight, and affect and apply them to analyzing the text under consideration. My main argument is that The English Patient falls into what Deleuze calls a ‘minor’ literature which questions and challenges the supremacy of Western powers. Another strand of argument is that the various acts of betrayal are ethical in that the private will exercised by such individuals as Kip, Hana, Madox, and the English patient actually confronts the public will, which not only legitimizes nationalism but also contains or captures the private will. Also, the so-called war machine, or machine désirante, is appropriated or captured by the State apparatus. Ondaatje emerges as a formidable writer who strongly denounces any form of ownership and creates a ‘minor’ literature which is bound to be deterritorialized and political.