The English Patient | Themes
Hana finds this passage scribbled into her burned patient's copy of Herodotus' Histories: "There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lover enters the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in a new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire." The ravages of war and the destructive power of illicit love provide much of the content and context for this novel. Yet Ondaatje's main concern is with the "organ of fire," with how the heart copes with things "smashed,"...
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