One of the main postmodern elements of In the Skin of a Lion is the way in which the novel deals with ideology and history.

Keep in mind, postmodernists, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, share a "general distrust of grand theories and ideologies." They also, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, seek to "destabilize" ideas such as "historical progress."

Let's look at the building of the Bloor Street Viaduct. Someone who's not a postmodernist might present the building of the bridge as a grand technological accomplishment that will help Toronto develop into an even greater city. Yet a postmodernist like Michael Ondaatje will, as our definitions tell us, oppose such a glorified and tidy history.

Instead we get personal, fragmented, not-so-glorious details and scenes. We follow Nicholas Temelcoff. He earns one dollar an hour for his work on the bridge ($1.25 for night work). If we think this is exploitative, we should consider that the other workers are paid forty cents. Yet this ill-treated worker is part of history too.

As Ondaatje tells us,

Nicholas is aware of himself standing there within the pleasure of recall. It is something new to him. This is what history means.

Like any other person, Nicholas is capable of remembering events and telling what happened. His version of events might not match up with those of an authoritative historian or someone within the Canadian government, but it’s history nonetheless. In postmodernism, anyone can "recall" history since history is fluctuating and subjective.

Also, think about how one of the characters says,

The trouble with ideology, Alice, is that it hates the private. You must make it human.

By expressing history and ideology through several marginalized characters, we could say that Ondaatje knocks history and ideology down a peg. He shows us that both are as vulnerable and flawed as the humans who create them.