I think Ondatje’s use of language and use of meaning would be crucial in terms of understanding and analyzing, In the Skin of a Lion. If I could critique this story I think that in order to understand it better it must be looked at by looking at Sassure’s idea of language, “It is a system of differences.” Every idea and every character within, In the Skin of a Lion make up the various uses and differences in language. “What makes each element of language what it is, what gives it its identity, are the contrasts between it and other elements within the system of language.” Every event that took place within the book, every character, and every setting create this system of language. I like to use the example of the bridge. The language and placement of the two characters created a difference of language within the story. This book was incredibly confusing to me and it seemed to jump from place to place and point to point. That is why when critiquing, it would be helpful to analyze such work by understanding the language and structure behind the story.

Using Derrida's and Saussure's approach to language and literature is a worthwhile lens with which to examine In the Skin of a Lion. Both theorists discuss the confines and meaning of language. One point of discussion is that one's frame of reference and knowledge is how they understand the world.

We consistently see how the characters in the novel exist (or fail to) through their language.

Nicholas is at first confined by his language barrier - he is trapped in the immigrant bridgeworker rut, but soon expands his frame of reference by learning the more commonly spoken language and in so doing, expands his experience and potential.

Alice is at first contained by her existence as a nun, potentially trapped in a vow of silence. She changes her identity, takes on a new name and speaks. This gives her the power to perform, mother, and more. Also, when she is in total understanding, nothing goes wrong. But it is the bomb that is not in her view of the world or in her realm of discussion that kills her and literally takes her out of existence.

Patrick struggles with language throughout the novel. Only does he become more connected to the rest of the community in which he resides when he learns the appropriate word (or signifier) for iguana. By expanding his frames of language, he is becoming more active in his existence and more connected to the larger picture.

Through these examples, we can see that language is limited, as is a work, without an expansion of frames of knowledge with which to work with.

I agree that after finishing Michael Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion" I was completely confused about what had occurred with so many different characters and their stories all interwoven into one massive plot. At first it hard to "gather all the pieces" of this story into one armful, but then we are reminded that the novel begins with "Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one". At first the story about Joseph Temelcoff/the nun he saved at the bridge site and Patrick's search for Ambrose Small/his love affair with Clara seem like two completely different narratives. When Ondaatje first introducing Alice's character around page 74 he says "Alice plucks only details from the present to celebrate. She reveals no past, remains sourceless, like those statues of men with wrapped heads who symbolize undiscovered rivers." Before reaching the conclusion the reader has no idea what this statement means. But as we gain more and more of the pieces to this complex puzzle we soon realize that we already know Alice's character (just in a different form). In this way "In the Skin of a Lion" is a great example of a cubist novel. This perspective is also highlighted when Patrick breaks into the waterworks and forces Harris to see his "wonderful" project from a different point of view. In doing this Harris not only acknowledges that the situation changes according to the origin of the observer, but that there are many different perspectives at which things can be viewed, each deserves recognition (such as the viewpoint of the immigrant worker).

..."In the Skin of a Lion" is also a prime example of the postcolonial novel. Temelcoff comes to this Canadian city in hopes of achieving the "America dream" (would it be called that in this circumstance as well?) Ondaatje highlights the story of Daniel Stoyanoff on page 44 by saying "Daniel Stoyanoff had tempted them all. In North America everything was rich and dangerous. You went in as a sojourner and came back wealthy-Daniel buying a farm with the compensation he had received for losing an arm". The irony in the fact that Stoyanoff had to lose an arm to achieve his goal is ridiculous; it further highlights the suppression of the immigrants (and Patrick who places himself at the margins). In truth Temelcoff's success was a rare form. The gathering of the immigrants and the various passages that address those who lost their lives or went without proper appreciation for their work on the bridge/waterworks provides the reader with Ondaatje's feelings on the state of this postcolonial land and thus makes it a postcolonial novel.

Michael Ondaatje's book In The Skin of a Lion can be approached from many different viewpoints. When i look into this book however a see it through a postcolonial lense, and specifically the characters relations to the postcoloinal city. In the book North America is seen as a place of hope and future wealth, as in the story Temelcoff tells of the one-armed man from his village. Few dreams are realized however and instead the city, Toronto in this case, becomes an alienating universe drenched in shadows and faceless characters. Hordes of immigrants come to the city looking for prosperity and instead are alienated by language from the start and end up stuck in a system that they believe promises them upward mobility. Patrick walks to and from work without saying a word in his self-imposed exile, but the main point of this is that millions to the same thing every day only in the belief that they are apart of somthing. The city itself is a monument built on the backs of nameless workers who died to erect it, yet its the bureaucrats like Harris who get to put their name on it. The modern city is set up to be the center of everything but its inhabits couldn't be further apart from each other.

When reading In the Skin of a Lion, I paid close attention to Ondaajte's use of language to establish identity and to bring a sense of order to the characters' world. We've talked in class about how the naming of an object is intertwined inseparably from its identity. During Little Seeds, Patrick see's insects drawn to the screens of the kitchen windows, attracted by the room's light. He recognizes and draws the species that return nightly but their world is one of mystery and intrigue to the boy. Later in life he learns the common names and the Linnaean nomenclature that the human race has attributed to these organisms and his memories of seeing the bugs as a child were changed. To Patrick, a sense of order was formed wherein each organism had a niche and a place in the world. By learning their names, the creatures he encountered those nights were given a new identity.
Later, in Palace of Purification, Ondaatje makes a point of the anonymity of the immigrant working class during the 1900s. When researching his novel, he found meticulous documentation of the materials used and the companies who built the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant and the Prince Edward Viaduct, but he found little or no documentation of the actual workers who toiled and died to complete these projects. The social stratification of the time and place Ondaatje writes about was the reason that the lower class was refused their identity and treated as sub-human. These individuals who North America was built upon will never be recognized and never given the respect they are due because they are faceless in history.

When I first finished Michael Ondaajte's complicated novel, In the Skin of a Lion, I was confused and content in my reaction to the text. Initially I didn't understand why Ondaajte would introduce a multitude of characters and then never mention them again. I couldn't comprehend his style of writing at ever point in the novel: At certain times there seem to be gaps in the narrative, which ultimately provide for the confusion, if the reader is reading the novel in a linear sort of way.

In Rochelle Simmons thought provoking essay, In the Skin of a Lion as a Cubist Novel, sheds light on aspects of the book that might not have been so clear to the reader in the first place. This is an excerpt from the essay in which she uses a quote from John Berger to outline her thesis:

We hear a lot about crisis of the modern novel. What this involves, fundamentally, is a change in the mode of narration. It is scarcely any longer possible to tell a straight story squentially unfolding in time. And that is because we are too aware of what is continually traversing the storyline laterally. Something similar but less direct applies to the painted portrait. We can no longer accept that the identity of a man can be adequately established by preserving and fixing what he looks like from a single viewpoint in one place.

This quote from Berger helps to enlighten the reader to what Ondaajte might have been constructing with his novel. I find the notion of cubism to be extremely helpful when deconstructing In the Skin of a Lion. " We can no longer accept that the identity of a man can be adequately established by preserving and fixing what he looks like from a single viewpoint in one place," justifies the change of perspective in the novel, and throughly helped me to understand the erased characters, or the gap in time throughout the novel.

In the Skin of a Lion is more of a representation of life than it is of a single lifetime. When thinking about our lives we tend to forget certain people. situation, etc. And we rarely tell stories in linear fashion, simply because our memories don't usually allow it.

I find it strange that I approached this novel with the notion that I would read it linearly. I imagine that I tend to do this with most things that I read. But that isn't how life works, and I almost feel as if I have been missing out on some interesting perspectives of life.

Having read a lot of feminist theory, I would be inclined to read and critique In The Skin of a Lion with a feminist lens, looking particularly at how the women are represented in the novel and what they represent. However, I feel if one really wanted to get to the heart of this novel then a look at its structure and language would be more pertinent, because I feel like this novel is more about the presentation of ideas that the actual ideas themselves. Ondaatje's language is beautiful; you can tell he's a poet, and with his language he is able to create an ambiguous, nearly surreal world in which his characters stand for feelings and concepts rather than real people with agency. The non-linear narrative adds to this surreal quality; we are unsure of any character's real motive or stance, or, equally important, the opinion of the book itself on the subject matter. For this reason, I feel that any analysis of the text that was focused on race, class, gender, politics, or any other politically or socially charged area of study, would be pure extrapolation .

One of the main factors that Jonathon Culler believes influences how we find meaning in the texts we read is our ability to identify and understand allusions to other texts and history. Personally, I have found it hard to interpret many of Michael Ondaatje's metaphors that relate to religion and the bible (if they even are bible references, I know so little about it I can't even distinguish them). Because of this I find it harder to interpret the meaning behind Ondaatje's story and find myself reading more for content. Culler also focus' on this factor of reading, what we are reading for. Is it content or meaning? I find on the first time around content is usually the focus, whereas the second time around reading a text the meaning gains more importance. Were I to make myself fimiliar with every religious allusion it would also help increase my understanding of meaning in "In The Skin of a Lion."

The concept that most directly relates to the analysis and inspection of this book is the concept of Cubism discussed in Berger's article. It is particularly interesting to look at In The Skin of a Lion through this lens because it makes sense of the piece by piece storytelling technique that Ondaatje utilizes. By viewing the novel in this way the reader is able to piece together the story as an organic storytelling rather then the following of a typical continuous plot.
The postmodern style that Ondaatje uses in order to pinpoint the institutional and social issues at the time is accentuated by looking at the novel through Berger's cubist lens. The small parts of information and stories that fade in and out throughout the book are a directly result of Ondjaatje's cubist, artistic style. Ondjaatje uses this glimpses of memory and perspective in order to weave a larger picture about Patrick and all the the relationships that he finds himself connected with. Through a series of stories being told to Hana from Patrick, Ondjaatje is able to use different perspectives and emotions in his characters to escape from typical conventions of novels and instead shows a deeper meaning of the connections established between the characters. The book in general just feels like one looking at the intricacies of a cubist painting.
An aspect that really show the cubist nature of In The Skin of the Lion are the way that Patrick's conscious is tapped into consistently where as other characters are tapped into selectively (Semi-Omniscient narration). I think the different mesh of styles from focalization to post-colonial shows that this big is a big melting pot of styles and ideas, being emphasized with certain perspectives at choice times, much like a cubist painting.

After further exploring some of the critical approaches to In the Skin Of A Lion in class, I think that a Cubist approach aligned with a post colonial approach most compellingly situates the novel's voice. This is because the cubist and postcolonial approaches provide both a sort of springboard for the way that Ondaatje tells his story yet they also leave space open for the unexplainable, for the mystery of his story to challenge us.
In general, I liked how Simmon's article on Cubism talks about the novel as centered around 'moments of convergence' rather than a linear narrative- reflective of Ondaatje's Berger epigraph that sets the tone for the novel. This configuring of the moment of convergence has post colonial significance as well. Linear narrative in novels can be 'read' as another manifestation of the colonial dominance- a single voice and life perspective important to the plot.
Specifically, the critical approaches of cubism and the post colonial work together to open up a new space of existence for Patrick + society in the end of the book. Patrick's moment with Harris in which he tells him of Alice, of his past, offers language as a connecting force that bonds the two men unexpectedly, converges them. Ondaatje's interest in both space and connection is vital to the analytical consideration of his text and these approaches guide the reader's understanding.

I felt that an analysis of the purpose and structure of language in "In the Skin of the Lion" is the most lucrative and rewarding lens to utilize. Each character, particularly Patrick and Alice, demonstrate growth and identity through symbols of language. For example, Alice is cleansed and reborn in her silence post falling of the bridge, and thus takes on a new name (another prevalent theme in the novel). This idea of language and naming is continued in Patrick's constant search for understanding through labeling, such as with the fireflies and the iguana. Since these two characters are societal chameleons, in that they can shift between various classes because of their race and ability to speak English, they represent the value of language in the society at that time.

Theatre plays a crucial role in the interpretation of language in the novel. At one point it is described that many immigrants actually learned English from following theatrical productions and performers extensively. Alice is reborn through the theatre, and uses her performance to communicate to Macedonians who don't speak her language but understand her message perfectly.

Examining language in "In the Skin of the Lion" is an endless process, which would likely yield different results in any number of re-readings of the story. Personally, I felt that using this perspective for analysis helped me to most comprehend the book, when I had been having some difficulties uncovering purpose and meaning. For me, examining the place of language in the story actually helped unify my overall interpretation of it.

We haven't taken a lot of time to talk about it in class but I think that the article we read that discussed the separation between the the monuments made by man and the men who made them. As I said in class, to me this seemed like a Marxist point of view and I felt that it was on of the more complete ways of looking at the novel. Almost every significant event of the book can be traced back to the theme of labor and class. The first section of the book was all about Loggers. The second talks of the building of the bridge. The third about the profession of searcher and so on. Finally, all of the more central characters of the book, seem to fit into their surroundings in the same way. They are all uncommon laborers because of a special skill that they posses. In the case of Patrick and his father, they are both dynamiters, Nicholas is good with the rope and harness, and Caravaggio has a little trained dog.

Of what we have talked about in class and read about in the several articles, I think that cubism is the most applicable concept to use while analyzing In the Skin of a Lion. Not only do the intertwining storylines from multiple points of view make the story interesting, they add a dimension that we would not get from just one plot through the eyes of one character. On page 145 Patrick comes to the realization that “his own life was no longer a single story but part of a mural, which was a falling together of accomplices”. This thought parallels the whole book beginning with the epigraph from John Berger. The theme that no story will ever again be told as though it was the only one runs through every line of the novel. Not only is this not just one story, but it’s not even several stories about one thing. In the Skin of a Lion touches on the importance and ability of language to define one’s role and amount of power able to be gained with the immigrant society that Patrick essentially hides in for a while, it touches on the self made man and how he can completely ignore where he came from and what he is made out of in the story of Mr. Harris and his elaborate bathroom tiles, it touches on so much and in only 243 pages. Without the different stories and different points of view and cubistic quality the novel has, this would not be possible.

Cubism is the best way to look at the structural approach of the novel “In the Skin of a Lion”. There are various points in the book where, as readers, we find that the author is jumping around from character to character and event to event. This can be confusing when looking at this novel from a linear approach because Ondaatje clearly did not create a linear novel when writing “In the Skin of a Lion”. Once this idea is realized by the readers it becomes much easier to understand the frequent jumping from part to part of the novel as it become clear that the reader’s questions will be answered eventually as the book goes on.
But also, the article on postmodernism and post-colonial cities gives an interesting approach to “In the Skin of a Lion” as well. It explores the idea that Harris, the city commissioner was striving to build Toronto into a city that would be admired by outsiders, a place people desired to go. Ondaatje explores this idea from the perspective of the immigrant workers and what Toronto was actually like to them. Harris and the other wealthy aristocrats were willing to build this extravagant city with out concern for the immigrants and the amount of deaths caused to these workers while building this city. In exploring this perspective of postmodernism, Ondaatje succeeds in showing his audience the perspective that is not often shown, the perspective of the poor that suffered and the disregard of the wealthy for these people.

The whole idea of cubism itself really stood out to me. This past Thursday the group I was in was assigned an article which drew clear connections to Ondaatje's love for cubist paintings. For example, constantly leaving things incomplete with individuals characters as well as scenes and then it appears again later in the novel attests to him trying to express the cubist painting style in literature. Cubist paintings have an obscure nature to them and with the way In The Skin of A Lion is written,we can see the influence. A quote from the book support the use of words as though describing a painting are, "In this light, with all the small panes of glass around her, she was inside a diamond, mothlike on the edge of burning kerosene, caught in the centre of all the facets"(198).

In the Skin of a Lion clearly has quite a few themes running through out the story and thus can be analyzed through many different lens. I think that the analysis that would encounter the most relevant material in this novel would be through the lens of focalization. Ondaatje almost goes out of his way to emphasize the use and significance of language in the novel. To begin, the entire book is supposed to be a story being retold during a car ride. Within the story, every characters use of or lack of language becomes their most defining characteristic. For patrick the story is of his transition in and out of the use of language. When he isolates himself with immigrants so he doesn't have to use language, the translation of an iguana practically changes his life entirely. For Alice, the use of language has given her an entirely new identity from her silence as a nun. The story consistently makes references to the epistemological significance of naming things. That is, someone with a passport is more real in a sense than someone without one. Or a place becomes more real when it is named on a map. A cause becomes significant when it is turned into language via a story. The general theme is that when language is applied to something it becomes real in a sense and puts that "thing" into a context that can be shared and understood by the greater population.

I think that using the idea of Cubism is a good way to approach 'In the Skin of a Lion.' The novel displays several points of view at once, and we can use Cubism to better understand this. For example, 'Little Seeds' talks about a boy named Patrick, while 'The Bridge' talks about a man named Nicholas Temelcoff. This sudden shift in which character the novel portrays can be confusing to a reader. But Cubism tells us that there is a reason that Ondaatje does this, and that we just need to keep reading to see when and where this will all fit together. Through applying Cubism, we understand that the novel is not meant to be linear, but rather it is meant to be told (and read!) from different points of view; Simmons talks about this idea in the article that we read. The Cubist approach is not only applicable to our understanding of different characters and their points of view, but also to understanding the different points in time which the novel is set. For example, we see Patrick go from a boy growing up in the woods to a young adult in Toronto in 'The Searcher.' Again, while it may be frustrating to never know what happened between 'young Patrick' and 'Patrick in Toronto,' the Cubist approach might argue that Ondaatje only tells readers the important parts of each character's life, or the parts that are crucial to the whole of the novel. To give additional information would only distract from what the author wants to say.

The Cubist approach also applies to the larger theme of 'In the Skin of a Lion' of the poor working to fulfill the dreams of the rich. These two prespectives (rich/poor) converge toward the end of the novel when Partick goes to talk to Harris. The rich people like Harris and the poorer people like Patick co-exist in the same geographical space, but look at the space with very different prespectives due to their different experiences. Cubism is crucial to understanding this aspect of 'In the Skin of a Lion' as well.

After reading Robert Fraser's, "Postcolonial Cities: Michael Ondaatje's Toronto and Yvonne Vera's Bulawayo, it made me think about "In the Skin of a Lion". The obvious reason being that the article is about it, but after reading up the several points that Fraser brought up regarding the Postcolonial view point it made me think. After reading this I thought about the cities, the wealthy the immigrants and thought about the construction of the book or the construction of the city. Through out the book you have immigrants melding together working on creating an "ideal" city, one that people look at in awe and jealousy. Harris, the Commissioner wanted just that. He wanted more then anything to build a city that was extravagant no matter how many immigrant deaths there were. Peter was in the middle of this mess, viewing the atrocities that were happening to the immigrants and the wealthy not giving a damn or even realizing for that matter. I think Onjaante wanted us to see this medium between the two groups and see how Postcolonialist societies turn out, like a swarm of bees heading to their hive for honey. The wealthy swarming to anything that can make them look more magnificant without getting their hands dirty, and the immigrants and poor swarming to any place with work to try to raise money and live in the "dream".

I think that an interesting way, and the most applicable way to approach In the Skin of a lion, critically would be in a post-colonial way. a large majority of the book deals with trying to fit in, trying to adapt to a different culture, trying to communicate. The post-colonial approach in respects to In the Skin of a Lion highlights several problems that Ondaajte obviously placed into the novel. The first and the most obvious is the communication gap, the fact that the immigrants cannot communicate because of the differences in speech, meaning languages.
I should say, I think that the truly best way was the cubist approach. It is a good argument, and is something that once you read the article you see the resemblance between In the Skin of a Lion and cubism. That critical approach to me is really the most appropriate, but we haven't discussed it in class yet.

A post-colonial perspective is an interesting way to view In the Skin of a Lion. Culler defines post-colonialism as "the attempt to understand the problems posed by the European colonization and its aftermath." Ondaatje identifies various problems, that have colonial roots, in the novel.
In the Skin of a Lion examines the lives of immigrants in post-colonial Toronto and the opposition they face. One of the defining aspects of the aftermath of colonialism that stood out in this book is the presence of the restrictions on language. With language being such a prevalent theme in the novel, it is almost ironic that the Macedonians who surround Patrick are not able to speak theirs.
Ondaatje also uses graphic imagery of the immigrant workers in the tunnel and in the meat factories to exemplify their social class. The imagery of the dyers in the factory is horrifyingly beautiful. Alice tells Patrick that he has the luxury of choice that the immigrants do not. Patrick chooses, as an English speaking citizen, to work in the factory or in the tunnel of the waterworks. The immigrants are forced because of their non-English speaking heritage. Nicolas Temmelcoff is able to escape the manual labor of immigrants to Toronto by learning English and overcoming the imposed language restrictions.

Postmodernism, to me is the easiest way to analyze In The Skin of a Lion. The author (Ondaatje) plays with many literary characteristics and structures that would get us all shunned in grade school. I am most closely reminded of Quienten Tarantino's action-packed thriller Kill Bill Vol. 1 when I take the structure of In the Skin of a Lion into critical consideration. Like the Tarantino film (which is a-linear as well)Ondaatje is not afraid to jump around, disregarding time, and plot development to get his tale told. To some this may seem like blasphemy, but to others (myself included) it provides an organic and "real" approach to unfolding a story. This postmodern approach allows the reader to grasp onto multiple different situations and try and find the connections between the many different stories that take place. This engages the reader in the story as an active reader not a passive one: where the facts are directly delivered to you as they are in more classical novels.
I also believe that it is this postmodernist structure that allows for the novel to not drag on and get boring. It would be very easy after Temelcoff saves the nun at the bridge to loll on, but, The searcher- a new section arrives and we (the readers/audience) are kept on our feet. In fact, the very way the scene between Temelcoff and the nun is interesting to analyze. First, we are given the situation,then slowly Ondaatje unravels the details surrounding the situation and Temelcoffs past. At first, I really didn't like his style, but the more I read and re-read I begin to understand, accept, and really appreciate this approach to story telling.

The marxist approach stood out the strongest to me. The descriptions of the jobs that Patrick undertakes are vivid in their brutality. Whether it's the conditions of the tunnel or the smells permanently embedded on the skins of the dyers, there is a strong case for inequality among the social classes.
The same social classes are under attack by Alice and later by Patrick. The only jobs you see performed in close contact are manual labor jobs. Whether it's Patrick's father laying dynamite, Patrick himself, or Temelcoff performing life-threatening stunts, its from this perspective the world is viewed.
You could clearly argue this is a book for the working class, and their struggles are abundant and form the framework of the story.

To me, this novel is focused on the networks formed by society. These networks can be defined by how they include or by how they exclude people. This is depicted well by the work on the bridge that occurs at night time. The bridge, which can be seen as a metaphor for the things that connect one person to another, such as language, is ironically something that is built in a dark and isolated spot. This is the experience of the immigrants. They are trying to reach out , but are secluded because of their social status. At times, their attempts to build this symbolic bridge bring them farther outside of the rest of society because they are only able to relate to the immigrant community that they work with.

In The Skin of a Lion often defines people based on their interpersonal connections rather than by what is internally going on. For example, when Nicholas and the nun are sitting together sharing a drink, the nun leaves and goes to a mirror. She looks into a mirror and moves her hair, but she doesn't think about her own hand. She wishes that it was Nicholas' hand moving her hair. She defines her own reflection by an intimate connection with another. The significance of this might be that humans are social beings. Just as no single chapter in this book has an entire meaning on its own, no person can understand the full importance of their life without looking at the greater organism that they belong to: Their community.

I think that focalization is probably the most applicable critical approach to In the Skin of a Lion. It’s debatable as to whether the novel is being told from Patrick’s point of view or Hana’s retelling of Patrick’s story. Either way, Ondaatje uses focalization in a very interesting manner. The story is clearly told from a person’s memory; with long spans of Patrick’s life being left out because they are insignificant. It makes the plot almost difficult to follow because at the beginning of a new chapter the scene will be totally different. There is also a decent amount of dialogue in the book, and in between paragraphs there will be random conversations that Patrick appears to recall. This comes up the most in Patrick’s interactions with Clara and later on Alice. It really puts an exclamation point on the way language is used in the novel. There are sections in the novel with lots of dialogue and some with none at all, and the ones with none at all are just as important. For example, the beginning section about Patrick’s childhood and the scenes with his father has little to no dialogue, but is an important start to the novel. I really enjoyed the way the whole novel was tied into the epigraph.

In In The Skin of a Lion, there’s a lot of interesting development in the characters. It would be interesting to look at In The Skin of a Lion through a psychoanalyst’s lens. Though many of the major characters are interestingly unique – Patrick, Alice, Nicholas, Clara, Hana, Harris, and Caravaggio – Patrick, in particular, provides an interesting psyche to examine. With Patrick, I want to start at the beginning. The novel begins with Patrick as a child, the son of the abashed Hazen Lewis, and his time spent with him on a farm and then a logging camp. The beginning of the novel conveys the psyche of Patrick as a deviation of his father. He is not abashed or recluse. There are times when Patrick criticizes the manner of his father, lamenting it. When the cow almost drowns in the river, Patrick conscious is conveyed by the narrator, not his father’s. Patrick overshadows his father’s stern personality with a desire to be outgoing. At the logging camp, Patrick hears his father’s droll square dance calls and wishes he were the caller, an enthusiastic one. Patrick’s character birth is of a different psyche than his father. He wishes to be different from his father.

Later on in the novel, Patrick is a grown man and an abashed man like his father. He speaks English but chooses to live in a Macedonian community to dislocate himself from interaction with people. He prefers solitude. There is a gap. Patrick, who once lamented his father’s reserved nature, adopted it. What pushed him to this? Psychoanalysis of, not the transition, but the abrupt change of Patrick’s psyche to what he pleased himself to avoid could provide answers to how the novel moves around him. Patrick, after meeting Alice for the second time at the puppet show, re-emerges as an extroverted man, somewhat. Perhaps, untold in the story because of the un-reliable narrator, something occurred creating an internal conflict in Patrick. He seems troubled in the novel, maybe because of Clara, maybe because of something else. The reader doesn’t know what happens to Patrick’s father. The development of Patrick as a character, from his childhood desire to be unlike his father, to him wearing the skin of his father, so-to-speak, to him coming out and wearing the skin of others like Kato or Ambrose makes for an interesting character, psychologically, and could make for interesting analysis.

I have to agree with a lot of my classmates in the way the author uses focalization in an unique way. It is truly someone telling a story and skipping huge parts that are not important. The absence and presence of language are so dominant through out the novel which plays into how the main character is reliving his life. There is so much not said but at the same time, so much being told to the reader. The fact that it is a memory shows how much a person remembers one subject and how much they forget another. For example, Patrick never talks about his mother but goes on and on about his love for Clara. It is an interesting way to read a book because you need to read it all the way through to get that it was Patrick reliving his life through words to Hana. The fact that he spoke so long about his life and the amount of silence he has been in shows the growth of the character. One must read the book a couple of times to get the focalization and why it speeds up and slows down.

I think that it is most important to look at the idea of light contrasts in comparison to language in the novel. There are numerous references to both in the novel and how the connect. For example: it was brought up in class today that Clara's name meant light. I thought that was an interesting and subtle way for Ondaatje to make his point clear. It was also interesting because not only was it another example of light in the novel but it also showed us that when Patrick meets Clara in the novel that is sort of his introduction into language. In class we have talked a lot about the idea of light meaning language and how Patrick emerges into the light throughout the novel. I also like the idea of chiaroscuro within the novel because it implies again the significance of light but also the importance of silence and shadow. It is both "phsychological and physical" as Julie Beddoes says in her analysis. I think that it is really interesting to look at the lighting as part of the mise-en-scene of the book (borrowing from my film class), because the mise-en-scene is able to describe the author/directors perspective to the audience. Everything is very carefully chosen and that goes for writing as well. There is a certain theatrical component to it and the lighting emphasises this and gives it a certain visual quality. Through this lighting the reader is able to get a better sense of the character and analyze them through a new lens. When I first began thinking of the novel as a film it was easier for me to understand the non synchronous movement and the themes/characters in a new light. (no pun intended!)

Even though I acknowledge that we did spend a substantial chuck of time discussing the method in class, was intrigued by the relation between In the Skin of a Lion and Berger's concepts of Cubism. Here, Berger essentially argues that cubism; the concept of 2 dimensional thought, geometric combination, and the convergence of elements which spawn and multiply in different directions to create new circumstances can be closely tied to Ondaatje's novel. Certainly, the concepts of Patrick's construction work, the multiple close relations Patrick has with many characters of the book imply a sort of geometric calculation. The characters can add, subtract, multiply and divide to create new possibilities within the framework. This idea is interesting when Patrick is taken outside of Toronto. Before, he and his father had been dynamiters, breaking down dams and exploding the dynamic structures of his youth. However, in the context of Toronto, Patrick instead becomes the central point of the metaphorical cubist web. He is at the center of everything and binds many of the characters to each other. While this migiht not follow cubist thought to the "T," the implications of utilizing Berger's thesis are profound when searching for stronger understanding of the text.

I thought it was interesting to look at the novel, In The Skin of a Lion, from the marxist perspective. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the different social classes, Clara being the high social class and Alice being a low social class and Patrick's relationship between the two classes. He is of the higher social class because he is a white that can speak the language and has access to those social connections, yet he chooses to downplay that aspect and work with the immigrants and live in places where he doesn't speak the language and he becomes the minority. Yet most of the stories we see in the novel are not sbout the immigrants, we catch glimpses of their lives through Patrick's perspective, but for the most part we as readers really don't get into the heads and stories of the typical immigrant worker. But at the end of the novel, the conversation between Harris and Patrick really highlights the differences between the working classes and that the only way to get a leg up in this society is by conforming to the ideals of the upper class and forgetting the lower class. Patrick acusses Harris of doing this and paying the workers who slaved and died for his building less than what tiles in a bathroom costs. Patrick by the end is fighting for the working class that he has assimulated into, and rejects the oppurtunity he has to be of the upper class. From the marxists perspective he is fighting for the rights and equality of all the members of the working class in order for them to be thought of as humans, instead of tools that can be used and tossed aside when they become broken. He wants Harris to understand that men died to build the "palace" of the water filtration plant and that those were real people that should have been given rights just as the upper class had. Yet I have to wonder if Patrick actually holds to these ideals he preaches to Harris after he gets reaquainted with Clara, his upper class lover?

I feel that analyzing "In the Skin of a Lion" in terms of its focalization would be particularly appropriate. In Ondaatje's narrative we find a continually changing level of detail and reflection indicative of shifts in the focus of the narrative. If we are to assume that the story is being written as Patrick tells it to Hana, not only do we have to examine the importance of his narrative focalization as an explanation for the sometimes disjointed, inconsistent telling of the story, but also as a way to further examine Patrick as a character. By analyzing what he seems to lend the most time and detail to explaining as a narrator, we can gain insight into him that exceeds that which is directly available to us simply by analyzing him as the novel's principle character.

A intriguing way of approaching In The Skin of a Lion through a critical perspective would be to analyze the use of the perspective the book is written in being Third Person Semi-Omniscient. The story changes narrators several times throughout the story leading to the conclusion which leaves vague to the reader the question of whether or not the entire story is in fact told by Patrick telling it to Hana or even Hana continuing to pass it on to others. The point of view purposefully remains semi-omniscient throughout the story carefully allowing the reader into the heads of characters at certain points then leaving them in the dark at others. This creates a sense of mystery in a way linking the characters together. Patrick functions as the main character of the story, his character is the only one who constantly allows the reader in his head. What becomes even more interesting however is that Patrick character takes on multiple purposes in the story, being a main character and also the thread that keeps the story together. He functions as a window to different worlds by having all of the main characters connected to him in some way. This web of introduction and maintenance of characters allows for a more creative collaboration of stories that disregards the idea of a beginning and an end as well as a consistent chronology of time.

There are as many ways to view Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion as there are words upon the page, with each viewpoint offering up a new and intriguing story of its own. To approach In the Skin of a Lion from a feminist viewpoint, the characters of interest would be Alice/Alicia/the Nun and Hana. In many courses exploring the literature of the canon, the female characters are weak or serve only as props for the male characters, or as a means to an end. Although In the Skin of a Lion focuses on the journeys of Patrick and Temelcoff for much of the novel, Alice's journey of self transformation is incredibly important and a key to the plot. In a novel that focuses on language and the process of renaming oneself, Alice's three transitions mark different periods of the story and show that she as a woman is capable of deciding her own future. Hana too is a strong character in that the story starts with her beginning to collect the story. She is in control of the twists and turns and how they are presented as she and Patrick navigate the night.

By reading In The Skin of a Lion as a cubist novel, I was better able to understand the general message while simultaneously appriciating Ondatje's unique writing style. At first, the novel was confusing to me. It was not a cohesive story, but rather several stories compiled together. But if the novel is viewed as a cubist work, the seemingly fragmented story-telling technique adds authenticity to the story being told. Cubist novels use multiple provide multiple perspectives and viewpoints as a means of adding dimension and truth to the story. This explains why the story is told be Patrick, and then collected in the memory of Hana so that she can one day tell the story in her own words.
Ondatje's style is impressive because he manages to recount events the way any person would recount their own memories. The story is not meant to be told fluidly because people do not remember events that way; some memories hold more staying power than others, and some are more meaningful. The way that these selective memories compile themselves to create a story and a plot is analogous to cubist art because it was often exemplified as collage work, where different materials were pieces together to create something unique.

I agree with Lauren in that focalization seems to be the most applicable concept of analysis for this novel. When first reading this book, I had difficulty following the plot because of the untraditional method that the narrative follows, but once discovering that the story is a memory being retold, the book became clearer. It seems that distance and speed play a significant role in this novel, especially pertaining to the length of each section of the novel. Patrick is retelling many events of his life, so he is in control of the length and detail of each memory. He speaks very briefly (~ 10 pages) about his entire childhood on the farm at the beginning of the novel, while he goes into much greater detail and length when discussing his love for and relationship with Clara. This seems to imply that Clara is more important, or memorable, to him than his childhood, and the reader must interpret the story based on the depth of information provided by Patrick.
Limitation of knowledge is also significant in this novel. Again, since Patrick is narrating from the third person, the reader is exposed to what he chooses to include in his memory, and Patrick presents the information from an external position. He is separated from the story, but he includes the intimate details and his thoughts throughout the story, especially when referring to Clara.

I think the idea of looking at focalization in the novel is very interesting. We've already discussed this in class, and has been mentioned, but I completely agree with its importance in analyzing In the Skin of a Lion. The use of communication and lack of communication is a huge part of the novel and goes along with the theme of language. What is not said is as important as what is spoken out loud. This idea also goes along with another important element of this work, the act of storytelling and getting the story through different perspectives.
We see this in Patrick who learns that language gives access to another level of connection. Once he makes the effort to learn some Macedonian words, he sets himself free of being the "alien" to his Macedonian neighbors. "Suddenly Patrick, surrounded by friendship, concern, was smiling, feeling the tears on his face falling..." Patrick's first inaction, to be invisible and go unnoticed, then to action is an important element of this book.

I feel like looking into the representation of light and dark and silence and language are some concepts that really apply to the novel and are crucial in understanding it. From the Beddoes article we were assigned there is mention of a critic speaking of In The Skin of a Lion and the "withdrawal into silence" and how the book shows how this withdrawal is "violence against society" with the "abandonment of language" socialization is not possible. It is true how Patrick is isolated because he does not speak the language of Alice's people the immigrants not literally but he does not understand their social causes. On page 122 Patrick says to Alice, "I think I have a passive sense of justice". Also Patrick uses his language to prevent the destruction of the waterworks and possibly his own suicide and the murder of those who would have been affected by the blast. He does so by sharing his story of why and how he got to the point of holding a bomb in Harris' office. He and Harris become two men instead of two opposing enemies. Light and dark, come into play in a section where Patrick is cleaning the paint from Alice after her performance. He has been looking for her with a flashlight among the puppets that were the characters (immigrants) in the play and she waits for him in the darkness. When he finds her she asks him to help her wash. "It was not Alice Gull but something more intimate - an eye muscle having to trust a fingertip to remove that quarter-inch of bright yellow around her sight"(p. 121). This may be a stretch but my interpretation of this is Patrick's introduction into Alice's vision and her place in immigrant culture. The yellow he is removing around her eye is like the beam of the flashlight and her sight is the center of the light Patrick attempts to use to discover where she is hiding.

I think a cubist view of In the Skin of a Lion is most applicable. Personally, looking at the book from a cubist perspective made it all come together for me. The disorganized plot, the gaps in knowledge, and the spaces of time between seeing something and knowing why begin to make sense.

Constructed as a cubist novel, In the Skin of a Lion is a book more true to life than any other piece of literature that I've ever read. The events in the book come together like a string of memories and therefore don't resemble a typical linear plot. Details on one page are modified or expanded upon on another page, almost as if Patrick is saying, "Of course, I forgot to tell you that part." Most importantly, the novel shows the connections inherent in life. The novel is not one just about Patrick the way other novels can revolve around the main character. He is pulled into a web of relationships and people that he can't get away from. Even though he's tried to isolate himself, he can't help but realize how connected his life is to the lives of those around him.

A more traditional method of analysis would not touch on the importance of any of this. Without considering such things, the novel becomes a jumbled mess that never comes together.

Post-modernism is one of the critical approaches utilized in "In the Skin of a Lion." Post-modernism emphasizes various points of view and challenges the traditional method of telling a story. The traditional method of writing begins a story with an exposition or introduction to the setting and characters(which usually consist of a protagonist and antagonist), a rising action, or a set of events which causes a problem, a climax, which is the turning point that changes the rest of the story, a falling action that solves the problem which arose in the rising action, and a conclusion which closes the story and ties it up in a neat, little bow. As a reader, I was trying to follow this traditional method of most stories and was surprised to find there were no specific protagonists or antagonists, no particular conflicts to resolve and no neat little conclusion which tied up loose ends.

This was strange at first, but I realized the method of post-modernism and it began to make sense. This approach allows a story to be told from different angles, even a single event like the falling of the nun (Temelcoff told Pat when he asked him in his bakery, and in turn Pat told Hana about Alice). There is too much going on to make a cohesive or predictable plot, which post-modernists like, since it seems like a more realistic way to tell a story when the events are not neatly organized, but remembered and pieced together. The story is told from multiple perspectives, making it hard to pin-point Patrick as the protagonist. There is no reason to have a hero when there is no emminent conflict to be resolved. This allows us as readers to take different and interpretive approaches to analyzing the story when we aren't being told what to think about it's content. Post-modernism is just one of the theories amongst many other theories with which we can approach "In the Skin of a Lion."

In The Skin of a Lion can be approached, as can all literature, from a variety of viewpoints. After examining the different ways to look at a novel (from Culler's brief introduction and various articles in the compilation) I think it is most interesting to read Ondaatje's novel from the lens of focalization (who is speaking, to whom they are speaking) because, as we've seen in class, language and the absence of language is a dominating theme in the story, and all the main characters deal with language in different ways. Firstly, the novel is set from the framework of what Patrick is telling Hana on a car ride, so the level of precision and accuracy of the entire novel is called into question due to the nature of storytelling. The silence that Patrick lives with through his father is another example of focalization because it is clear who is speaking but the level of dialogue is extremely low and reserved for purely functional purposes. The same theme is reinforced with the character of Nicholas Temelcoff, who is able to speak English but chooses to work in silence. The focalization of the novel switches with each 'book'and it will be interesting to discuss the remainder of the novel while thinking about what culler says pertaining to focalization and its uses.