Big I, Eye, Aye.

Okay, driving for 10 hours is fun. Not so fun when 3 of those are just stuck in traffic in Toronto. Oh joy. But look! We made it, and here’s my lesson plan. On time!

Warning: My outlines make little sense. Sorry.

Thesis - Michael Ondaatje uses silence in In The Skin of a Lion to signify some struggle/misfitting. (immigrants on different levels)

Para – Patrick (immigrant to human relationships)
                        – very quiet character, throughout book
                        - never really belongs anywhere
                        – later resorts to exploding things
                        - singing in the silence of the attack on Caravaggio
Quotes to consider using: “Patrick pulls a double-ocarina from his pocket. Outside he will not waken his father, the noise will simply drift up into the arms of soft maple. Perhaps he can haunt these cfreatures. PErhaps they are not mute at all, it is just a lack of range in his hearing. (When he was nine his father discovered him lying on the ground, his ear against the hard shell of cow shit inside which he could several bugs flapping and knocking.) He knows the robust calls from the smal bodies of cicadas, but he wants conversation – the language of damsel flies who need something to translate their breath the way he uses the ocarina to give himself a voice, something to leap over the wall of this place.” (p10)

” Patrick sat on a bench and watched the tides of movement, felt the reverberations of trade. He spoke out his name and it struggled up in a hollow echo and was lost in the high air of Union Station. No one turned.” (p 54)

“The men enter and Patrick in the cell opposite on the next level up watched them and all language dries up. As they raise their hands over Caravaggio, Patrick breaks into a square-dance call – “Allemande left your corners all” – screaming it absurdly as warning up into the stone darkness. The three men turn to the sudden noise and Caravaggio is on his feet struggling out of his nightmare.” (p184)

Para – Alice Gull (immigrant to lifestyle)
                  – nun who fell off bridge, made no sound as fell, not afterwards either.
                  – adopted name of Parrot, became actress.
Quotes to consider using: “She leaned forward earnestly and looked at him, searching out his face now. Words just on the far side of her skin, about to fall out.” (38) “The zinc was an edge of another country. She put her ear against the grey ocean of it. ITs memory of a day’s glasses. The spill and the wiping cloth. Confessional. Tabula Rasa.
   At the table she positioned the man comfortably, so she would not fall on his arm. What is your name? she whispered. ” (38)

“Scream, please, Lady, he whispered, the pain terrible. He asked her to hold him by the shoulders, to take the weight off his one good arm. A sway in the wind. She could not speak though her eyes glared at him bright, just staring at him. Scream, please. But she could not.” (32)

Para – Macedonian people (immigrant to country/culture)

Quotes to consider: ”As with sight, because Nicholas does not listen to most conversations around him, he assumes no one hears him.
                     For Nicholas language is much more difficult than what he does in space. He loves his new language, the terrible barriers of it. “‘ ‘Does she love me? – Absolutely! Do I love her? – Positively!’ ” Nicholas sings out to the forty-foot pipe he ferries across the air towards the traveller.” (43)

“A plot grew. Laughing like a fool he was brought before the authorities, unable to speak their language. He stood there assaulted by insults. His face was frozen. The others began to pummel him but not a word emerged – just a damaged gaze in the context of those flailing arms. He fell to the floor pleading with gestures. The scene was endless. [...] The audience around him was silent. The only sounds on stage were grunts of authority. They were all waiting for the large puppet to speak, but it could say nothing.  [...] It stamped a foot to try and bring out a language. The other puppets shifted like bamboo to the side of the stage. The figure knelt, one hand banging down on the wooden floor as if pleading for help – a terrible loudness entering the silent performance. 
          The audience began to clap in unison with the banging hand, the high hall of waterworks echoing. Patrick was unable to move, his eyes locked upon the crouched figure, the manic hand. [...] He wanted the hall to be quiet, the figure’s terror stopped.” (117)
                   
[conclusion here]