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In the Skin of a Lion essay

(title page compacted for space… and sorry for any formatting problems.)

In the Skin of a Lion

By: Ilayda Williamson

For: Mr. Murray

ENG4UE-02

October 17, 2008

“Some people suffer in silence louder than others.” – Morrie Brickman (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/some_people_suffer_in_silence_louder_than/172696.html)

              In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje follows the life of Patrick Lewis and the people who cross his path. The setting of this novel is 1920-1930 Toronto. At this time, there is a great influx of immigrants. This reflects the character set, as all could be considered immigrants in their own way. An immigrant is defined as being an “an organism found in a new habitat” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immigrant) and each character is attempting to adapt to their new habitat at one period or another. There exists another feature which distinguishes these characters – their soundlessness. They all strive for acceptance in something – lifestyle, humanity, or country. Instead of the expected sound to accompany this struggle, it is instead punctuated by a complete auditory void. This is fitting, as the goal of acceptance is not to be silent among the din – but to add one’s voice to the chorus. Michael Ondaatje, by featuring these quiet characters – Patrick, Alice, and the Macedonians – uses silence within In the Skin of a Lion to underscore the trials of an immigrant.

             Patrick Lewis may be considered the heart and soul of In the Skin of a Lion, and the epitome of silent struggle. Readers are first brought into his childhood and his silence is evident even then. Patrick as a child has a fascination with insects. It is not the all-encompassing scientific need to know about insects- which usually leads to injury to the quarry as the curiosity deepens. Rather, Patrick has the romantic eye of one who truly loves whatever it is that he is studying. He identifies with these insects, and their inability to communicate in human ways. He yearns to form a bond between a silent being and a silent species.

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 creatures. 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 hear several bugs flapping and knocking.) He knows the robust calls from the small 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. (Ondaatje, 10)

              This picture of Patrick persists throughout the novel – a fluid person outwardly, wanting to change for those around him. Alice Gull describes him, saying he is “[like] water, [he] can be easily harnessed” (Ondaatje, 122). Beneath this passivity is an obstinate inner pillar of silence. Because of this, Patrick never truly fits in one place. His is a struggle of human connection through language – on the grand scale of humanity as a whole, and the small scale of one-on-one contact. It is not a complete inability to form bonds that evades him, but to create ones that are not precarious, perched on the edge of ending. He is an immigrant to humanity. Unable to assimilate, Patrick later turns to outbursts of sound. In one case, he warns a cell mate in danger with song. “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.” (Ondaatje, 184) Patrick, who longs to enter a normal human relationship through speech, ultimately fails and turns to overcompensated rebellion through specific, and sometimes absurd, noise. He is the silent immigrant.

              Another character who reoccurs in the novel is Alice Gull. She is first depicted as a mute nun who partakes in an excursion onto an unfinished bridge, unsurprisingly falling off said unfinished bridge. Before, during, and after the fall she will not or cannot speak. After being saved by a bridge worker , she will not even scream, deaf to the worker’s pleadings, such as “Scream, please, [Lady,"] [...] She could not speak though her eyes glared at him bright, just staring at him. Scream, please. But she could not.” (Ondaatje, 32) Her version of silence is encapsulated in the episode of the bridge-fall. Inner-turmoil on behalf of Alice is manifested by this complete quiet. A great change must have been taking place inwardly for her, as the fall triggers her abandonment of being a nun.. After a one-sided exchange with her savior, she tends to his broken arm and leaves. The night ends with a kiss, a whispered question, and a wiping clean of a past life. “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. [...] What is your name? she whispered.” (Ondaatje, 38) She soon becomes an actress.

                The quote above also introduces the idea of Alice’s immigration. She is entering ‘another country’. Alice can be considered an immigrant to a certain lifestyle. She begins as a nameless nun and ends up as driven, free-spirited actress. Besides the three hundred and sixty degree turn of lifestyle, another point of interest is the name which Alice takes. Her new persona is named after the parrot in the Macedonian bar she is taken to afterwards – Alicia. A parrot imitates the sounds of their environment. Quite like how immigrants learn a language. The quotation above illustrates her break of silence – the moment of decision and end to her struggle. Readers of In the Skin of a Lion catch only the tail end of Alice’s struggle and silence. While not an obvious immigrant, Alice in actuality is one to a ‘normal’ lifestyle and changes to be a parrot – knowing that silence excludes one from a population, and that some sort of emulation is needed to belong. Her immigration is successful.

              Lastly, the Macedonian people. These are the most literal immigrants in the novel and in ways the quietest. Like many other immigrant cultures of Toronto, the Macedonians work bakeries, tanneries, etc. – the operations that allow the city to function. They are new to the country and every aspect of it. One Macedonian character, the bridge worker who saves Alice, revels in this newness.

“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.” (Ondaatje, 43)

These people must learn new social structures, languages, and cities. Although they work jobs essential to the workings of everyday processes, they are often overlooked. While being pushed to the background, they strive to adapt to their new habitat.

               The Macedonians’ silence is not always one of their own choosing, but instead one forced upon them by the city. City-dwellers are deaf to them because of a language barrier, or simply because they are outsiders. This obliviousness is best seen in a scene performed by Alice Gull and other actors in an underground play.

“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. [...] 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 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.” (Ondaatje, 117)

This quote draws all three ideas together. Alice performs, the subject at hand is the silence of Macedonian people, and Patrick has such a violent reaction to the scene. “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.” (Ondaatje, 117) The play portrays the Macedonian trial perfectly – nothing can be heard of the immigrant, just the authorities’ vain attempts to force them to express something. Ondaatje uses this silence to underscore the ultimate challenge facing the Macedonians – that of being listened to, or merely heard.

                A picture of muted hard labor – a man raising a pickaxe at a rock wall without a sound. This is the image one walks away with after reading this novel. All three main characters – Alice, Patrick, and the immigrants of Toronto – aim to assimilate in some way. And as their challenges are distinct, their silence is individual as well. Some succeed, such as Alice, by breaking their silence to emulate those around them. But some, such as Patrick, can never truly change and break the silence, simply due to their nature. This tableau of muted characters juxtaposed against very specific sounds, such as singing, an ocarina, or a hand pounding, has been orchestrated by Ondaatje to show the poignancy not of the expected sound, but the lack of it. He has shown the reader that sometimes the most brutal struggle cannot be heard at all.