Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion ‘Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion continues to engage

readers through its narrative treatment of isolation and uncertainty.’

In the light of your critical study, does this statement resonate with your own interpretation of In
the Skin of a Lion? In your response, make detailed reference to the novel.

A postmodernist novel revolving around those who have been silenced by the discourses of history,
Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion (Lion) (1987) treats isolation as a natural part of the search
for identity and community. Set in the building foundations of Toronto Canada, Ondaatje
interweaves fictional migrant stories with official historical records to bring forth the hidden
complexities of the doubt and isolation experienced by the marginalized people of history. However,
by depicting their transformation from people who struggle with communication and relationships
to those who voice and embrace their rich, complex past experiences, Ondaatje portrays the
universal, difficult yet enriching process of life, continuing to engage readers from all contexts. By
treating the experience of isolation, paralysis and doubt as an integral part of life, Lion is able to
connect to the reader’s experience of hardship but also reveal the beauty of the complexities of life.

Throughout the novel, Patrick struggles to forge intimate relationships due to his inexpressive, silent
childhood. His father being his only role model for adult behavior in his childhood, Patrick “absorbs
everything at a distance”, imitating his father’s “unemotional tongue”. “They don’t speak” and “do
not acknowledge each other apart from sharing the warmth under the blanket.” This is indicative of
the disconnection between Patrick and his father as they are unable to literally express their love for
each other; yet physical closeness in this scene is symbolic of an unspoken language that Patrick
finds comfortable and familiar. However, when he finds himself “transfixed” by “the howls of
laughter” from "ten men skating…something joyous”, he “longs to hold their hands”; unlike his
father who is “withdrawn from the world around him, uninterested in the habits of civilization
outside his own focus”, Patrick wants “to step forward and join them”. The contrasting experiences
Patrick has with his father’s unexpressive intimacy and the men’s laughter highlights Patrick’s
inherent yearning for companionship. Allegorical for the reader’s life and hardships, Patrick is a
searcher ‐ not only for the missing millionaire Ambrose Small but warmth, comfort and freedom; it is
only until he experiences love and intimacy with Alice, an actress friend of Ambrose’s lover when he
realises the power of storytelling. It engages the reader to empathize with struggles of stepping out
of the prison of silence and isolation, but reveals the warmth, the intimacy that comes with the
freedom of expressing ourselves.

The characterisation of Temelcoff, a Macedonian immigrant worker, in contrast to historical figures

such as Officer Harris further emphasizes the importance of engaging the reader to be aware of the
constant struggles and isolation experienced by these migrant workers. “Temelcoff is famous on the
bridge, a daredevil…[however] even in archive photographs it is difficult to find him”. He and the rest
of the migrants are seen only as “an extension of hammer, drill, flame”. This tool imagery is
indicative of how history objectifies and de-values these workers as they remain faceless; they
dismiss their struggles and thus demerits how isolation and uncertainty are an integral part of life.
Instead history presents a fictitious, uncomplicated, holy, pure image as “the bridge goes up in a
dream.” Contrasting to Temelcoff, “few of [the migrants] spoke of English but they knew who
[Officer Harris] was” highlights distinction between their status in history. With this contrast, Lion
critiques how history fails to capture the complexities, the struggles of the workers that make
everything possible. Embracing postmodernist notions of everything being of equal significance, Lion
reveals how isolation and uncertainty are an integral part of life by allowing the audience to
empathise the stories of Temelcoff and Patrick and how they are undermined by official historical
records. As Canadian literary professor Lee Spinks: Lion is “a memorial to a lost historical experience
and... offers new ways of conceiving the narrative of a nation.”
Through the use of silence and sound, Ondaatje emphasises the complexities that we miss when
subjected to only one perspective. Temelcoff is introduced as a silent “solitary” who struggles with
English. Talking to the nun who he saved from falling off the bridge, he says “Talk, you must talk” to
her. This is indicative of how he is now in control of the story; he holds the audience’s attention. The
nun, remaining silent, is obscured, merging into the darkness of the bar and thus there is no
emphasised placed on her. Yet, this serves to incite curiosity about the nun as it makes the audience
question why she is silent, why is she in the darkness; the audience experience this uncertainty as to
where the plot is going to advance. This building curiosity makes the revelation that she is Alice in
the later chapters all the more powerful as it highlights the gaps in our knowledge due to our limited
perspective. The audience is left to join the dots of Ondaatje’s silence which mirrors the process we
should be doing for history, media, the world around us. Lion demonstrates that although we may
be isolated, distinct individuals, it is our duty to seek these different stories and perspectives.

This is further emphasised through light imagery used throughout to remind us of how perspective
can give voice to the hidden or “shadowed” voices of history. As Ondaatje uses Lion as a platform to
bring forth stories of the marginalized, being a metaphor for Ondaatje novel, Patrick is also searching
for stories “swinging the amber beam from side to side”, searching for characters to bring out of the
darkness into the light: “And everywhere he turned, the light picked out faces and arms that no
longer looked like puppets but relaxed humans, a shadow conference”. Both Patrick and Ondaatje
force us to realize that what is in the darkness, though unseen and silent, remains significant. He
reveals the importance of telling personal stories: “Each person [has] their moment when they
assume the skin of wild animals, when they [take] responsibility for the story.” Individuals are no
longer puppets of history but part of a “wondrous night web”. “Wondrous night web” is not only a
metaphor for Ondaatje’s novel but also the nature of life; it is a clustered, fragmented, full of holes
and gaps. It engages the audience to become the “hero to link them all” to make our own “mural”.

In the Skin of a Lion creates an intimate space where the silenced, marginal and ex-centric author
and tell their own stories. Ondaatje's characters comprise a polyphony of voices; even if not all the
characters are narrators of their own stories, the reader gets to know their perspectives. Through
each of these stories (from Patrick, Temelcoff and Alice), they reveal how isolation and uncertainty is
normal; it allows the audience to sympathize with this feeling of separation and a lack of direction,
purpose to life. However, by embracing this “web” of perspectives, what the audience finds is that in
fact we are never alone but we are all interconnected, experiencing very similar emotions and
thoughts, all searching for the desire for intimacy and connection. “Never again will a single story be
told as though it were the only one.”