English A Thematically Oriented Literature

SCENTS AS MARKERS OF IDENTIFICATION IN ONDAATJE'S IN THE SKIN OF A LION

MANLIO GIORDANO

Department of Language Studies Ume University

In his novel In the Skin of a Lion (1987), postmodern, postcolonial writer Michael Ondaatje (b. 1943) offers a twofold challenge to the concept of master narratives; the traditional view of the early 20th century history of Toronto and the pre-postmodern notion of the existence of particularly valid perspectives on novels, works of art, etc. are both called into question. Ondaatje wanted to give identity to the workers carrying out the hard, ill-paid, and often perilous labour that provided a necessary foundation for their society as a whole, their faces lost in history, largely absent in historical records. In the novel, scents and olfaction figure prominently and in several roles: as part of the scenography (i.e. how locations are described), as part of the general experience of life of the characters (including dying), and perhaps most of all as markers of identification for several characters. The use of scent as a marker of identification sometimes done quite explicitly by the author can in turn be broken down into several subcategories. Most important of these may be, with some degree of overlap, (1) scent representing or defining a particular character, and (2) establishing unity among groups of labourers by drawing on that they have in common a smell associated with their particular line of work. (In both cases, such identification can occur in the mind of another character in the story or only for the reader.) Several relevant quotes which exemplify these two principal uses of scents in the novel will follow under corresponding headings. It should first be pointed out, however, that even if scents are used heavily in the above-mentioned roles, mention of smell is not a slavishly recurring feature in the novel in fact, it sometimes becomes conspicuously absent, given the heavy use elsewhere nor is smell always used in a charged manner. An example of emotionally neutral mention of smells is the following: He was brought a plate of cabbage rolls sarmi, Elena said, and suddenly the awful sulphurous odour he had smelled for the last year since moving was explained. (P. 118 1.) Having mentioned this, we shall now proceed to the examples of the principal uses of scent in the novel.

Page references are for the 1988 Picador (London, England) edition of In the Skin of a Lion. ISBN-13: 978-0-33030183-1.

Scents marking characters' identity in general In one scene, the character Gianetta recognises the fragrance of her husband, Caravaggio: She smells him, the animal out of the desert that has stumbled back home, back into oasis. (P. 214.) In another scene Caravaggio, a thief, is in principle identified as such during a dance, by bearing the smell of his accomplice, a trained dog that gives off a bark when someone approaches the scene of a burglary: For the next hour he danced with women who noted to themselves the odour of hound on his neck. (P. 234.) The women are not aware of that a dog is his partner in crime, but the reader is, and thus a symbolic effect occurs for the reader. The scene is also the preamble of the hijacking of a boat owned by participants in the costume ball, further demonstrating that Caravaggio is participating in the capacity of thief. The main protagonist of the story, Patrick Lewis, smells the fragrances left behind by his women, in bed. First Clara Dickens: He came back to the bed and inhaled whatever perfume there was left on the pillow. (P. 66.) Then Alice Gull: He undresses and climbs into the bed where there is the smell of her. (P. 171.) An additional example of smelling people off objects, from trails of their identity left behind, is the following: When Alice opens the package five weeks later she pulls the exercise book to her face and smells whatever she can of him... (P. 161.) Conversely, at one point Patrick Lewis ritualistically purges his home of the scent of one of his women: After Clara leaves him, Patrick cleans his room on Queen Street obsessively. [] The room smells like a clean butchershop. (P. 85.) The character Cato smokes a pipe and the smell of it becomes part of his identity, of what makes him Cato: His hair smells of it, it has entered deep into his shirt and sweater, it hangs against his stubbled beard. (P. 161.) In this case, however, it is not stated for whom this scent plays a role in identification, beyond the reader. As said, Ondaatje sometimes indicates quite explicitly that smells are used as markers of identification, for instance by clearly juxtaposing smells with other markers of identity, i.e. by

indicating to the reader that identity can be marked in multiple ways and that smell is one of them (p. 44):
He is in darkness now, the open palm callused and hard. Five years earlier or ten years into the future the woman would have smelled the flour in his hair, his body having slept next to the dough, curling around it so his heat would make it rise. But now it was the hardness of his hands, the sound of them she would remember like wood against glass.

In this example, then, the author shows that both the hardness of somebody's skin on his hands and his smell can function as markers of identification. In this example one also observes the previously mentioned overlap between different uses of smell in identification: both markers the state of the hands and smell, respectively are related also to profession.

Scents establishing workers as a coherent unit or otherwise linked to profession Already on the second page of the book, the author uses smell as a unifying factor among workers, while describing their poor living conditions: Neither the boy nor his father has ever been into those dark rooms, into a warmth which is the odour of men. A similar example from a later point in the story: Already they can smell each other and the sweat from the previous days, the lamp wick raised to burn out odour. (P. 112.) Caravaggio has a smell that is changing constantly, due to his particular profession (p. 207):
He put his hands up to his face and smelled them. Oil and rust. They smelled of the chain. That was always true of thieves, they smelled of what they brushed against.

The dyers, however, have a smell that they can never get rid of, even if staying in the business for but a brief period (pp. 137-8.):
...the smell on them was terrible and it never left. [] ...even if they never stepped into this pit again a year from now they would burp up that odour. [] What remained in the dyers' skin was the odour that no woman in bed would ever lean towards.

Workplaces as such are also associated with fragrance in the novel: He was no longer aware of the smell from the dyers' yards. (P. 135.) He is a man who is comfortable among ovens, the smell

of things rising, the metamorphosis of food. (P. 155.) In one case, one is essentially dealing with a workplace that is mobile a flatbed lorry (p. 27):
But for now all that is visible is the fire on the flatbed burning over the three-foot by three-foot metal dish, cooking the tar in a cauldron, leaving this odour on the streets for anyone who would step out into the early morning and swallow the air.

Conclusions We have seen in numerous quotations that in In the Skin of a Lion scents are used as markers of identification, and in several ways. As stated initially, the main functions of scents are the reinforcing of identity of the characters and defining groups of workers as such. Ondaatje's approach is successful; the use of scents indeed gives life to the characters, semi-fictionally representing faces regrettably forgotten by history.