Andrew Sztehlo English 9

May 15, 2010 Ms. Rothberg

Hana’s and Kip’s issues in The English Patient

In the novel The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, two characters named

Hana and Kip fall in love with one another. Both characters have issues. Kip is a sapper

(a military engineer whose job it is to defuse bombs) and his issues are that he cannot

lead a personal life as his job has made him too cautious of his surroundings. Hana is a

nurse who is dedicated to caring for the English patient until he dies and her issues are

that she was pushed into the war at too young of an age. She is still torn between

childhood and adulthood, and is not able to reconcile between the two. Kip and Hana are

both dedicated to saving lives because of their own problems and experiences. However

Kip’s problems have made him incapable of making close relationships with anyone,

whilst Hana’s problems allow her to. Both Kip and Hana are eventually able to come to

terms with their problems.

Both Kip and Hana feel the need to save lives because of their past experiences.

Kip was in England training to be a sapper and was welcomed into a small group of

people who felt like a family- Lord Suffolk and his secretary, Miss Morden. However,

both Lord Suffolk and Miss Morden were killed by a bomb. “He had loved Lord Suffolk

and his strange bits of information. But his absence here, in the sense that everything now

depended on Singh, meant Singh’s awareness swelled to all the bombs of this variety

across the city of London” (195). Because the bombs that Kip disposes of killed someone

he deeply cherished, he is brought into a reality where he feels he must dispose all the

bombs that he can so that he can try and save as many people as is possible. Hana’s

experiences are similar to those that Kip encountered. Hana has a nervous breakdown
when she receives a letter telling her of her father’s death, and it is the breaking point

after caring for so many injured patients. “Nurses too became shell-shocked from the

dying around them. Or from something as small as a letter…. They (the patients) broke

the way a man dismantling a mine broke the second his geography exploded. The way

Hana broke in Santa Chiara Hospital when an official walked down the space between a

hundred beds and gave her a letter that told her of the death of her father” (41). Hana has

a breakdown because she was pushed into the war at too young of an age. And it is

precisely because of the death that she sees and the news that her father died that she

continues to care and try to save the life of the English Patient, so she can prevent his

death as well. Because she never properly finished her childhood, she is unable to go on

to being an adult, even though she is forced to be one. This is why she is torn between the

two. However, both Kip and Hana have differences as well.

Even though both Hana and Kip are dedicated to saving lives because of past

experiences, Kip is unable to form a close relationship whilst Hana is. Kip is unable to

form a relationship with Hana because he is always constantly looking for bombs, due to

his prior experiences with Lord Suffolk in England. “Later she will realize he never

allowed himself to be beholden to her, or her to him. She will stare at the word in a novel,

lift if off the book and carry it to a dictionary. Beholden. To be under obligation. And he,

she knows, never allowed that. If she crosses the two hundred yards of dark garden to

him it is her choice, and she might find him asleep, not from lack of love but from

necessity, to be clear-minded towards the next day’s treacherous objects” (129). This

shows that Kip is unable to fully form a relationship with Hana because he is always on

the alert for another bomb. This stops him from bonding with her, and he does this on
purpose, because he does not want to be hurt by her possible future death. This applies to

everybody else that Kip knows as well. On the other hand, Hana is able to have

relationships with other people, as shown by this excerpt. Whilst lying with Kip in his

tent, who is now asleep, Hana says “Kip? Do you hear me? I’m so happy with you. To be

with you like this” (129). This shows that even though Hana is dedicated to saving the

life of the English Patient, she does not let it get in the way of forming relationships with

people, especially with Kip. She is able to form these relationships in part because of her

naivity, which is left over from her childhood.

Kip is able overcome his issues by detaching himself from the military and his job

when he learns of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a symbolic

movement because it shows that Kip is not going to work for the army anymore. “Before

light failed he stripped the tent of all military objects, all bomb disposal equipment,

stripped all insignia off his uniform” (287). This shows that Kip has been so devastated

by the detonation of the atomic bomb that he decides to stop being a sapper, as he can no

longer deal with the reality. Kip also is able to reconnect with people. Years later, he has

moved back to India and has become a “doctor, has two children and a laughing wife”

(299). This shows that Kip has been able to reconnect to people after his experiences, and

he is able to do this because he is in a career where he is not put on the front line and

neither are his family, so he does not have to worry about them dying of an untimely

death.

Hana is also able to overcome he issues by accepting her father’s death. This is

shown most prominently when she writes and sends a letter to Carla, her stepmother.

“Patrick died in a dove-cot in France. In France in the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries they built them huge, larger than most houses… the horizontal line one-third of

the way down was called the rat ledge- to stop rats running up the brick, so the doves

would be safe. Safe as a dove-cot. A sacred place. Like a church in many ways. A

comforting place. Patrick died in a comforting place” (293). This shows that Hana has

accepted her father’s death, which was responsible for her nervous breakdown earlier on.

By accepting this, she is able to let go of her childhood, as her childhood ended early

when she learnt of her father’s death. Later on, Kip imagines what Hana will be like now.

“She will, he realizes now, always have a serious face. She has moved from being a

young woman into having the angular look of a queen” (300). This shows that Kip

imagines Hana to have the look of a queen, and a queen is a very mature person. In that

maturity lies adulthood, and so this means that, in Kip’s view, Hana has achieved it.

All in all, both Hana and Kip are interested in saving lives. However, Hana’s job

does not get in the way of forming relationships, whilst Kip’s does, because he does not

want to be hurt by the possible future death of someone close to him. This is important

because it tells us something about people who have experienced death and war. They

could retreat from others like Kip after severe shell shock from the battlefronts, whilst

people like Hana, can continue to keep on making relationships because of their naivety,

due to being put into the war at too young of an age.