Believing Eyes

In The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, there are several references to eyes. When Katherine is reading the story of Candaules from The Histories, she quotes, "Men's ears are less apt of belief than their eyes," saying our eyes are a powerful seeing tool (232). Each character in The English Patient mostly use their eyes to decide if the things around them are trustworthy.

Almásy communicates with Hana through his eyes when he cannot speak, watching her every move. He reveals to Caravaggio, he got Hana to read to him as a way to "get her to communicate" back (253). When he wants to stop reliving memories of the past, he has to "lock his eyes" onto Hana's face, to focus on the present (4). He studies the physical features of Hana and Katherine while they read to him, wanting to "rest" his eyes (236). While Katherine is "studying him," he also watches her for "something that would give her away," not wanting to trust her (145).

Caravaggio uses his eyes as a shield to disguise himself from his criminal activities. He believes his "eyes are faultless, clear as any river, unimpeachable in the landscape," believing his eyes will make him come across as a decent man (39). Caravaggio uses his eyes to study people while they talk. When Almásy catches Caravaggio staring at him, silently, he asks "am I just a book? Something to be read?" (253).

Hana uses her eyes to read books. Reading books is "the only door out of her cell"(7). Her eyes are her escape from he real world and the horrors around her. While she is treating soldier's wounds, she closes "her eyes against the world around her," using her eyes as a shield (49). She doesn't like looking at herself, into her own eyes, so she "removed all mirrors" vowing to "never" look "at herself in mirrors again" (50). She believes "a novel is mirror walking down a road," and she reads to study worlds she can't live in (91).

Like Almásy, Hana uses her eyes to study people's faces, trying to read their sincerity. She watches Kip while he is sleeping, trying to study "the gnats of electricity in his hair," almost as if she is trying to memorize everything about him (218). She uses Kip's face and eyes as a relaxation point for her moods. Her eyes "darted around and then were still when she faced Kip," calming her anxiety (113).

Kip uses his eyes as radar, a way to search. When he first arrives at the villa, "his eyes took in the room before they took her in, swept across it like a spray of radar," falling in love with Hana at first sight. (76). He uses his eyes as weapons against bombs. He reveals he came to Italy "with eyes that tried to see everything except what was temporary and human," keeping his focus on his job (219). He doesn't read books because he is "able to pinpoint villains with too much ease" (111).
While he is searching for bombs, his eyes locate "the choreography of inanimate objects for the quarter-mile around him," as he as been trained to do (87). When Kip's brother believes he is foolish for "trusting the English", he says to him, repeatedly, "one day you will open your eyes," trying to get him to focus on the politics behind the war and not just the battle itself (217).

Kip doesn't trust the eyes of others. "When someone speaks he looks at a mouth" to tell him the truth, believing eyes can fool him (219). When he looks into Hana's eyes, he doesn't "register what colour they are," focusing on the person she is, behind the eyes (219). He uses his own eyes as a way to shield off people from getting to close. Like Hana, he also doesn't have any mirrors (219). Hana believes Kip is the most "vulnerable" when he has his "eyes closed," letting down the walls blocking him from sharing everything with her. (217).

The narrator in the novel tells us, our eyes give us a reflection, the opportunity to "become vain with the names we own, our claims to have been the first eyes" (142). As humans, we use our eyes to read, watch, to communicate, and to study the world around us. We can also use our eyes to deceive or disguise our true selves. Like the characters in the novel, our eyes reveal our truths, our flaws, and our identity.

Works Cited

Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. Vintage International. New York: 1992. Print