SOURCE: Emery, Sharyn. “‘Call Me by My Name’: Personal Identity and Possession in The English Patient.” Literature Film Quarterly 28, no. 3 (2000): 210-13.

In the following essay, Emery contrasts the gendered differences of attitudes toward personal identity and ownership in The English Patient and its film adaptation.

Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient and the 1996 Anthony Minghella film that was adapted from it deal with how we as individuals identify ourselves and how we identify others. What names do we ascribe to people, and what boundaries do those names create in our lives? These contemporary themes are explored against the backdrop of the years leading up to and following the Second World War, where the wrong name could prove to be very dangerous when spoken in the wrong land. Almasy insists on naming and describing Katharine in terms of the desert, while she firmly defines herself by her “Britishness.” As...