SOURCE: Schumacher, Rod. “Patrick's Quest: Narration and Subjectivity in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.” Studies in Canadian Literature 21, no. 2 (1996): 1-21.

In the following essay, Schumacher delineates the relationship between language and subjectivity in In the Skin of a Lion as well as examining the roles of community and narrative in the development of Patrick Lewis, the novel's pivotal character.

My discussion of Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion is intent on seeking a correspondence between narration and the acquisition of subjectivity. To achieve this correspondence I centre my argument specifically on Patrick Lewis in order to illustrate how his incremental movement from private to communal symbolic registers facilitates his quest to subjectify himself within society. This approach is dependent upon understanding the role narration plays in the framing of personal and collective experience, and also how narration functions as a medium for desire...