A reoccurring theme is not an uncommon happening. Love, passion and racism are among the top few. In the novel The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje and the play The Ecclesiazusae by Aristophanes the common thread linking these two unseemingly similar works together is unattainable passion. Passion can inexorably lead a character to fall towards their untimely downfall, through the prevention of attaining the passion, the disruption of their lives, and the result of the actions.

The development of the characters provided a wall that the characters could not climb, break through or find away around. The main characters from the novel, Almasy and the play, Praxagora, both concealed something about themselves, which would proved to be fatal to their passions. Praxagora exclaimed in the play when she was attempting to pass as a male citizen of Athens that she " began by throwing her razor away, so that...