In the Skin of a Lion (3): an Urban History with Love and Violence

City Vision and History

Outline Plot Summary and Starting Questions Some Quotes Caravaggio Maritime Theatre

Plot Summary -- Caravaggio [escape from the prison] Patrick and another

prisoner at the Kingston Penitentiary paint the painter Caravaggio blue to help him escape.

[escape from the prison] assisted by a young boy Al (182-- 183)

Dream being beaten up in the prison (184--) [escape from the prison] A woman in a canoe

Plot Summary [the prison] Caravaggio notices Patrick C as the young thief learns his craft, gets hurt on his first solo job (190-) hides in a mushroom factory, and meets his wife,

Giannetta (192) [escape from the prison] goes into a boathouse and meets

Anne (196); used her phone to call Giannetta, talks with Anne

One pit in his learning to be a thief, getting August (203) Meets Giannetta – love or violence?

Plot Summary – Maritime Theatre Patrick released; a list of occurrences, ostensibly set in the

year 1938 (but actually in 1935): the film of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, and the assassination of Huey Long

Goes to join Hana (“[S]he watched him, understanding what kind of love was behind his stare“ 211)

Ambrose Small Patrick asleep, getting a call from Clara (236) Harris’s vision of the plant, which forms a triangle with

two other spots in Toronto 220-

Plot Summary – Maritime Theatre An image of Caravaggio among the rich (222) Patrick swimming in the tunnel (227-) 1938/7/7 , having

Alice on his mind (233) Encounter between Patrick and Harris (235), Harris tells P

about his dream, Patrick, Alice’s death Hana and Patrick go off to pick Clara up

Starting Questions What are the functions of Caravaggio, supposing

that Patrick is the protagonist whose life we follow most of the time?

Are there anything in common among the workers such as Nicholas Temelcoff, Patrick Lewis and Caravaggio?

Love and Violence: how are they related in the novel?

What do you think about the ending?

Quote: Caravaggio Landscape for Caravaggio was never calm.

A tree bending with difficulty, a flower thrashed by wind, a cloud turning black, a cone falling--everything moved anguished at separate speeds. When he ran he saw it all. The eye splintering into fifteen sentries, watching every approach (183)

Quotes: Clara re. Ambrose She saw his world as if she were tied to a

galloping horse, caught glimpses of faces and argument and there was no horizon. …

Now his face serene. Now his upper torso bent forward long and athletic and the mouth of the heron touched the blue wood floor and his head submerged under the water and pivoted and saw in the fading human light a lamp that was the moon. (215)

Harris to Patrick: "You must realize you are like

these places, Patrick. You’re as much of the fabric as the aldermen and the millionaires. But you're among the dwarfs of enterprise who never get accepted or acknowledged. Mongrel company. You're a lost heir“ (238)

Patrick: “His own life was no longer a single story but part of a mural, which was a falling together of accomplices.. (143-45)

Theme (1): Love and Violence Examples of Violence:

Alice’s death – mere accident Ambrose’s attempt at burning Patrick –

manipulative, violence incurred by possessiveness

Patrick’s attempt at burning up the hotel, bombing the water plant – “the rich vs. the poor” cause

Love and Violence Love

associated with violence: Patrick’s blindfolding himself in his bedroom

obsessive: Patrick after Alice’s death Gentle observation from a distance:

-- Caravaggio and Patrick

-- Temelcoff and Alice: “There are long courtships which are performed in absence.” (48); “her absence making him look everywhere” (50)

-- Caravaggio and Anne

Theme (2): The laborers empathized and their work aestheticized Caravaggio: body porous to every noise

184; escapes in blue 179-80; landscape is never calm for him 183; a thief's sense of the world 189

Common aspects: physically dexterous, racial minorities Nicholas -- a tentative man 149; “a spinner.

He links everyone” (34). Patrick -- alien, in somebody else's landscape

Being Invisible: a social fact & a choice Social fact

Patrick feels invisible at the Union Station (210) Caravaggio (199) “to all around him”

Choice Hazen Lewis --self-sufficient, as invisible as possible

(18). Patrick

His childhood (91) As a dissident, “[h]is body tarred, he is invisible except by

touch” (228)

Theme (3): Social Network Patrick and Caravaggio – mutual support at

prison and the bombing work Patrick & Hana Clara and Alice

Theme (3): Social Network & Minor Characters’ support

Patrick and Caravaggio – mutual support at prison and the bombing work

Patrick encounters: Elena, a market lady & the Macedonian laborers Elizabeth, the lady at the Garden of the Blind A cook

Those that help Caravaggio Alfred Anne

Theme (4): Urban History & Storytelling

1) Re-Vision of Official History (Historiographical Metafiction) with Stories of the laborers such as Temelcoff, Patrick and CaravaggioMixed with dreams, rumors, errors, fictions about historical figures ---and Stories the characters (Temelcoff and Patrick) tell.

Historical References

Right top: Al Purdy: Alfred Wellington Purdy, ( 1918 – 2000) [image source ] –help Patrick

Right bottom: George Grant (George Parkin Grant 1918 – 1988) [image source] –met Clara

Left Anne Wilkinson ( 1910 – 1961) [image source ] – met Carravagio

Historical Events the film of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, and

the assassination of Huey Long all occurred in 1935

Do you agree? “In the Skin of a Lion works to transform the

consciousness of its readers not only by revising history—which, it insists, can no longer be told from the totalizing point of view of the ruling class—but by revolutionizing representations of labour via the aesthetic. At the same time, however, its patterns of emancipatory imagery naturalize and reinforce a racialized vertical mosaic that compromises its vision of human liberation” (27).

References Barbour, Douglas. "Chapter 8: In the Skin of a

Lion." Michael Ondaatje. Douglas Barbour. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Twayne's World Authors Series 835. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Sept. 2010.

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