Identity as Living through the Other

Abstract

The article focuses on Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, which deals with the issues of identity, belonging to the nation, family, community, friends. According to the ideas of the text, the realization through the Other, the care of the person whom you “flowed into”, whose soul has become more important than family and homeland, is the empathy that is necessary to overcome pain, war, loss and boundaries. The time in the novel unfolds in a specific historical period, against the backdrop of one of the most tragic episodes of the twentieth century, yet the culturological context of The English Patient includes the Antiquity and Renaissance art, history and music, fine arts, as well as the European prose of the XIX century. By shaking the idea of national priorities, the narrative, shows that the history of European civilization is irreducible to simply war and destruction.