Comparing The Handmaid s Tale With The English Patient

Ze Qin Qiu Contemporary Literature – Essay 1 Comparison of The Handmaid s Tale with The English Patient The Handmaid s Tale by Margaret Atwood and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje can be considered as two works that reflect the change in writing style common of more modern literature. As opposed to their older counter parts, these works of contemporary literature seem to focus more on the connections, especially that of love, that forms between the characters. In The English Patient, everything from the flashbacks to the sudden change in narrator, serves to outline the connections between the main characters in this story. Similarly in The Handmaid s tale, the flashbacks and inner thoughts of the main protagonist, Offred, serves to demonstrate the connections that influenced her. In both stories, regardless of the time and circumstances, the characters in the book were able to recall connections that were formed and use them to reminisce about the past. It could be said that the two books show humanity s ability to form meaningful connections that are able to surpass the limits of time and space. The English Patient is one of the two such books examined in this paper that show s humanity s ability to form connections that stay with us without regards to time and space. Set in a villa in Italy during WWII, The English Patient focuses on the experiences of a group of people in the midst of this war. One such set of character is the nurse Hana and her