The English Patient (3) & The Sweet Hereafter

The English Patient (3) & The Sweet Hereafter Trauma and the Communities “beyond” the Boundaries

The English Patient Plot Summary and Questions EP’s re-interpretations nomads vs. nations; Kip’s Changes; Hana’s Homecoming. The Sweet Hereafter Starting Questions Pied Piper Different Parents and Difficulties in Communication The role of the Lawyer; Wild Nature vs. Enclosed Space The Sweet Hereafter Outline

Plot Summary • Chap VI: the Buried Plane -- Caravaggio’s intrusion into the EP’s storytelling--the ending of 1942 told the first time. (p. 175) • Chap VII: In Situ (meaning: in the natural or original position or place 1940) -- Kip’s story of being trained as a sapper; Kip vs. his brother; Erith, where Lord Suffolk die;

Plot Summary • Chap VIII: The Holy Forest: Kip’s experience; Kip and Hana (217 - ). • Chap IX: The Cave of Swimmers -- EP’s story of love re-told to Caravaggio (with two endings/interpretations of the ending) • Chap X: August --the endings: birthday party; Hana and Kip’s communication; Kip’s experience of defusing bombs in Naples, Kip’s sudden departure, Hana’s homecoming.

Questions • How are the EP’s views of his love for Katherine and the latter’s death changed over time? How does he “heal” himself? • Besides being used by the nations, and physically and emotionally traumatized by the war, how are these “international bastards” influenced by national boundaries? • What do you think about Kip’s radical response to the nuclear bomb? How is Hana’s homecoming different from Kip’s? • Are there connections among the three remaining characters?

EP’s re-interpretations of their Relationships • Chap IX – a lot clearer than the previous account; “Death means you are in the third person”; re-ordering events (247-48) • Their relationships: • Reasons for their mutual attraction the story of Candaules pp. 232 - • conflicts -- e.g. p. 238;

EP’s re-interpretations of Katherine’s death • 1. 1939 -- Put paints on her body 248 • 2. Alternating between self-questioning and broader views of time, desert space and life and death. • Self-questioning-- curse pp. 257; demon-lover 260 • Every person a gift in life; 257 • “jackal” and “historian” 258-57; • One’s own body as a communal book 261

Nation vs. International Bastards • [Madox – died because of nations 243; • EP –“wrong name” 251 • Caravaggio and EP – thief as a spy vs. intellectual turned into a vacuum. 253-55; • Kip: marked (199) but invisible (196);

Kip’s changes • Before the news of the nuclear bomb: • agile, moves in relation to things 218-19; • danger and peace: always concentrated on defusing bombs and admiring the statues and paintings in churches; e.g. 273; 278-79 • Mutual support and communication between him and Hana 270

Kip’s changes • After the news of the nuclear bombs in Japan: • 283 –refusing EP; • Brown races vs. Englishman 2886; • Traveling against the direction of invasion 290; 295

Hana’s Homecoming • The letter she writes to Clara • her ability to connect and to face her father’s death; • her vision of “home” and “mother”: confirms their plainness and independence.

Connections in the Endings • Caravaggio – remembers Kip 208; • EP – imagines Kip’s presence 298; • Kip and Hana –lose contact after he does not respond for a year; • Kip – still sees and thinks of Hana 300; • Hana – the author still leaves space for her independence; • The final connection –or lack of connection?

The Sweet Hereafter • By Atom Egoyan; • Adapted from the namesake novel by Russel Banks, who likes Egoyan’s adaptation a lot. (e.g. the addition of “The Pied Piper.”) • A film about the effects of deaths and losses. In the film, the children are all “dead” to their parents. • For some critics, it is typical of Canadian films to not see death as an ending or a heroic closure, but as a process or an absent presence in life.

Questions • What’s the significance of “The Pied Piper”? What do the opening and ending images and the title of the film mean? • How many “fathers” or parents are there in the film? How do they each relate to their children? • What does Stephens try to do as a lawyer for the victims’ families? Is he justified to do so? • Why does Nicole lie in testifying? Whose fault is the car accident?

Opening

Ending

“The Pied Piper” • The adults’ betrayal; • Children’s being lead an adult by the piper to a beautiful land with no return; • One lame child stays behind. • Possible contemporary allusions (in Middle Ages): black death; children’s crusade

“The Pied Piper”–The film’s adaptation not an allegory • The adults, not breaking promises, but mostly unhappy; • The pied piper in the film – not a revengeful figure, but one that (wants to) leads a group/a child. • Death, • Mr. Stephens, • Sam • Dolores? Billy, follows but not leading.

The Powerless: Dolores • With an invalid husband; • A loving person, her love for the kids shown on the photos she put on her wall; • sees picking up the kids as picking up red berries to put in her basket.

The Powerless (2): The Ottos

The Powerless and Troubled Parents • Billy – finding refuge in adultery, when actually he is obsessed by the past. • Risa and Wendell – Risa, does not know how to deal with her son; the two always fighting

Fathers Betraying or Betrayed? • Mr. Stephens & Sam

Stephens and Zoe • Happy family life in Zoe’s childhood: dangers lurking underneath the happy surface

Stephens and Zoe • distance between them, after many many disappointments which turns sadness into “steaming piss.”

Stephens and Zoe final communication: Still filled with tension but ending with their sharing of fear.

Sam and Nicole

Stephens as a lawyer • believes that there is a reason for everything; transfer his grief onto the victims.

The Role of Snowy Landscape • a contrast to the enclosed spaces of the car, the hotel room, the school bus and the airplane.

The Role of Snowy Landscape • Smallness of human beings

The Sweet Hereafter

The Sweet Hereafter • a space of sobriety and maturity after the experience of traumas. And everything is strange and new. . .

The English Patient (3) & The Sweet Hereafter