Analysis Of Anil's Ghost

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Anil’s Ghost
Amid today’s contemporary era, the virtues of texts are often overlooked. The different texts available possess the potential to animate qualities that will evoke emotion and agitate cognition. Texts have the power to move and challenge the audience. The novel Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje is an excellent epitome of this statement. The morals, themes and values illustrated in Anil’s Ghost such as fact verses fiction, power verses law and past verses present are significant as they ever-present and universal.
The novel is written in a post-colonial, elliptical style, focusing on the history, identity and the social and political groups of Sri Lanka. The delivery of these ideas is achieved through a non-linear narrative structure. Ondaatje’s fragmented style proves to be an analogy to war and its effects, both the novel and war being scattered and lacking clarity. This style is also analogous to memories, which are frequently disordered and skewed. Due to this unique style of writing, it leaves it up to the reader to piece together the threads of the string to establish the larger picture. This is similar to how Anil must solve the mystery of Sailor, provided limited clues. The consistent shift of perspective from the past, present to future provides the audience with brief details of Sri Lanka’s past, an insight into the history of the civil war and a sense of surrealism.
Events and notions are gradually entwined together - Anil’s memory of her father links to Dr Perera, Leaf’s postcard links America to Sri Lanka. Throughout the novel, significant events resonate with minor events, often subtly foreshadowing the future. The private war between Sarath and Gamini mirrors the public war between the Sri Lankan revolut...

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...to behave as an outsider, her only goal being to uncover the truth of her investigation of Sailor. It is hinted that for Sarath, Anil is no different to an outsider who has no sentiment for her native country. Due to this subtle conflict of views, the question of truth is raised. The tension between fact verses fiction and appearance verses reality is raised. This engages the audience, who have a sketchy concept of the truth, albeit never having the knowledge of the genuine truth. This reflects the reality of the war in Sri Lanka, which is uncertain and questions the truth of activity.
The symbols present in Anil’s Ghost add dimension, pushing the reader to interact with the novel in a different aspect. ‘Sailor’, the skeleton under Anil’s investigation is a significant example of symbolisation. Sailor represents all the unidentified victims of Sri Lankan civil war.

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