Hana And Kip's Trauma

Because they are both so traumatized, Hana and Kip’s relationship is characterized by the theme of trauma and their attempts to reconcile their pasts, yet these efforts prove unsuccessful as their individual losses are too substantial to overcome. As Hana first adjusts to living with the English patient, Caravaggio, and Kip, the narrator notices that “she has begun to feel awkward in the company of three men... She likes to lay her face against the upper reaches of [Kip’s] arm, that dark brown river, and to wake submerged within it against the pulse of an unseen vein in his flesh beside her. The vein she would have to locate and insert a saline solution into if he were dying” (125). Although Hana’s work as a nurse has ended, Hana still thinks

Fred Harts, Miss Morden, and four sappers die in a bomb explosion, and he continues to grieve the loss of his brother who is in jail for a lengthy amount of time (190, 272). Without any family to fall back on, Kip is left alone in the world, and Hana and the English patient are unable to console him because he is constantly reminded of his trauma. With individual losses and a collective trauma from the war, Hana and Kip are unable to maintain their relationship because they are both damaged. Eventually, their relationship falls apart when Kip learns that the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan (286). Kip identifies as a victim of white supremacy because the English colonized India and devalued his culture; the bombing of the Japanese reminds Kip of his own suppression, and he believes he has to protest this racial divide. Kip feels a large difference between himself and the others at the villa because of his skin color and Indian nationality. He is angry at the white people closest to him because they remind him of the Americans’ actions, and this anger causes him to lash out and leave the villa, breaking all ties with Hana. Because of their respective traumas and racial divide, Hana and Kip are unable to maintain their