Lydia Forssander-Song's Essay 'The English Patient'

The next character of the novel whose identity is changed due to World War II is the Canadian nurse Hana, the English Patient’s nurse who stays in the Villa. Before the war, Hana was just a regular Canadian school child. However, like what happens to so many others, the war disrupts her life with little notice. “She herself had been trained at Women’s College Hospital and then sent overseas during the Sicilian invasion” (Ondaatje 49). As a result of her entrance to the war, Hana has experienced much physical loss that no twenty year old should have to experience. Susan S. Adams writes in her critical essay, “The English Patient,” “The Canadian Hana is exhausted from nursing the wounded and the dying, her lover has died in the war, and she has

Lydia Forssander-Song says it best in her critical essay, “The English Patient,” when she writes, “The emotionally scarred Hana and the socially and culturally alienated Kip uncover a sacred and sensual love for each other based on mutual need” (3). Hana is unaware of the fact that she is in desperate need of a partner, someone to help share the weight of the world with. That is until she finds Kip, a man who is also in need of care. When Kip is reflecting on his relationship with Hana, he notes this difficult problem with Hana. “He is always coaxing her from the edge of her field of sadness. A child lost. A father lost.” (Ondaatje 271). Hana has been through so much, and Kip realizes that someone needs to help Hana return back to herself, the nurturing self that the war stole from her. While with Kip, Hana slowly starts to return to her nurturing identity. While sleeping next to Kip, she notes the simplicity of the things she is providing to him. “Her body for last warmth, her whisper for comfort” (126). Although these seem like nothing to some, these are greatly appreciated by Kip and this represents Hana’s return to her caring personality. Although the war moved Hana all over Europe without any regard for what Hana wanted, she ultimately ends up at the Villa with Kip and returns to her