Setting and the Communication of Ideas: Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion Jack McInnes 12th Grade

Setting is an important part of Michael Ondaatje’s novel In the Skin of a Lion, symbolically underpinning the novel’s conceptual concerns. This narrative can be understood as a sweeping contemporary myth in which the setting works ironically and movingly, humorously and poignantly, to mirror and enhance the ideas the text presents. Throughout the novel, setting forms an essential backdrop to the development and exploration of Ondaatje’s complex ideas, and the vast web of interconnectivity linking every character in the plot.

The Canadian setting at its broadest is a powerful and important aspect of the novel. The ‘new world’ of North America is a notable aspect of Ondaatje’s exploration of the migrants’ stories. “The vista was Upper America, a New World.” The ‘New World’ is symbolic of the American dream, suggestive of a hopeful future, a setting that lures the migrants to its light. The migrants are repeatedly associated with the motif of insects, and moths in particular, illustrating the power the setting holds over them. “Emerging from darkness, mothlike.” As with the moths’ attraction to light, however, the lure of the ‘New World’ is a dangerous illusion. Ondaatje uses the setting ironically, contrasting the ideal sought by...