The English Patient takes place during World War II, a time during which nationalism was rampant and one’s national identity was of primary importance. An isolated derelict Italian villa, the setting of the story, houses four survivors that have banded together in an effort to start the process of healing while leaving the war behind. The war-weary survivors bond together under a common goal to redefine their identity while attempting to transcend nationality. Despite their best efforts, they ultimately fail as the rest of the world imposes the idea of national identity upon them. Ondaatje uses the theme of nationality and identity to create an inescapable maze that binds the characters to the war so that when the survivors finally leave their sheltered villa they soon find themselves once again in the roles expected of them in their respective countries. Hana, the first character introduced in the novel, is portrayed as a twenty year old caught between the roles of adolescence and adulthood. She contributed to the war effort by enlisting as a nurse and devoted herself to helping others. After three days on the job she loses her innocence, gives up hope on returning to her life before the war, and sheds her identity when she cuts “her hair, not concerned with shape or length, just cutting it away – the irritation of its presence during the previous days still in her mind.” The fact that she “never looked at herself in mirrors again” suggests that Hana is not sure of what she has become. This thought is reinforced when Hana sees her reflection in a mirror a year later and fails to recognize the image: “Hi Buddy, she said. She peered into her look, trying to recognize herself.” Hana exhibits maturity through her actions as a good nurse. She quickly learns to not become emotionally attached to her patients and calls all of them “buddy” and immediately detaches herself from her patients after their death: “Hello Buddy, good-bye Buddy. Caring was brief. There was a contract only until death.” While Hana asserts an adult side through her actions as a nurse, she is a paradoxical character in the sense that she still clings to childish behaviors. An example of such behavior is her idolization of the English patient as a “saint…a despairing saint” while Caravaggio questions why she bothers to care for the English patient. The idolizing of an older, more experienced person is a trait often found in young children. Another instance of Hana exhibiting her childlike identity is when she plays hopscotch in the villa: “She leaps forward, her legs smashing down, her shadow behind her curling into the depth of the hall. She is very quick, her tennis shoes skidding on the number she has drawn into each rectangle, one foot landing, then two feet, then one again, until she reaches the last square.” Her playing hopscotch in the dark after having taken care of the English patient suggests that while Hana may show a mature side during the day, she reverts back to her childish self at night once she is alone. Ondaatje repeats this conflict many times throughout the novel to emphasize Hana’s erratic, unstable character, the result of a young girl forced to a level of maturity beyond her age. Kip, the last person to enter the villa, is an Indian Sikh who works in the British army as a sapper. Kip is perhaps the person with the most conflicted identity in the group. His brother is an anti-western nationalist that would rather be jailed than join the army, a contrast from Kip who voluntarily enlists. His attempt to assimilate into British culture can be seen with his adoption of the nickname given to him by the British soldiers “Kip” as opposed to using his native name, “Kirpal Singh.” Despite his eagerness and belief that that he can transcend racism, Kip has a hard time gaining acceptance by the British because of his nationality. Ondaatje often reminds the reader that Kip “was the only Indian among the applicants” and that he was “[a]n Indian boy.” Although Kip shows his devotion to the British by joining their highly dangerous elite bomb sapper unit, he never manages to overcome discrimination and his “brownness” is mentioned throughout the novel. Kip is clearly aware of his status as an outsider and even during the intense moments of bomb disposal, he knows that although “he was for now a king, a puppet master, could order anything, a bucket of sand, a fruit pie for his needs,” the men who obeyed his orders “would not cross an uncrowded bar to speak with him.” After the death of his mentor, Kip becomes even more detached and “reenlist[s] into the anonymous machine of the army” causing him to disembark in Italy. He soon arrives to the villa and after living with Hana, Caravaggio, and Almásy, all of whom seem to disregard national origins, Kip slowly begins to regain confidence and a sense of community. After a few months in the villa the survivors get together to celebrate Hana’s birthday, symbolizing Kip’s acceptance. Here Kip reaffirms his belief that he can surpass racism while creating a separate identity as a lover with Hana. However, the outside world moves on and reinforces the idea of national identity by dropping an atomic bomb on Japan. Upon hearing this news, Kip imagines “the streets of Asia full of fire. It rolls across cities like a burst map, the hurricane of heat withering bodies at it meets them, the shadow of humans suddenly in the air.” Kip realizes that this act of extreme violence, the bombing of Japan, was in part motivated by racism and that the West would never have released such a destructive bomb on a white nation. Kip soon understands that he would never be able to escape the racism and contempt with which the West regards him with. With this revelation Kip completely succumbs to the labeling of nationality that he earlier desperately tried to overcome by leaving Hana because he links her, as a white person, with the racism of the West. He deserts the British army, returns to India, and takes back his old name. He eventually becomes a doctor, the occupation expected of the second born in India. With her patient dead and lover gone, there is nothing left for Hana at the villa and she soon finds herself back in Canada. The English patient, later on known as Almásy, lived and worked in the desert prior to the war. In the desert Almásy and his group of international friends were removed from the politics of Europe and thus for a time were able to transcend the labels of nationhood. Hungarian by birth and educated in England, Almásy decides to recreate his identity by shedding “the clothes of his country” in the desert, where one’s character is considered more important than one’s place of birth. It was here that Almásy “came to hate nations” and came to believe that “[w]e are deformed by nation-states.” Eventually, the war forced the politics of Europe, along with its belief of national identity, onto the desert causing the forced disbandment of the Geographical Society, which can be seen symbolically as the end of Almásy’s dream. The force of nationality not only ends with the destruction of Almásy’s dream, but also eventually causes the death of Madox, his best friend, and his lover Katherine. Because Almásy’s gave the British soldiers his name, they did not believe him since “everyone with a foreign name who drifted into these small oasis towns was suspect. She was just seventy miles away and they wouldn’t listen.” Instead, the soldiers imprisoned him simply because Almásy’s name denoted a connection, albeit imaginary, with the enemy. The characters’ failure to recreate their identity while transcending nationality due to the pressures of war and national identity is repeated many times throughout the novel. Kip, who joined the British army out a sense of loyalty, is unable to cope with the bombing of Japan. He abandons everything he has believed in prior to the war and returns to India, eventually embracing the path that is expected of him in his culture. Hana, unable to recreate a new identity in Europe after having lost her father, her child, and lover, eventually returns to Canada. Almásy, the one who hated nation-states and wanted to have nothing to do with the war, is unable to save Katherine and eventually takes sides. By using the theme of nationality of identity to bind the characters, Ondaatje does a wonderful job of showing their attempts and failures at recreating their identity without the influence of nationality.