Anil's Ghost Ondaatje Sparknotes

Unhistorical lives
David Eaglemen once said, “There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” What do we view as someone having a historical life on this earth? If they have a wikipedia page? If they are just remembered by on person? Little on this topic is solved in Michael Ondaatje's book Anil’s Ghost. Unhistorical lives do not carry much weight in literature, but in Anil’s Ghost Ondatje takes great care in making sure the the Unhistorical, people living during the war see attention, and in turn they give a lot to the story. Ondaatje conveys their significance through
Though, all still have violence it is not witnessed in the testimony. Sarath shares a story about a confrontation between a man and two insurgents. Sarath does not know what warranted the talk, it could be a wide spectrum of reasons, but sarth soon witnesses the insurgents taking the man away on a bike. He comments on the certain intimacy of the how the victim is holding onto the killer, and how the encounter is almost casual. This testimony is an outlier because it does relate to the story, but it is one of the best example of an unhistorical life and how much is unknown. A separate testimony is an outlier as well because it is the only testimony that is not in or near Sri Lanka. The story takes place in Guatemala and has to do with the a family search for loved ones and dealing with a mass grave. Readers do not see the killing, but is implied by the presence of the bodies. The testimony shows that similar atrocities are seen all over the world, and aren’t exclusive to Sri Lanka. Anil is present in this testimony and is deeply affected at what she sees. At one of the sights Anil see a woman crouched over in a mass grave. Ondaatje writes, “She had lost a husband and a brother during an abduction in the region a year earlier...she had once been the feminine string between them, the one who brought them together...There are no words Anil knows that can describe, even for just herself, the woman’s face. But the grief of love in that shoulder she will not forget, still remembers”(Ondaatje 7). The women and two dead men are just a few of many who were affected by the abductions. It is hard to connect when there is so many people, but when you focus on one person who suffered real loss, the person is memorable. Once you focus on one person you start to see that everyone had