In the Skin of a Lion Anaylsis

Discuss the ways in which textual forms and features shape your understanding of In the Skin of a Lion.
Michael Ondaatje’s postmodern exploration of the early, developmental years of Canada, In the Skin of a Lion, is expressed through multiple perspectives, with no dominant perspective or omniscient narrator. The narrative is presented as fragmented and contains interruptions from intersecting perspectives. The presence of class conflict forces the characters to experience extreme adversity, with their contributions to building the society going unnoticed until Ondaatje has addressed their social exclusion. Through reinterpretations of motifs and symbols, Ondaatje adds new dimensions to events in history and characterizations, whilst the ambiguity of events, as a result of the blurring of imagination and reality, encourages the reader to determine a personal interpretation of truth, regardless of official records of history.
History has emphasized the significance of written sources. As a result, oral transmission of stories has been devalued and considered unreliable. However, history and written words do not always reflect truth, as things that are deemed “insignificant” by history can be highly valued by certain individuals. Through Ondaatje’s style of storytelling, the reader is able to reinterpret and recognize oral transmission as a valid form of expressing events that adds new layers of meaning to official history. This is demonstrated to compensate for the omissions in official history which have marginalized and disenfranchised the migrant workers, despite their contributions in the construction of Toronto. The dissimilarity between the workers and the rich & powerful is immediately established through the anonymity of the lower class, which is juxtaposed through the use onomastic devices to introduce Rowland Harris as the “Commissioner of Public Works”, emphasizing how history recognized the workers as a collective identity, lacking the