Michael Ondaatje Essay

Allright as some of you guys may know, i like to post some of my essays that i due for school here. This is mainly due to the fact that i can get some insight from the members that frequent, and that is the case right now. I've been working on this essay for about 4 hours now, and this is what i've come up with...any and all feedback is greatly appreciated: LONG READ UP AHEAD, IF YOU CANT HANDLE IT, ITS BEST YOU LEAVE THE THREAD NOW :)

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Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje has a very deep and dark view on life, whether people tend to agree or not, it is clearly reflected in his work. His works often glorify violence, show extreme despair and frustration, and almost always mention blood and gore which leaves the readers with very graphic, and vivid images. Although Mr. Ondaatje has such a sombre outlook, most of this may be attributed to the hard matters he has had to live through in his life.

Mr. Ondaatje’s life almost immediately starts off with difficulties, from his family’s prosperity nearing its end, to the fact that at age 2, his parents had already divorced. Although it is said that the divorce between Ondaatje’s parents was what gave Michael his writing abilities (he had “learned of his father through stories…closest link was through letters, this encouraged him to read,) it is also this same divorce that started off his life in the wrong direction. Ondaatje most likely picked up his violent writing style subconsciously from his father’s violent nature, who used to threaten to kill his wife with a rifle, when she hid his liquor bottle, before the divorce. Michael Ondaatje’s deepest and darkest child moment came later on, when at the mere age of 13; he was left without a father and mother (since the parents were divorced, and his mother moved to England and could not afford to take him with her.) It is said that this left Michael with a “tremendous sense of loss.” 1 This situation is credited as giving Michael the ability to “transform grief into personal fictional consolation.”1 As you can see his life is already starting to have a great impact on his poetry and his bleak outlook on life. The next big impact on Ondaatje’s life came when he worked as a medical aid in a mental hospital. This played a major role on his life because this is where he got his first direct impressions of the insanity and silence that would later dominate in his future works, more specifically “Coming through Slaughter”. Mr. Ondaatje’s view on life was slowly becoming worse and worse as time went on, and one of the most influential blows came when he was working with a road repair crew for the City of Toronto. It was at this job that he happened to witness the death of a fellow worker. This left him shaking, and it was evident in his poem “For John, Falling.”1 Michael was becoming more solemn although he was not showing this externally. In one incident in Michael’s life various individuals backbit him (during the incident with Western University, when his so called friends gave him bad reviews on his job application) this most definitely led Ondaatje to lose trust in almost everyone that surrounded him, and most definitely contributed to his glum outlook. One of the darkest moments, if not the darkest, in all of Ondaatje’s life came when he happened to cheat on his wife. This was a turning point in Michael’s life, because although he still had a sombre outlook on life before, this event pushed him over the top. His wife proceeded to leave him, and Michael was left with a true feeling of despair and frustration, which is still prevalent in all of his work, but more specifically his poem called “Blue Tin Roof.” As you can most definitely see, Michael Ondaatje has not led a simple run of the mill life. His life has been full of pain and suffering, from losing friends, too losing his wife, and many of his bleak emotions are displayed in his poems.

Mr. Ondaatje’s poems contain many different yet equally gruesome, hopeless, and violent passages of text. In many of Mr. Ondaatje’s poems he uses words with negative connotations attached to them, which puts a damper to even a good poem. An example being:

Two birds loved
in a flurry of red feathers
like a burst cottonball,
continuing while I drove over them.

I am a good driver, nothing shocks me.

This is a classic example of the irony, violence and despair that Michael Ondaatje uses so familiarly in his poems. This poem should be talking about a normal task that many regular people do in their lifetime (applying for a driving license), but Michael Ondaatje adds his special dark twist to it. This can be interpreted as Ondaatje giving the message that love can be smashed just as easily as birds can be run over. It reminds the reader of the famous story of Romeo and Juliet, who although both hopelessly in love, seem to be full of despair and frustration as both of their families will not agree to their situation, and both end by committing gruesome and difficult suicides (Romeo drinking poison, and Juliet stabbing herself in the heart with a dagger). Once again Ondaatje displays his sombre outlook on life, by making a short poem, which deals with the frustrations and despairs of love, which can easily be related back to Michael cheating on his wife. Also the fact that Ondaatje says, “continuing while I drove over them”, shows just how sombre Ondaatje really is. Killing two birds that were making love, really doesn’t seem to bother Michael, and this may be because he is used to the passion that these two birds are feeling, and also the feeling of it being snatched away in an instant, once again referring to his affair. Another example of Mr. Ondaatje’s gruesome poems is his poem named “For John, Falling”:

Men stopped in the heel of sun,
hum of engines evaporated;
the machine displayed itself bellied with mud
and balanced—immense.

No one ran to where
his tense muscles curled unusually,
where jaws collected blood,
the hole in his chest the size of fists,
hands clutched to eyes like a blindness.

Arched there he made
ridiculous requests for air.
And twelve construction workers
what should they do but surround
or examine the path of falling.

And the press in bright shirts,
a doctor, the foreman scuffing a mound,
men removing helmets,
the machine above him
shielding out the sun
while he drowned
in the beautiful dark orgasm of his mouth.

This is yet another classic example of the despair and anguish that is so commonly used in Ondaatje’s literary works. This poem has the greatest feeling of despair and a feeling of emergency, mostly due to the line “No one ran to where his tense muscles curled unusually” which shows that everyone is too shocked to react, and the reader almost feels the urge to scream at the people to go help the poor man. The most disturbing line in the whole poem is where Ondaatje talks about the worker making “ridiculous requests for air.” This is truly distressing because it sends the message to the readers that Michael just wants the worker to stop making such impossible requests for the air that most take for granted. This is truly a dark and gruesome poem that deals with despair, and gruesome details that Ondaatje is so widely known for. As you can see Mr. Ondaatje likes to incorporate many feelings of despair and sombre views on life to his poems, which he believes are a reflection of him.

The greatest proof that Michael Ondaatje has a dark view on life comes when he states, “For me the greatest pleasure of literature is reading as opposed to writing. I write as a reader. I don’t write something that wouldn’t interest me as a reader. For me the process of writing therefore has to be learning or discovering as opposed to just a telling or entertaining. Reading is a great intimate act, between reader and author, reader and book. It’s sacred to me, that relationship and involves trust, surprise, and ideally a continuing relationship.” This passage gives us a great deal of insight into Michael Ondaatje’s view of his work. Its evident that his work is not all just fiction, but rather a greater insight into his own being, which once again leads the reader to believe that Ondaatje is truly a depressed person with a negative outlook on life, who uses his skill of poetry to liberate his mind. It shows that he does not consider writing to be just about entertainment but rather a process of learning/discovering. This means that through all his writing he has learned something, and it just so happens that the majority of his work contains deeper and darker meanings, which support the thesis that Michael Ondaatje truly is a depressed man. Another example of Ondaatje admitting to truly revealing himself through his literary works is when he says he sees what is happening in a poem as it if it were “a home movie.” He is “still conscious of all the bits and pieces/relatives and friends that were just to the left of the camera that never got into the picture.”4 His quote is informing the reader that almost all of the material that Ondaatje writes about is like a “home movie” and that it holds more weight then just a fictional shred of writing. He makes it seem as if the writing that he produces is a lot more important then people perceive it to be, and if this is true, then this supports the thesis that Ondaatje truly is a deep and dark person because the majority of his work happens to be very gloomy. Even works that people would not consider to have any relevance to Michael’s personal life have some significance, for example, Ondaatje is quoted as saying, “Billy is a personal book, very much about my world then, even though its set in a different country and its about an absolute stranger to me. I found I could both reveal and discover myself more through being given a costume. I could be more honest about the things I wanted to talk about or witness.” It just so happens that in this book “Billy The Kid” the main character is shot right above the heart when he returns from a love errand. Once again despair, frustration, and violence are seen in another on Ondaatje’s works. As you can see Michael Ondaatje really lets his true emotions come out when he is writing some of his best works, and it is evident that all his works do have some relevance to him, the author.

As stated before Michael Ondaatje has a very glum and negative outlook on life. He has suffered so much that he almost has the right to feel glum. This closely resembles the situation of many people that are currently in Rap, that came from poor backgrounds such as Brooklyn. Such greats as Tupac, and Biggie Smalls are still recognized as two of the best in the industry. They both rapped about their difficult lives, and incorporated much of their own personal experiences just like Ondaatje did. Tupac and Biggie are also some of the most descriptively violent and gruesome characters to ever hit the rap stage. This once again closely resembles the attitude that Michael Ondaatje portrays through his own works. Many people refer to Tupac as a single skilled man, what many people do not see is that he also wrote poetry on the side, and this is one of his poems called “I Cry”:

Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confiding,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why.

This is the perfect example of the similarities between Michael Ondaatje and Tupac, not only because they both hit on the same subjects but also because both are seen as single skilled men, but both have other skills, Tupac with his poems and acting, and Ondaatje with his directing. Tupac seems to be hitting on the same subjects that Ondaatje referred too in his poems. Topics such as being alone, and feeling depressed. This poem hits you with so many different visual images. It is clear to see that the topics that Michael Ondaatje talked about in his poems, are also talked about by the rappers of today. Not only are people like Tupac and Biggie Smalls similar to Ondaatje, but also newcomers to the rapping scene, people such as Game and 50 Cent who like to talk about their own experiences and hardships which they display in their own artistic ways. For example, Game was shot and left for dead, he used his rapping ability to share his story and insights and now he is widely recognized. This is incredibly similar to Michael Ondaatje because he also incorporates his own mental anguishes into his works, although they are not as extreme as the ones that Game went through, they are still interesting enough that people are willing to listen. The point that is being made is that Michael Ondaatje is not so detached from the current world that we live in that he cannot relate to it, but rather he is closer then it first appears. The majority of the current world would rather see a person suffer then be happy, because this just makes them more interesting, this is why rappers such as 50 Cent, and Game are such popular people, and most likely why Ondaatje’s negative view which is shown through his poems is so interesting to read.

Ondaatje is clearly a deep and dark person who has a very negative outlook on life. Although some may consider this to be his downfall it is most definitely selling his books and poetry worldwide.

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Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long read.

I've never heard of this guy. Don't really see a similarity b/w Tupac and him at all.

Since this is about a poet I am assuming this is for an english class, since I am assuming this is an english class I am also going to guess this is supposed to be in MLA style so I will critique from that state of mind.

(he had “learned of his father through stories…closest link was through letters, this encouraged him to read,)
-Close and cite quotations, you could probably work the whole thing into a quote for example: His biography states that: "he had learned of his father through stories…closest link was through letters, this encouraged him to read"

Also after the parenthesis you might want to start a new sentence.

The words sombre and despair, take a thesaurus and use some other words when talking about the poem, they get fairly repetitive

“For me the greatest pleasure of literature is reading as opposed to writing. I write as a reader. I don’t write something that wouldn’t interest me as a reader. For me the process of writing therefore has to be learning or discovering as opposed to just a telling or entertaining. Reading is a great intimate act, between reader and author, reader and book. It’s sacred to me, that relationship and involves trust, surprise, and ideally a continuing relationship.”
-For a quote 4 lines or longer give it its own paragraph thats indented the entire way down, like what it looks like when you use the quote thing on the forum.


Just make sure that EVERYTHING (excluding titles of poems) that has quotes around it is cited.

Go back and look at your different paragraphs, take the key topics you are covering in each paragraph and then form a sentence to start the paragraph with. Then sit back and think about what you are trying to prove with your paper. After you realize what you are trying to prove look at that sentence you just put at the begining of each paragraph and take the key elements of those sentences and form one arguable thesis statement. Put the thesis statement at the end of your introductory paragraph.

These are just a few things that stuck out to me, I like where you are going with the paper and you have some good ideas like your comparison to Romeo and Juliet and the rappers. Keep with it and good luck, hope this helps a little bit.

Nice, you guys are giving me some damn good input so far. Thanks tons, and i'll be sure to make these changes. Thanks again.


btw: i have footnotes and a bibliography citing all my work etc, its just i didnt bother to include that with this, so sorry about that.