City Vision and History
In the Skin of a Lion (3): an Urban
History with Love and Violence
Outline
Plot Summary and Starting Questions
 Some Quotes
Caravaggio
Maritime Theatre
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Plot Summary -- Caravaggio
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[escape from the prison] Patrick and another
prisoner at the Kingston Penitentiary paint the
painter Caravaggio blue to help him escape.
[escape from the prison] assisted by a young boy
Al (182-- 183)
Dream  being beaten up in the prison (184--)
[escape from the prison] A woman in a canoe
Plot Summary
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[the prison] Caravaggio notices Patrick
C as the young thief learns his craft,
gets hurt on his first solo job (190-)
hides in a mushroom factory, and meets his wife,
Giannetta (192)
[escape from the prison] goes into a boathouse and meets
Anne (196); used her phone to call Giannetta, talks with
Anne
One pit in his learning to be a thief, getting August (203)
Meets Giannetta – love or violence?
Plot Summary – Maritime Theatre
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Patrick released; a list of occurrences, ostensibly set in the
year 1938 (but actually in 1935): the film of Tolstoy's
Anna Karenina, T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, and
the assassination of Huey Long
Goes to join Hana (“[S]he watched him, understanding
what kind of love was behind his stare“ 211)
Ambrose Small
Patrick asleep, getting a call from Clara (236)
Harris’s vision of the plant, which forms a triangle with
two other spots in Toronto 220-
Plot Summary – Maritime Theatre
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An image of Caravaggio among the rich (222)
Patrick swimming in the tunnel (227-) 1938/7/7 , having
Alice on his mind (233)
Encounter between Patrick and Harris (235), Harris tells P
about his dream, Patrick, Alice’s death
Hana and Patrick go off to pick Clara up
Starting Questions
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What are the functions of Caravaggio, supposing
that Patrick is the protagonist whose life we
follow most of the time?
Are there anything in common among the
workers such as Nicholas Temelcoff, Patrick
Lewis and Caravaggio?
Love and Violence: how are they related in the
novel?
What do you think about the ending?
Quote: Caravaggio
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Landscape for Caravaggio was never calm.
A tree bending with difficulty, a flower
thrashed by wind, a cloud turning black, a
cone falling--everything moved anguished
at separate speeds. When he ran he saw it
all. The eye splintering into fifteen sentries,
watching every approach (183)
Quotes: Clara re. Ambrose
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She saw his world as if she were tied to a
galloping horse, caught glimpses of faces and
argument and there was no horizon. …
Now his face serene. Now his upper torso bent
forward long and athletic and the mouth of the
heron touched the blue wood floor and his head
submerged under the water and pivoted and saw
in the fading human light a lamp that was the
moon. (215)
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Harris to Patrick: "You must realize you
are like these places, Patrick. You’re as
much of the fabric as the aldermen and the
millionaires. But you're among the dwarfs
of enterprise who never get accepted or
acknowledged. Mongrel company. You're a
lost heir“ (238)
Patrick: “His own life was no longer a
single story but part of a mural, which was
a falling together of accomplices.. (14345)
Theme (1): Love and Violence
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Examples of Violence:
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Alice’s death – mere accident
Ambrose’s attempt at burning Patrick –
manipulative, violence incurred by
possessiveness
Patrick’s attempt at burning up the hotel,
bombing the water plant – “the rich vs. the
poor” cause
Love and Violence
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Love
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associated with violence: Patrick’s blindfolding himself in his
bedroom
obsessive: Patrick after Alice’s death
Gentle observation from a distance:
-- Caravaggio and Patrick
-- Temelcoff and Alice: “There are long courtships which are
performed in absence.” (48); “her absence making him look
everywhere” (50)
-- Caravaggio and Anne
Theme (2): The laborers
empathized and their work aestheticized
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Caravaggio: body porous to every noise
184; escapes in blue 179-80; landscape is
never calm for him 183; a thief's sense of
the world 189
Common aspects:
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physically dexterous, racial minorities
Nicholas -- a tentative man 149; “a spinner.
He links everyone” (34).
Patrick -- alien, in somebody else's landscape
Being Invisible: a social fact & a choice
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Social fact
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Patrick feels invisible at the Union Station (210)
Caravaggio (199) “to all around him”
Choice
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Hazen Lewis --self-sufficient, as invisible as
possible (18).
Patrick
His childhood (91)
 As a dissident, “[h]is body tarred, he is invisible
except by touch” (228)
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Theme (3): Social Network
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Patrick and Caravaggio – mutual support at
prison and the bombing work
Patrick & Hana
Clara and Alice
Theme (3): Social Network & Minor
Characters’ support
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Patrick and Caravaggio – mutual support at
prison and the bombing work
Patrick encounters:
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Elena, a market lady & the Macedonian laborers
Elizabeth, the lady at the Garden of the Blind
A cook
Those that help Caravaggio
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Alfred
Anne
Theme (4): Urban History &
Storytelling
1) Re-Vision of Official History
(Historiographical Metafiction) with
Stories of the laborers such as Temelcoff,
Patrick and Caravaggio
Mixed with dreams, rumors, errors, fictions
about historical figures ---and
Stories the characters (Temelcoff and
Patrick) tell.
Historical References
Right
top: Al Purdy: Alfred
Wellington Purdy, ( 1918 –
2000) [image source ] –help
Patrick
Right
bottom: George Grant
(George Parkin Grant 1918 –
1988) [image source] –met
Clara
Left
Anne Wilkinson ( 1910
– 1961) [image source ] – met
Carravagio
Historical Events
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the film of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina,
T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, and
the assassination of Huey Long
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all occurred in 1935
Do you agree?
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“In the Skin of a Lion works to transform the
consciousness of its readers not only by revising history—
which, it insists, can no longer be told from the totalizing
point of view of the ruling class—but by revolutionizing
representations of labour via the aesthetic. At the same
time, however, its patterns of emancipatory imagery
naturalize and reinforce a racialized vertical mosaic that
compromises its vision of human liberation” (27).
References
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Barbour, Douglas. "Chapter 8: In the Skin of a
Lion." Michael Ondaatje. Douglas Barbour. New
York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Twayne's World
Authors Series 835. Literature Resource Center.
Web. 30 Sept. 2010.
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