Setting is an important part of Michael Ondaatje's novel In the Skin of a Lion, as it symbolically supports the novel's conceptual concerns. This narrative can be understood as an overwhelming contemporary myth in which the setting works in an ironic and moving, humorous and touching way, to reflect and enhance the ideas presented by the text. Throughout the novel, the setting provides an essential backdrop for the development and exploration of Ondaatje's complex ideas and the vast web of interconnectivity that connects each character in the plot. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Canadian setting in its broadest sense is a powerful and important aspect of the novel. The “new world” of North America is a notable aspect of Ondaatje's exploration of migrant stories. “The view was High America, a New World.” The "New World" is the symbol of the American dream, suggesting a future full of hope, an environment that attracts migrants towards its light. Migrants are repeatedly associated with the motif of insects, and moths in particular, demonstrating the power the setting has over them. “Emerging from the darkness, like a moth.” However, as with the attraction of moths to the light, the lure of the “New World” is also a dangerous illusion. Ondaatje uses the setting ironically, contrasting the ideal sought by the newcomers and the sad reality of their lives. "The feet tested the air before each step on this dangerous new country of the stage." The stage setting symbolizes the larger setting, Canadian society in microcosm, as the puppet show illustrates the harsh repression of migrants. This "dangerous" landscape is a much more accurate representation of North America, compared to the illusory but hopeful "view" perceived from afar. Their stories are set in tunnels and slaughterhouses, grim settings that illustrate the flaws of an official story focused on the big 'view'. Ondaatje brings Patrick into this harsher environment, making him a migrant entering a "new world" not only for Patrick Lewis, but also for the reader. “He arrived in the city of Toronto as if he were land after years at sea.” Patrick's characterization highlights the importance of setting and setting perspective, as Ondaatje establishes the migrant's perspective through his main character, and thus explores a story denied by official history. Through the narrative tool of his narrator, Ondaatje illuminates the difficult situation of migrants, themselves "colonized" by the context they enter. “They had jumped in different colors like in different countries.” Ondaatje's image explicitly recalls the setting, the harsh reality of the new world that serves as a constant background to his exposure of the bias of official history. Ondaatje uses setting to challenge conventional notions of demarcation and compartmentalization. Lucretius' quote, "I would now like to emphasize the extreme looseness of the structure of all objects," is of fundamental importance to Ondaatje's novel, reflected in the interactions of each character and the novel's underlying settings. Patrick Lewis is “a researcher looking into the darkness of his own country”, an image of the environment that forms a striking contrast to the 'light' that attracts migrants. Looking beyond this illusory “sight,” Patrick's characterization traces his passage toward the true light, an understanding of the complex web of connections that shape society. This network doeshe reflects on the environments of his life, tracing a progressive disillusionment with the official demarcation. In “that farm where day was work and night was rest,” Patrick's conventional Anglo-Canadian upbringing becomes part of the setting itself, but by inverting this setting, Ondaatje begins his journey through the novel to reject this narrow perspective. “Skating on the river at night… moving like a wedge through the darkness magically revealing the gray bush of the bank, its bank, its river.” The transformation of the setting challenges the compartmentalization of his upbringing, and throughout the novel Ondaatje uses the setting in this way. Caravaggio's meeting with Al illustrates this use of setting. “I just love it here. All the doors are pointed outward, where they shouldn't be – things where they shouldn't be.” As with “the other place, where engines hung from trees”, the inversion of normality adds a lot of charm to the setting. The unconventional settings demonstrate the difficulty in the artificiality of compartmentalization, the anomalies that defy classification. Ondaatje creates these specific settings throughout the novel to demonstrate the need to escape conventional demarcation. The settings in Ondaatje's novel illustrate the fluidity of borders, once again challenging official delineation. The stories of migrants, in particular, take place in contexts that remove borders and certainties. Migrants are repeatedly associated with motifs of fire and the ability to transcend boundaries, “their lanterns replaced by new rushes that allow them to go beyond boundaries.” The fire motif reflects the role of migrants as agents of change in society, as Ondaatje challenges their place in official history as oppressed workers. Instead, he elevates them to the role of heroes in his novel, and their stories take place in settings symbolic of this position. The bridge is a very important setting in the novel, with the second part of the first book entitled "The Bridge". It is an environment that is both beautiful and dangerous, symbolic of the looseness of the structures of even the most solid human constructions. “On winter mornings men fidget nervously in front of the whiteness. Where does the earth end?” The rhetorical question subverts the certainties of official compartmentalization, making the land itself immaterial and uncertain. The bridge setting is used repeatedly to emphasize the untold stories of migrants. The official story “described every detail about the soil, the wood, the weight of the concrete, everything except information about those who actually built the bridge.” In Ondaatje's novel, the workers are as much a part of the setting as the materials from which it is constructed, and the setting is just as important to their stories. Temelcoff “is a spinner. It connects everyone.” In his role on the bridge, Temelcoff creates and moves within the “wonderful nocturnal web” that connects every character and moment in Ondaatje's novel. This metaphorical setting is reflected in the physical settings throughout the novel, from the bridge to the blue-painted prison roof. “They couldn't move without thinking twice where a surface stopped.” As with the bridge, the setting ironically subverts notions of demarcation, as the physical embodiment of society's most deliberate effort at delineation and separation also loses the certainties of physical boundaries. The settings of Patrick's almost mythical journey are of great symbolic importance to the development of his character. The imagery of light and darkness illustrates his journey towards understanding his full role as a narrator, able to observe the metaphorical setting of.