Michael Ondaatje The Time Around Markings Analysis

With even a passing reading of his poetry, it is quite evident that Michael Ondaatje has a strong fascination with markings and the meanings they entail. From poem to poem, the marks range in how they are presented: sometimes they are sensory and other times they are emotional. In The Time Around Scars, the markings are discussed as if they were physical wounds. Meanwhile, the markings of The Cinnamon Peeler come in the form of scents. In keeping with his style, Ondaatje loads the markings in both poems with significant – and sometimes similar – symbolism. The markings in The Time Around Scars are the scars carried by the speaker’s wife and the scar he gave a girl long ago. While they are presented as physical markings resulting from injuries, …show more content…
This poem carries many sexual undertones which can be easily dissected. Evidently, the scars can be taken to signify the sexual encounters the two women have experienced. Seeing or thinking about the scars on his wife, the speaker is made to reminisce about the scar he left on his ex-lover long ago. He vividly recalls the incident because he was able be the one to give this girl her first scar by taking her virginity. On the other hand, his wife’s virginity had vanished long prior to his arrival. In addition, the blood that “spat onto her shirt” can be interpreted as the blood often thought to result from a girl’s first engagement in sexual intercourse (15). Technē is present in this whole affair in the form of the Italian penknife. It is the tool the speaker utilizes to injure the girl and unmistakably serves as a phallic symbol for the speaker. Furthermore, evidence of this is seen as the speaker ponders on whether the girl hides her scar from her partner or if she brandishes it. In doing this, he is contemplating if she reveals to him that she has lost her virginity or if she proudly divulges that she has sexual experience. Moreover, the speaker gives the audience the notion that the connection he shared with the girl was little else than a sexual relationship. He does so by declaring that he …show more content…
He employs them in nuanced and diverse ways. Expertly, the poet writes them as both physical and figurative; he makes them denote multiple valid things at once. Finding proof of this is no difficult matter when considering either of the poems discussed above both of which revolve around marks. In The Time Around Scars, the marks appear as the scars from which the poem takes its name and symbolize experiences and sex. He crafts the poem in a manner that permits the reader to interpret the marks as either and still be correct. With The Cinnamon Peeler, Ondaatje designates scents as the marks of the poem, and they portray both sexual desire and love. Once again, the author gives his audience sufficient evidence to accept either meaning yet not be in the