49 pages • 1 hour read
Michael OndaatjeAnil's Ghost
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 7 Summary: “The Life Wheel”
Anil and Sarath have identified Sailor as a plumbago-graphite miner named Ruwan Kumara. They also determine the dates of his disappearance. Sarath decides to return to Colombo to ensure that they have the best possible evidence to prove that the government is responsible. He will do some research on Sailor’s real name. After five days, however, Anil has not heard from him. She calls Dr. Perera, revealing their discovery and location, but quickly hangs up, fearing she made a mistake.
The next day, officials come to take possession of Sailor’s skeleton and whisk Anil back to Colombo. She presents the facts of her case to a room full of government, military, and other officials but is no longer in control of the evidence itself. Sarath watches this from the rear of the auditorium, interrupting when she begins to make direct accusations toward the government. Sarath asks her questions about the body, including why she believes Sailor’s skeleton was more recent than that of the sixth-century monks found at the same site. He bullies and interrupts her and reminds her that she is working under the auspices of the Sri Lankan government. Sarath then dismisses her, challenging her to date one of the other skeletons from the site. He instructs her to leave her papers and other materials behind. Sarath waits for Anil to emerge from the building, knowing that she will be searched and harassed before her release. When she emerges, he scolds her for not trusting him and engaging in reckless behavior. He tells her she will never get her research back and to return to their lab on the Oronsay. When she starts to argue, he slaps her across the face. She leaves while Sarath stays behind.
When Anil enters the lab, she realizes that Sarath returned Sailor to her. He also left a recording urging her to finish her report that night. A plane will take her out of the country the next morning. Anil remembers a conversation between Sarath and Gamini about how the events in colonial-era books all end when the Western hero leaves.
Gamini looks at the remains of his brother. He wants to set Sarath’s broken leg, as if it will bring him back. As he sits next to the body of his brother, Gamini hears new dead and wounded being brought in after a bomb exploded at a nearby rally, killing President Katugala and many others. It is National Heroes Day.
Part 7 Analysis
The two most powerful forces at work in the novel come together in this penultimate section: Anil and Sarath finally identify Sailor, which has implications for the theme of Rootlessness and Return. Anil’s own sense of identity, while the weight of the past bears heavily on the present. The novel gives great power, not necessarily positive, to the act of naming. After Anil and Sarath discover Sailor’s name, events unfold quickly. With a name, they can trace Sailor’s disappearance and potentially identify the persons responsible for his kidnapping. In this way, identity becomes a direct threat to the government. Ondaatje suggests that discovering Sailor’s identity fortifies Anil’s sense of her own identity. She thinks of herself as “no longer just a foreign authority” (272), suggesting that her Sri Lankan identity returned to her. The quest for truth returns Anil to herself.
Thus, in discovering Sailor’s identity, Anil and Sarath endanger themselves, suggesting that identity undermines The Perversion of Politics because it helps to root people. Reinforcing this connection, Anil further compounds the danger when she places a call to Dr. Perera, who in a functional political environment, would be trustworthy. Here, however, he betrays her to the government, which seeks to cover up what happened to this alleged “rebel sympathizer.” The author illustrates the extent to which Sri Lanka’s politics are perverted in the court scene, when Sarath confronts Anil. Sarath condemns her work—which is really their work—in the open forum of the government hearing. He emphasizes the government’s role in their work, interrupting Anil’s assertion that she writes reports for an “‘independent organization,” to clarify: “To us. To the government here. That means you do work for the government” (274). The fact that he does this, undermining her authority before the government that killed Sailor, in order to save her life shows just how far from functional the Sri Lankan government is. The juxtaposition of Sarath’s death with the bombing at the public rally further highlights the ways in which the war touches everyone’s lives, from presidents to peasants to brothers and husbands. While Sarath does not succeed in exposing the government’s corruption, the president’s death indicates a kind of karmic reckoning. That Sarath dies on National Heroes Day implies that his actions, like that of the bomber, were heroic, if ultimately destructive. They are both martyrs to the bombshells they detonate.
Sarath’s risky attempts to protect Anil and identify Sailor relate to The Presence of the Past theme. His past left him unmoored, rootless, and he looks for some kind of redemption: “Since the death of his wife, Sarath had never found the old road back into the world” (277). The implication is that being haunted by the mistake of the past leads Sarath to hiding from danger, unrooting him. His work to expose the truth with Anil brings him back “to the intricacies of the public world, with its various truths” (279). One such truth is that, whatever happens, the government is aware that its secrecy, brutality, and lawlessness will ultimately be revealed. The other such reality is that, when that truth becomes clear, Sarath will “not be forgiven” for speaking truth to power (279).
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