The English Patient Knowledge Booklet

Why are we learning this?

You will learn about the Area of Exploration – Intertextuality. This is not a literary or rhetorical device, but rather a fact about literary texts – the fact that they are all intimately interconnected. This applies to all texts: novels, works of philosophy, newspaper articles, films, songs, paintings, etc. To meet the IB’s assessment criteria, you will practice evaluating and interpreting the connections between texts.

Significantly, The English Patient (1992) is considered as a postmodern novel since the text is manipulated to pass on spread identities of different characters through narrative shifts, intertextuality and mini narratives. In other words, The English Patient is a model of intertextuality. For example, Kipling’s Kim, Herodotus’ Gyges and Candaules Scene, The Last of the Mohicans, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Daphne de Maurer’s Rebecca, and Caravaggio’s painting of David and more.