Michael Ondaatje’s “Elizabeth” Essay

Michael Ondaatjes Elizabeth portrays the life of the English Queen Elizabeth I. Ondaatje fuses prose and poetry, fact and fiction, realism and surrealism. The effect of this concretion creates a high degree of dramatic realism. It illustrates the progression and transition from puerility to adulthood.The Poem opens with a issue Elizabeth harvesting apples with her father (King Henry VIII) and Uncle mariner (fictional character) preceded by a trip to the zoo. The atmosphere suddenly shifts from going to the zoo, to fruitcake fishing with Philip (King of Spain) on a cold winter day. Abruptly, the atmosphere and period shifts again to describing Marys (Elizabeths stepsister) dentition. Then jumps to a terpsichore scene with Elizabeths confidant, Tom ( ennoble Thomas Seymour), which is followed by the execution of Tom. Finally, the verse nullifys with a rather short description of Elizabeth writing poems with another confidant, the Earl of Essex.The tarradiddle lines and descri ptive passages employed in Elizabeth do not flow logically and coherently from point A to point B. The names do not appear to be in historical and chronological order however, they adapted into a generalized image of the political mayhem, betrayal, and punishments of that time. Elizabeths stepsister blinking(a) Mary Tudor, Marys husband Philip II of Spain, the unfortunate Lord Tom Seymour, and her late favorite, the Earl of Essex, were all executed.Ondaatjes Elizabeth alters from child-voice through adolescent-voice to adult-voice, catching the shadow of each stage of adulthood. Ondaatjes imitation of the tones shows how Elizabeth must, through debilitating maturity and complex situations, sacrifice passion to power, as how a young swayer would have to. For example in stanza three, Philip broke the ice(19) and then he Philip kissed me Elizabeth(22), suggests that warmth is deceitful, and is to be avoided. Furthermore in stanza five, I kept the approve in my palm till it bliste red(34) connotes that love is painful and not time-worthy. final stage is present and apparent in last stanzas as both scourge and momento mori (remembrance for the dead), even to the young mischievous girl who hid the apple in my path/ till it shrunk like a face/growing eyes and teeth ribs(7-9).The symbolic references to apple(2) and glide(12) conjure up the relationship amid Elizabeths life to that of Adams and Eves. The evil, deceptive snake in Adam and Eve convinces Eve to eat the apple, which in the end leads to her downfall. Elizabeths father, King Henry VIII of England, compliments and sides with snake in the zoo, by describing it as Smart(16). This siding of the snake might depict to the readers of the residing evil within him. In stanza three, the image of ice fishing and consume raw, uncooked fish implies a primitive and uncivilized way of living. A primitive life is a dangerous one.The correlation between the snake, the father, and the roughness can lead to a sens e of danger in Elizabeths life. Elizabeth senses the danger and evades it by becoming sly and controlling. This is indicated by the tonal transition in as she slides from thoughts of Tom, soft laughing(28) and turning / with the rhythm of the solarise on warped branches, / whod hold my breast and watch it pass like a snail / leaving his quick urgent love in my palm(30-34), to his beheading, and finally to her later cool(44) flirtations with white young Essex (45). Nevertheless, Elizabeths control of voice captures the readers attention.Elizabeth is one example of Ondaatjes attempts to moderate traditional poetry writing. And he achieves it in the incoherency of events, the un-rhythmic lines and the irregular stanzas.