, courage and loyalty enable Lewis’ character to spiritually survive all the assaults of wartime. The absence of these characteristics cause Ondaatje’s characters to flounder. Faith, courage and loyalty provide a necessary framework for moral thought and action, enabling the soul to survive even under the adverse conditions presented by war.
             C.S. Lewis deals extensively with the dangers that war poses to the human psyche. In his wartime work entitled The Screwtape Letters, he presents an essentially hopeful view concerning the ability of the soul to survive the assaults of war. He proposes that having the right perspective is the key to the soul’s survival. Lewis deals with a wide variety of temptations that serve to undermine the integrity of man in his journey through life. All of these temptations assert their power to some degree in peacetime. Yet, their power is often strengthened by the pressures of war.
             In The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje presents an entirely different perspective concerning the effects of war on the human psyche. Although he never spells it out, Ondaatje seems to take a fairly deterministic view. The fate of his characters often seems to lie beyond their control. It is almost as if his characters have been struck by a giant tidal wave and are helpless to resist as they are carried away. The reader seldom gets the impression that Ondaatje’s characters have alternatives other than to think and act the way they do. They are presented as victims of circumstances who warrant our compassion but not our judgment. Each leaves the war deeply scarred in the spiritual sense.
             In the work of C.S. Lewis, faithfulness to God is the factor that ensures the soul’s survival. Lewis describes the danger of being overwhelmed by “the stream of immediate sense experiences” (Lewis pg.12). A man’s tendency to focus on the immediate and the personal at the expense o...