Throughout Ondaatje's novel, Anil's ghost, there are a multitude of allusions to an underlying theme of the struggle between the spiritual world and the physical world. Ondaatje does a fantastic job of integrating these two worldviews into the reader's singular perspective; it seems that the aim of the text is not to show the differences between spirituality and the physical world, but rather to effectively show how physical events are perpetuated by spiritual concepts. That said, despite the seemingly simple meshing of the two themes, it is clear that within the confines of the text, spirituality plays a profound role in how the story unfolds and fulfills the task of explaining why certain events occur. happen.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Ananda's character development and the ritual painting he performs as part of his craft depict a massive amount of connections between spiritual and physical life. Ritual painting is a concept first introduced in the novel in the chapter entitled The Grove of Aesthetics. From its introduction, it is clear that the event in question is a very popular act. Throughout the novel and its ending, ritual painting plays a profound role in the development of the story. The process was first explained to us by Palipana, when he recommended that Sarath and Anil seek out a ritual painter. Palipana describes the ritual painting process as follows: “Coomaraswamy points out that before the eyes are painted, there is just a piece of metal or stone. But after this act, “he is now a God”. (91). The surrounding passages serve a similar purpose, the main idea being that without its eyes the statue has no life. Ananda's job, as a professional artificer, is to give inanimate objects the gift of life, an event that is implied several times in the novel. We see an important event with spiritual implications occur when Ananda finishes the clay casting around Sailor's skull; instead of a portrait of a sailor, the skull ends up becoming a portrait of Sarissa, Ananda's deceased wife. In reference to Sarath, Ondaatje writes: “He already knew like her that no one would recognize his face. It was not a recreation of the sailor's face they were looking at" (179). This scene itself is also perfectly constructed; before the unveiling of the skull, we see Ananda caressing the statue in front of Anil. While Anil writes That (as she is able to sympathize with Ananda's apparent desire to see the statue as human), one can see by glancing at this excerpt that Ananda has long seen a part of Sarissa in Sailor Us. let's see more of the spiritual events surrounding Sarissa in an italicized section in the chapter The flashback we see of his wife also plays on the theme of a connected spiritual context, as can be seen in the following excerpt: “She. don't even think about freeing them from this public gesture I can't touch anything because everything seems alive, hurt and raw but alive She begins to run forward, before their eyes, hers closed in the darkness until. which she passes them up the hill towards the school. She keeps running, then she sees more.” (166) Of course, the detached heads themselves are not alive. Sarissa instead states that the heads seem to contain a living essence. This idea itself is an allusion to the presence of the students' spiritual essence in their severed heads. Sarissa closes her eyes as she passes by them because she senses their presence. Of course, it's a very..