In the United States, Rebecca Harding Davis’s short story Life in the Iron Mills, published in 1861, revolutionized literature by giving voice to the working class. In North America, the tradition of giving voice to members of the working class can be seen to date back to the second half of the 19th century. However, unlike Ondaatje’s novel, Conrad’s story does not directly give voice to the marginalized population, as its narrator is an English seaman who profits from colonization. Set in Congo during the period of colonization, the novel denounces the way in which an entire population-here, African natives-can be made powerless and subordinate to white colonizers. Conrad’s most famous novel, In the Heart of Darkness, shares some similar themes to In the Skin of a Lion. In the Skin of a Lion also makes direct reference to Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad’s work. In brutal ways, Draper disrupted strikes as well as protests by the unemployed, thus earning support from the business community who did not want its workers to fight for better wages.Ĭharacters from In the Skin of a Lion, such as Hana and Caravaggio, will later become protagonists in Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, set a decade later in Italy during World War II. In Toronto, Police Chief Dennis Draper was responsible for much of the violent repression against immigrants and left-wing political units. Fearing anarchist or communist revolutionary violence, police units known as “Red Squads” began targeting people involved in labor organizations, in particular foreign immigrants who wanted to fight for their rights.

During this period, foreign immigrants often lived in insalubrious conditions and were denied basic workplace rights. In the 1930s, the Great Depression, a worldwide economic recession, left many Canadians unemployed and homeless. After experiencing a steady inflow of British immigrants throughout the 19th century, Canada experienced a second wave of immigration in the early 1900s, characterized by immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, many of whom were from Italy or Portugal.

Ondaatje in the skin of a lion