the River, there is a tension between History and "her/his-stories" in Ondaatje's novel.However instead of employing historical contexts to create the tension, Ondaatje makes subtle but explicit comments onhistorical oblivion to individuals and their stories. History is implicitly considered as a master narrative that allows no space toarticulate local narratives and to account for the richness, variety and complexity of human experience. To counterbalance theomissions and partiality of the historical master narrative, the alternative Ondaatje proposes is to privilege and celebrate aplurality of private and local narratives that give voice to the forgotten of History. Caravaggio, for example, is sadly aware of hisbeing left out of the History of the city he has helped to build. Like Nicholas Temelcoff, he is painfully conscious of hisanonymity and marginality: "He was anonymous.[...] He would never leave his name where his skill had been. He was one ofthose who have a fury or a sadness of only being described by someone else" (199). His story has never been legitimised.When Nicholas Temelcoff realises "how he has been sewn into history. [He decides] he will begin to tell stories" (149) toappropriate his own life. As the title of the novel indicates, to take responsibility for one's own story and for its narration is away of legitimising and appropriating one's life in order to compensate for historical omissions. Alice's explanation of themeaning of the title emphasises the importance of telling personal stories: "Each person had their moment when they assumedthe skins of wild animals, when they took responsibility for the story" (157). History, in this novel, is associated with anonymity and passivity; on the other hand, personal narratives as well as the act oftelling them entail a creative, fluid, restorative and life-enhancing process. History does not reflect the process of itsconstruction, the final product is what counts; to refl...
