Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Running in the Family, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, History, and Story
Alcoholism
Ancestry, Homeland, and Identity
Irresponsibility in the 1920s
Colonialism
Summary
Analysis
Ondaatje describes how his aunts “knit the story together, each memory a wild thread in the sarong.” He visits Aunt Dolly, who, along with her husband, was one of Mervyn’s closest friends all his life. Dolly is tiny, half-deaf, and half-blind, but her mind is sharp, and she is excited to see Ondaatje again. She tells him about the past and he feels the whole journey was worth it just for this meeting.
The image of the past being knitted together by various threads of memory suggests that the past is preserved through the collective memories of a family or people. Although one story on its own may be unreliable, many memories knitted together form a more complete picture, like a strong fabric composed of many threads.
Themes
Before Ondaatje leaves, Aunt Dolly shows him a photograph of her and her friends at a “fancy dress party.” Though she can no longer see it clearly, she’s stared at the photograph for so long she has it memorized, knows each person’s exact location and everything that happened in their lives. Ondaatje reflects that “memory invades the present in those who are old” and finds this moment “as intimate as anything I have witnessed.”
