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 reflects that at certain points in life, he feels like “the remnants from earlier generations that were destroyed,” and feels the only thing left for him to do is “write the histories.” He feels the absence of his father is a great loss, but by the time he wished to know his father as an adult, Mervyn was already dead. Ondaatje never got to know what his father thought of “love, passion, duty.” Ondaatje thinks, “I am the son you have made hazardous, who still loves you,” and feels that his own uncertainty about how to parent his children stems from his own lack of father figure.
Although short, this section reveals the heart of Ondaatje’s return to Ceylon and quest to understand his family’s story: he wants to know who his father truly was. This tragically suggests that the greatest pain Mervyn’s alcoholism inflicts on his son is that it took Mervyn out of the world, denying Ondaatje the opportunity to have a real father figure.
Themes
