Lalla Gratiaen Character Analysis

Lalla is Ondaatje’s maternal grandmother and Doris’s mother, though they have a strained relationship and never speak. When Lalla’s husband, Willie, dies, Lalla becomes a larger-than-life figure, single-handedly running a dairy farm while maintaining a colorful social life, drinking, partying, and having affairs. In the midst of all this, she raises her children alone, though the narrative suggests that she is a poor and inattentive mother and her children resent her wild eccentricity. Once her children are grown, the dairy farm fails and Lalla is forced to sell everything. She becomes a transient, roaming the countryside, staying with people she knows, and continuing to heavily drink and have affairs into her 60s. She spends much of her time with her bachelor brother Vere. When Lalla feels that her end is near, she goes with Vere into the hills and spends several days drinking. In the middle of the night, she drunkenly rises, walks out the door, and steps into a flash flood which carries her down the hillside into the ocean and drowns her. Although Lalla and Mervyn have different dispositions, their mischievous antics and heavy drinking make them parallel characters to each other, especially since they both die alcohol-induced deaths.