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
A poem speaks of “the woman my ancestors ignored,” a lower class woman and her husband making their living chopping coconuts and cleaning rice. A man taps trees to collect toddy to sell to the taverns.
Ondaatje’s inclusion of a poem about poor people suggests that he recognizes his own family’s privileged vanity as part of Ceylon’s high society.
Themes
