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 records the sensory details of his day without narrating the actual events. He makes notes of being at the beach, reading old newspaper clippings, driving through the city, watching people butcher an animal, seeing old girlfriends now with their own families, dining with friends, a thunderstorm and monsoon, a spider crawling across his toilet. “I witnessed everything,” he states. Ondaatje spends the whole next day simply smelling things, focusing on this individual sense.
Like the long list of newspaper headlines, Ondaatje presents his experiences as a stream of consciousness without context or explanation. The passing images give the reader an overall sense of his environment. The statement, “I witnessed everything,” suggests that witnessing the world, forming memories, and remembering sensations are the primary ways to preserve a moment through time.
Themes
