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 the animals surrounding the house he stays in. Bats fly in through the windows; snakes slither through the doorways. Even in the middle of the night he can hear the sounds of them in the surrounding jungle. One night he makes a recording of all the jungle sounds at night, playing it back to himself months later as he sits in his kitchen in Canada, writing.
Once again, Ondaatje focuses on not only the stories of his home but also the sensory details of his environment, suggesting that such details play a role in shaping his identity alongside the stories. In the same way that he records the sounds and plays them back in his kitchen in Canada, the reader imagines the same sensory experience, transporting them briefly into Ceylon, the world in which he grew up.
Themes
