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
Gillian and Ondaatje visit Sir John Kotelawala at his massive estate, explaining that they are Mervyn’s children. Sir John thinks it an odd connection, since he was not close to Mervyn, but with enough prodding cheerfully recounts various episodes about their father, including the bombs on the train and another where he dove off the train into a paddy field. As they talk, Sir John leads them into the garden with a basketful of scones, which Ondaatje assumes to be breakfast. However, Sir John feeds them to his peacocks and deer.
Sir John represents the peak of wealth and luxury in Ceylon, the height of the social circles that Ondaatje’s ancestors engaged with. The image of Sir John feeding scones to his peacocks has an air of surrealism to it, which reflects the disconnected reality that people at his level of wealth and privilege live in, unburdened by worries about money or food as most people in Ceylon are.
Themes
Sir John tells them of another episode where Mervyn held a man hostage on the beach for hours, convinced he is Japanese. They go back to Sir John’s house for a lavish breakfast, and John loses track of Mervyn and begins a rambling story about someone else entirely. He speaks of his political tribulations and opposition efforts to create scandals. All the while, animals wander in and out of the house. A theatre troupe takes photographs on the ornate lawn.
Again, Sir John’s estate holds so much luxury, it sounds almost like a fairytale. Compared with the poor people Ondaatje describes in the poem “High Flowers,” the world that Sir John lives in seems nearly unreal, giving the reader and Ondaatje a small taste of the Ondaatje family’s wealth in generations past.
Themes
