Water
The chapter "Monsoon Notebook (i)" is enriched with water imagery including “wet sand,” the “curl of a wave,” the “rainstorms that flood,” the “sweat falls [that] in the path," the “steam after the rains,” the “gleaming with underwater phosphorus,” and the “thunderstorm we walked through” that left them “thoroughly soaked.” This imagery is by all accounts used to accentuate the exotic influence of the rain in Ceylon and consequently its distinction to the rain in Canada.
Sensory Images
In "Monsoon Notebook" there is likewise a progression of rich sensory images, for example, the "eighteen different ways of describing the smell of a durian" and thus Ondaatje chooses to "smell things for the whole day, it was so rich I had to select senses" which once again strengthens the fascinating power of Sri Lanka.
All through "Tabula Asiae" Sri Lanka is related with luxuriously fantastical imagery. For instance it is portrayed on the map as having a “blue-combed ocean busy with dolphin and sea-horse, cherub and compass” or “naive mountains, drawings of cassowary and boar who leap without perspective across imagined ‘desertum’ and plain.” The mythical imagery “slipper footed elephants,” the “white queen,” and the “Moorish king” portrays Ceylon as some sort of colorful heaven.
Keeping in mind that there are elements of truth in this they are likewise mixed up with “rumors of topography” and “routes for invasion and trade” which proposes the exploitative expectations of the Western map creators. For example, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English colonized the island. Ondaatje may likewise be mocking the shallow and exaggerated stereotypical ideas of the colonizers. Ceylon is also habitually connected with female imagery. It is delineated as being "a pendant off the ear of India" and “wife of many marriages, courted by invaders who stepped ashore and claimed everything with the power of their sword of bible or language” which proposes a compliant and inferior role in its relationship with these foreign powers.
Animals
Animal imagery is repeated all through the memoir where animals are regularly used to reveal elements of Lalla's character. In the initial segment, Lalla is contrasted with her neighbor's boisterous chickens: “Lalla and the chickens would wake him before dawn every morning” (114), which recommends her energetic vociferousness. She is then compared with a rooster as she “swept into the school at noon... fluttering down the halls in her long black clothes loose at the edges like a rooster dragging its tail” (117), which brings out a sense of her loud and superb chaos. She is likewise depicted as adoring the company “cows, adults, babies, dogs” (119), where the joining of the two people and animals strengthens Lalla's kind and giving spirit as well as the feeling of capriciousness and uniqueness that encompasses her as she holds cows on a similar dimension as grown-ups.
Romanticization of life in Ceylon is likewise depicted through animal imagery in Wilpattu, where Ondaatje portrays how “A val oora – a large filthy black wild boar has appeared majestically out of the trees” (141). As this beast moves nearer to Ondaatje and his family, the author comments that “[the beast] can take his pick, any one of us” (142), and in doing as such romanticization is viewed through the casual approach taken towards death. Since the boar shows an outright danger to the lives of these people, their imprudence suggests that Ondaatje has achieved a dimension of satisfaction where he trusts that perishing now would be no incredible misfortune. This free enterprise attitude of mind to life and demise appears to be both relaxed and unreal in the meantime further adding to the almost magical image painted of life in Ceylon.
Romance
Ondaatje writes essentially in this chapter about his love for the harbour and relates it to songs, for example, when he says, “For years I loved the song, 'Harbour lights,'” (133). The title of the song is wealthy in vivid and romantic imagery, and accordingly it romanticizes the possibility of the harbour and Ondaatje's memories of it. This romantic idea is enlivened in a progressively youthful sense when Ondaatje says, “later in my teens danced disgracefully with girls, humming 'Sea of Heartbreak'” (133). Here he amusingly relates a song about heartbreak with the thought of temporary teenage connections and seething hormones. It could be contended that the romantic nature of the song is stripped through the picture in the reader’s mind of lustful young people. Also, as this idea so firmly differentiates the one preceding it, Ondaatje could be writing to give a thought of the adaptability of the harbour he cherishes so beyond a reasonable doubt, or he could be stating that he has conflicting emotions and recollections of every kind about his time in Ceylon.
This adds to the next interpretation of this section, which is that it is written to feature Ondaatje's quest for individual identity. The last singing citation of the section emphasizes this “I sing 'the lights in the harbour don’t shine for me…' but I love it here” (133-4). In this Ondaatje attempts to clarify that the metaphorical lights in the harbour have not shined for him, he implies that he does not have a place with Ceylon any longer, yet despite everything he cherishes his nation of origin. From this, it is known that this novel is Ondaatje's journey for personal identity.
