Running in the Family Literary Elements

Biography / Memoir

Set in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s.

Narrator: Michael Ondaatje;
Point of View: First Person

Sarcastic, Nostalgic, Transcendent

Protagonist: Michael Ondaatje; Antagonist: The dysfunctional family particularly the patriarch Mervyn.

Michael Ondaatje returns to his homeland to reconcile past memories of his dysfunctional family. Through the spiritual journey that takes him down memory lane, he uncovers deep-seated issues that hounded their family.

The climax occurs when Ondaatje reflects on his father’s life before his death following years as a dipsomaniac.

Alcoholism is a main motif in the story hence Ondaatje foreshadows the destructive path that his father took by indulging in liquor.

“Sheepishly he invited them in, being able to offer them only champagne at eleven in the morning. This did not impress them as he had hoped”
Mervyn understates the magnitude of his choice to waste school funds on a luxurious lifestyle during the visit.

The author alludes to Henry Matisse the French expressionist painter both directly and indirectly in the novel. The narrative mimics the transcendental nature of Matisse’s paintings by showcasing the sublime layers in the natural forests of Sri Lanka.

“What to us had been a lovely spacious house was now small and dark, fading into the landscape. A Sinhalese family occupied Rock Hill. Only the mangosteen tree, which I practically lived in as a child during its season of fruit, was full and strong. At the back, the kitul tree still leaned against the kitchen—tall, with tiny yellow berries which the polecat used to love.”

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Ondaatje parallels the climate and the natural environment in Canada and that of Southern Asia.

“Above the small roads of Wattala, Kalutara, the toddy tapper walks”

“Cars would leave Colombo and perform the tiring five-hour journey, the radiators steaming as they wound their way up into the mountains.”