The Animal Inside Us: A Close Reading of Running in the Family Anonymous 12th Grade

Throughout the novel Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, there are many occurrences of humans, mainly men, displaying their animalistic nature over their human nature that sets them apart from other animals, especially with one of the major themes of the whole novel being the comparison between foreigners and native islanders and the difference between civilization and nature on a broad scale. Thus, through the passage of the Visitor’s Book, Ondaatje uses symbols, hyperboles, and imagery in order to demonstrate the fact that every human, no matter how civilized, has an animalistic nature within them.

As he presents the Visitor's book, Ondaatje employs symbols relating to the visitor’s book in order to demonstrate the fact that there is an animalistic nature within everyone. More specifically, throughout this passage, Ondaatje develops the idea that this whole feud simply represented the evolution of news and media in developed countries, which, in the height of their conflicts, best represented the animalistic nature in people. When the conflict is first introduced, Ondaatje refers to it as his “father wag[ing] war with…a close relative of the eventual Prime Minister of Ceylon” (Ondaatje 151). Not only does he refer to...