History

Why is history important? What is this theme all about?
(sub-topics - symbols of history, documentation of history, history as rumour, truth and the quest for truth, family, storytelling, the slipperiness of history, bias, etc.)

Michael Ondaatje's __Running In The Family__ is a collection of stories that Ondaatje hears about his family members and family history told from the perspective of his family members. History is a consistent theme through out his novel however the reader sees how the stories differ from person to person, as details and events are changed or forgotten as the story is passed down. History is continuous and everlasting as long as it is passed down from generation to generation. It is very important to know your own history as well as others because we learn and grow from the events of time captured in stories, books and other forms. Because of this history can then be bestowed to the next generation. Our history defines us, it is who we are as a group and as an individual. History teaches us by keeping us from repeating past mistakes and brings forth a brighter future. It holds a mirror to society that reflects mankind’s greatest achievement; our ability to change for the better. We cannot change the events of history we do not agree with nor the mistakes of the past but we can make amends for it in the present, and that is why history is so important because it is the only thing that can prompt us to change when we need to.

**__Quotations and Analysis__**
Ondaatje realises that his memories have been frozen in time for the past twenty five years. All of a sudden he wants so badly to return to Sri Lanka, to see his relatives in the flesh, and to write their history.
 * "But it was only in the midst of this party, among my closest friends, that I realised I would be travelling back to the family I had grown from - those relations from my parents' generation who stood in my memory like frozen opera. I wanted to touch them into words." (Ondaatje 16)**


 * “The Minotaur who inhabits the place one had been many years ago, who surprises one with conversation about the original circle of love… When someone else speaks, her eyes glance to the ceiling of the room, as if noticing the architecture for the first time, as if looking for the cue cards of her next story” (Ondaatje 25)**


 * “No story is ever told just once. Whether a memory or funny hideous scandal, we will return to it an hour later and retell the story with additions and this time a few judgments thrown in” (Ondaatje 26)**

These quotes are significant to the theme of history because when he returns to Sri Lanka, it is in an attempt to learn more about his family history. When he arrives the only things he can learn are told to him through stories. Stories can be an extremely unreliable source of history because when history is written down, it is permanent, however, when a story is passed down form generation to generation, details become obstructed and stories change.


 * "The house was built around 1700 and is the prize building in this northern region of Ceylon." (Ondaatje 24)**

During the 1700's, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) had several colonial powers in its land. With all them claiming the land as their own. As the outside powers stayed in Ceylon, houses were built in order to house the people in charge of the land. Although the exact date isn't known, it is safe to assume that the house would have been built by the Dutch.


 * "The headlines in the local papers said, "Lindbergh's Baby Found -- A Corpse!"" (Ondaatje 37)**

Charles A Lindbergh was the first pilot to travel the Atlantic Ocean in a solo flight. He became a famous pilot in the U.S.A. In 1933, Lindebergh's had a 20-month-old child with his wife, they discovered the child gone with a ransom note. Due to the high profile of the victims, the unusual circumstances surrounding the crime, the poor detective work and a bizarre hoax some weeks before, the kidnapping has passed into the realm of American myths alongside Elvis and UFO sightings.


 * "His quiet life in Kagelle was interrupted by, however, when Doris Gratiaen wrote to break off the engagement. There were no phones, so it meant a drive to Colombo to discover what was wrong"(Ondaatje 35).**

This quote exemplifies a world without technological advances which brought an easy and reliable way of comuniction, i.e., the invention of the telephone. The first telephone was invented in the 1870's by Alexander Graham Bell which puts Michael Ondaatje’s story into perspective by noting the time line of when this event occured. We could only imagine how hard it would be to communicate important messages to one another during this time especially if it was a message that needed immediate attention or action. But now technology has soared to new heights where people can communicate with each other instantly through the internet or phone.


 * “The Wall Street crash had a terrible effect of us. Many of the horses had to be taken over by the military” (Ondaatje 48).**

The 1920’s were a prosperous time for all. The economy boomed after the First World War stimulated by a period of reconstruction. Economic value of shares on the US stock market rapidly climbed and peaked at the end of August. Throughout September and early October shares began to decline in value but people were still buying and selling stocks unknowing the repercussions. On October 18 the stock market dropped immensely and on October 24, known as “black Thursday” was the first day of real panic for a record number of over 12 million shares were traded. Then came October 29 where an astonishing 16 million shares were sold and the prices on the stock market collapsed completely. The Wall Street crash triggered the great depression leaving a multitude of people unemployed and the U.S., along with many countries in the world, in a state of emergency. The Wall Street Crash thus became a major upset in history.


 * "Truth disappears with history and gossip tells us in the end nothing of personal relationships" (Ondaatje 53).**

This quote highlights the aspect of time; the events of history that is diluted by storytelling. The fact, told many times, changes because every time it is told, it is told a different way. Some stories of history are untold and forgotten while some are told and exaggerated leaving the listener to uncover their own truth through a cloud of words. This revisitation of history told by another is in essence unreliable because somewhere along the line truth is lost, but this information is neither useless or worthless for gossip is often derived from truth.


 * Don’t talk to me about Matisse . . . **
 * the European style of 1900, the tradition of the studio **
 * where the nude woman reclines forever **
 * on a sheet of blood **
 * Talk to me instead of the culture generally – **
 * how the murderers were sustained **
 * by the beauty robbed of savages: to our remote **
 * villages the painters came, and our white-washed **
 * mud-huts were splattered with gunfire. (Ondaatje 85) **

This qoute is from a poem that is included at the end of the chapter. It's relevance towards history is clear. He is talking about different time periods and how things have changed. He doesn't want to hear about the art but instead about how things actually happened in history. How people were murdered and how the beauty of the past was robbed by people that had nothing better to do but kill. - Tupac (Mitch)


 * "She has looked at it for years and has in this way memorized everyone’s place in the picture. She reels off names and laughs at the facial expressions she can no longer see. It moved tangible, palpable, into her brain, the way memory invades the present in those who are old, the way gardens invade houses here..." (Ondaatje 112).**

This quote analyses history and memory as blending together as one forming a ‘tangible,’‘palpable’ truth into the past. Dolly, Michael Ondaatje’s aunt whom he is describing, is a fragile old woman who has lost some of her hearing and sight. As she loses sight and sound of reality her memory becomes as clear in sound and as vivid in picture as if she were living that moment in the present. It is interesting how Ondaatje compares one’s invasion of memory upon old age to the invasion of gardens on a house over time. We learn earlier that ‘there is very little...that separates the house from the garden’ which not only gives the reader a vivid imagery of invasion but how the underlying truth can invade the present and nothing can be hidden forever in the past.


 * “In various family journals there are references made to time spent ‘up-country’”. (Ondaatje 39)**

When Ondaatje first returned to Sri Lankahe had no concrete evidence of his family history, only what he learned through stories, which change immensely over time. Now however, he has acquired documented evidence of his family history and finally has some concrete evidence to search out more of his families’ history.


 * "Everything is there, of course. Their good looks behind the tortured faces, their mutual humour, and the fact that both of them are hams of a very superior sort. The evidence I wanted that they were absolutely perfect for each other." (Ondaatje 162).**

This quote is significant because all this description about Michael Ondaatje’s parents were from a picture. A picture he held dear for this was the only picture of his parents alone together. He treasured it and in it he saw into the past, details of how his parents were and how much they meant to eachother.


 * "During certain hours, at certain years in our lives, we see ourselves as remnants from the earlier generations that were destroyed. So our job becomes to keep pace with enemy camps, eliminate the chaos at the end of Jacobean tragedies, and with 'the mercy of distance' write the histories." (Ondaatje 179).**


 * "To kneel on the floors of a church built in 1650 and see your name chiseled in large letters" (Ondaatje 65).**

As a result of foreigners colonizing several parts of the world, no matter what ethnicity they each brought over their religious beliefs and teachings. During the 16th century, Christianity predominately was one of the largest organizations at the time and ruled with an iron fist. It was not uncommon to see a Catholic church in a far away foreign land, in fact it was almost expected.


 * "One frail memory dragged up out of the past - going to the harbour to say goodbye to a sister or mother, dusk." (Ondaatje 133)**


 * "It seems most of my relatives at some time were attracted to somebody they shouldn't have been. Love affairs rainbowed over marrages and lasted forever - so it often seemed that marriage was the greater infidelity." (Ondaatje 53)**


 * "There are stories of elopements, unrequited love, family feuds, and exhausting vendettas, which everyone was drawn into, had to be involved with. But nothing is said of the closeness between to people: how they grew into the shade of each other's presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character - the way a person recognized in himself the smile of a lover." (Ondaatje 53,54)**

What was considered to be socially and morally correct changes over time as new generations are born; in Ondaatje's generation it is strange for someone to be attracted to or married to their relative but this wasn't the way that the generations before him viewed it. Ondaatje also comments on how intamacy between two people wasn't really a thing back then and that everyone was just eloping with eachother for the thrill of it.


 * "The memory of his friends was with him in the sun, He poured them out of the bottles into his glas tankard and drank. He remembered Harold Tooby from his schooldays and his years at Cambridge where the code was "you can always get away with more than you think you can get away with..." (Ondaatje 186).**

I've noticed throughout this novel that Michael looks back on his life and his friends and becomes depressed. He seems to try and drink the memories away, maybe because his friends have been more successful in life so far, and he feels like a failure.


 * “In the bathroom ants had attacked the novel thrown on the floor by commode. A whole battalion was carrying one page away from its source, carrying the intimate print as if rolling a tablet away from him.” (Ondaatje 189)**

This quote creates and image so over the top that it forces the reader to think of the deeper meaning that may be hiding behind it. When it comes to the theme of history, the book itself can be view as history. If history is not well kept and very well documented then over time that history will be lost. Much like the book pages being ripped out the same could happen with history. If Michael Ondaatje learned most of his family history through stories, not only would he have to be skeptical about the truth in those stories, but also in time, the people who told him those stories will die and the history will be lost. If we want our history to last forever we can not expect that to happen merely by story telling but also buy written documentation and hard proof. However, if that proof is not taken care of, then it too will be lost, just like the pages in this book from the quote.


 * "A 1930 car splayed flat on its axels and hundreds of flowering bushes." (Ondaatje 112)**

During the 1930s, cars had already become a luxury item wanted by many of that era. The imagery of it being on its axels, means that it has been there for years and it is no longer used.


 * "The bats suddenly drifting like dark squadrons through the house-- for never more than two minutes--arcing into the halls over the uncleared dining room table and out along the verandah where the parents would be sitting trying to capture cricket scores on the BBC shortwave radio." (Ondaatje 135)**

Cricket has been a popular sport in India and Sri Lanka as a result of England bringing the sport into the unfamiliar lands. It exploded as a result and is now often played by all individuals.


 * "Words such as //love, passion, duty,// are so continually used they grow to have no meaning--except as coins or weapons." (Ondaatje 179)**

To me this sounds as though there was no real love felt by the kids from his father. It is understandable, since most men of that era were raised not to show any emotion, which in turn transforms them as stone hear-ted machines.


 * "He drove along Galle Face Green where the Japanese had eventually attacked, by plane, and disappeared into the Fort whose streets were dark and empty." (Ondaatje 186)**

During World War 2, the Japanese had attacked several surrounding nations in order to expand their empire. This quote is used as a past tense meaning it had happened awhile ago, yet people still clearly remember it.


 * "The Americans were able to put a man on the moon because they knew English. The Sinhalese and Tamils whose know of English was poor, thought that the earth was flat." Douglas Amarasekera, //Ceylon Sunday Times 29.1.78//**

This is saying that people how are powerful/ well educated will be able to make history and be known by all and if you are not than you will be isolated for the world and not be able to change history even if you are able to.


 * "Half a page - and the morning is already ancient." (Ondaatje 17)**

This shows how history can be created so quick and fast.


 * "Asia. The name was a gasp from a drying mouth. An ancient word that had to be whispered, would never be used as a battle cry." (Ondaatje 22)**

This tells us how much history can change because Asia was once a powerful place but now they feel that you have to whisper the name they feel it has changed into a less powerful area.


 * "The morning has been spent with my sister and my Aunt Phyllis trying to trace the maze of relationships in our ancestry." (Ondaatje 25)**

This shows us that he is trying to find out more about the history of his life because he feels like his past history is like a mystery.


 * "Two days later his parents got a telegram from Trincomalee, miles away in the north end of the island, to say he had the fish and would be back soon." (Ondaatje 35)**

This shows how in past history the life style was a lot different to get necessary food they had to walk for days just to get it and also to communicate with the people around him they had to use equipment that a lot of us never even heard of because of how old it is.


 * "On my brother's wall in Toronto are the false maps. Old portraits of Ceylon. The result of sightings, glances from trading vessels, the theories of sextant." (Ondaatje 63)**

This shows us that history can change over talk because his brother had out dated maps of Ceylon meaning that the region had changed in a way changing the life styles of people.


 * "The building has stood here for over three hundred years, in the palm of monsoons, through seasonal droughts and invasions from other countries. Its grounds were once beautiful." (Ondaatje 67-68)**

This shows us the reader that even piece of land tells it own past history. This build has stood here for hundreds of years and tells the history of everything that has happened to it (all the wars, droughts, monsoons) the building is a land marker for history.


 * "I drew a line around Doris in the sand. A circle. And threatened her, 'don't you dare step out of that circle or I'll thrash you.'" (Ondaatje 107)**

This this shows us how the history of actions has changed because now a days if someone were to even think about laying there hand on a girl they would be put in jail but back than he drew a circle on the ground and told Doris to stand in it and not to move or she would get beat.


 * "I was in my twenties, Hilden chimes in. Your mother was nine." (Ondaatje 107)**

This shows us that how the out look on women's history have changed. Before they were treated like they were just an object but now they have there own opinion and can do everything that a man can do and probably do better than the man does it.


 * "What images of family life they consumed in their minute jaws and took into their bodies no thicker than the pages they ate." (Ondaatje 136)**

This shows us that the animals were not just eating pictures they were eating the history of the family's life.


 * "I have been thinking that if she has Ondaatje blood and no Gratiaen blood then obviously it is from my mother's side that we got a sense of the dramatic, the tall stories, the determination to now and then hold the floor." (Ondaatje 168)**

This shows us how the history of one past can be pasted down from one person to another. One person's action affects the whole history of someones life.