Michael Ondaatje's Running In The Family

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Literary Essay The things we learn, we use in our lives, to help us. To celebrate, to avoid, to survive, to do anything with it, and with the family around doing the same thing yo can call it a culture. But of course,“When you learn something from people, or from culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build it.”(Yo-Yo Ma) and you share it again, and again until it becomes your culture. In the short story, “ Running in the Family” by Michael Ondaatje, Michael has written his own perspective and his life, that is different from others people’s life living in the big city, or in a dessert. He has expressed many things into his short story that have more of deeper meaning…show more content…
Symbols are used during this story to tell a much deeper meaning of the story. As the beginning of the story the family tries to pack up their stuff, but “where is the torch.”(Ondaatje 1) The torch is the symbol for light, happiness, and keeping away the fear, as the family has their last night in there house, the torch will comfort the man (Michael) and to bring memories to the from the old house to the new one. But the “red eye of the leopard” (Ondaatje 1) has everyone thinking that the place that they live in was more than a jungle, it was a killing ground for the strongest animals alive, and by seeing that the leopard is killing the deer, they quickly notice that moving out was the best choice. But symbols aren't the only one that are the kings of the…show more content…
As the family spends their last night, they tell themselves some ghost stories, but soon came the bear. The, “bear come regularly each night, climbs the stairs as if exhausted, and sleeps on whatever free beds available.” (Ondaatje 2) giving human expression to a bear is personification, and making him tired and goes to bed just seems like what a human does. But like any human, we all like the heat sometimes, as for them, they do too. As everyone in the family tells themselves some ghost stories they felt, “secure in the jungle heat”(Ondaatje 2). This is an Imagry,but going into more specific things, its a tactile image, where it involves in touching. This means the jungle heat is being felt while we read this story, we felt warm, at least just a little bit, and that made it a tactile image. There are plenty of similes and metaphors, but some literary terms has more meaning than
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