Running in the Family The Courtship Summary & Analysis

When Ondaatje’s father, Mervyn is a young man, after he finishes school, his parents send him to England to study in university. Mervyn sends word to his parents that he's been accepted into Cambridge University, and for two and a half years they fund his academic career. However, they eventually discover that he was never enrolled at the university at all, but used their tuition money to rent expensive rooms, party, and make a name for himself as a Cambridge socialite. Mervyn was “briefly engaged to a Russian countess.” His parents are furious to discover his lie, and travel to England to confront Mervyn in person.

Ondaatje’s memoir establishes itself as a piece of postmodern literature through its constant switching of perspectives and timelines; he often narrates events that he was not present for as if he were, so as to bring the reader deeper into the story and characters. Mervyn is immediately established as a childish and irresponsible person, enabled by his parents’ wealth and the general frivolity of the 1920s.

Active Themes

Mervyn responds to his parents’ rage as he always does—by silently retreating into himself. He steps out for a couple hours at dinner and returns announcing that he has just gotten engaged to Kaye Roseleap, an English girl from a distinguished upper-class family. This news defuses the anger against him. The family spends the following week with the Roseleaps to make arrangements, where Mervyn is on his best behavior. The Ondaatje family returns to Ceylon to wait the four months until the marriage.

Mervyn’s spontaneous engagement to avoid a fight with his parents suggests that he is prone to rash actions and does not consider the future consequences. Although one fight has been avoided, Mervyn does not seem to recognize that a marriage is potentially permanent, far weightier than his parents’ painful but temporary rage.

Active Themes

Two weeks after returning to Ceylon, Mervyn comes home one evening and announces that he is now engaged to Doris Gratiaen instead. He has no intentions of even informing the Roseleaps. Another fight erupts between Mervyn and his father, and Mervyn falls back on his habit of “trying to solve one problem by creating another.” The next day, he announces that he’s enlisted in the Ceylon Light Infantry.

Again, Mervyn’s decision to end one engagement by creating another, and then try to avoid that fight by enlisting in the military, suggests that he is irresponsible and flippant toward his actions’ consequences, even though those consequences affect others, like his snubbed fiancé.

Active Themes

Mervyn has long been close friends with Noel, Doris’s brother, who has recently been kicked out out of Oxford for setting his room on fire and sinking three rowing boats. Mervyn spends his first two weeks back in Ceylon with Noel, watching Doris and her friend practice dancing. For the engagement, Mervyn buys Doris a massive emerald ring and charges it to his father, Philip’s, account. When Philip refuses to pay for it, Mervyn threatens to shoot himself until his father gives in. Doris briefly and mysteriously breaks off their engagement, and Mervyn again drunkenly decides that he must shoot himself until his uncle Aelian stops him from doing so. The engagement is restored the next day, and Mervyn and Doris marry one year later.

Mervyn’s insistence that his father pay for the ring and his threat of suicide is rash and melodramatic, again depicting Mervyn as irresponsible and childish. However, Noel’s banishment from Oxford over his destructive behavior suggests that such such irresponsibility is not unique to Mervyn, but typical amongst their wealthy social circle. Mervyn’s drunken second threat of suicide demonstrates alcohol’s propensity to eliminate one’s sense of self-preservation, and foreshadows Mervyn’s ongoing alcohol-fueled self-destruction.

Active Themes

Quotes

Running in the Family

Michael Ondaatje

Running in the Family: The Courtship Summary & Analysis