Past Made the Present Worse

The novels The Chosen Place, The Timeless People by Paule Marshal and Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje are some of the works that’s reflects the past experiences to analyze the present situation. In The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, Marshal narrates the story of the people in a fictional Caribbean island where some foreigners have arrived to conduct some breakthrough research. The inhabitants of Bornehills are poor descendants of the slaves who used to work in vast white owned plantations. The characters in the novel reflect on their pasts as they go about their day to day lives. Ondaatje recounts his past experiences in the book Running in the Family. Together with numerous characters introduced in the course of the novel, Marshal writes about how the status quo in Bornehills is not what was being anticipated by the people who fought for the Islands independence.

The characters argue that the past oppression of their predecessors have majorly contributed to their current suffering. It is apparent that the residents of Bournehill will only prosper if the residents come into terms with the realities of the island (Spillers 5). The most significant reality is that the Island has never known any success since the days of slavery and colonization. The residents need to embrace their past in order to forge a successful future. Harriet’s personality in the novel suggests that it is important to reflect the memory of oppression in order to change things around. From this perspective, it is evident that the high expectations that people had during the struggle for independence have all been watered down due the failure of the people to reconcile their past.

In Michael Ondaatje’s Running in The Family, the author returns to his ancestral home in Sri Lanka in order to find out about the history of his family. Since he left home at a tender and went to Britain and later to Canada, he feels that he is not living the life he anticipated in the past due to some gaps in his life. The gaps are occasioned by the lack of being ignorant of some critical family history (Matthews 352). How the Present Worsen the Situation of the Past It is evident that both the past and present are all problematic from both novels. In some instances, the present seems worse than the past. In Chosen Places, Timeless People, the characters are living in poverty despite having enough resources that can adequately serve the populations (Spillers 10).

The residents of Bournehill are united and motivated by folklore narrating how one man called Cuffe Ned successfully led a rebellion in the island. The rebellion led to the overthrowing of the oppressive Percy Bryam regime. A woman tries to convince Harriet to march in a parade dominated by the natives arguing that, “She is one of us” (Marshall). Harries disagrees with her the women claiming that she can’t match in the parade since she is not one of them. Harriet understands that although she is living amongst them, she can’t claim that she is a native. She reflects on her past that reminds her of where she is coming from and where she should be aiming at. However, the ethnic characters do not understand the role of historical reflections.