In the novel Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, there are many cases of human beings, mainly men, showing their animalistic nature rather than their human which sets them apart from other animals, especially since one of the main themes of the entire novel is the comparison between foreigners and native islanders and the difference between civilization and nature on a large scale. Thus, through the passage of the Visitors' Book, Ondaatje uses symbols, hyperbole and imagery to demonstrate the fact that every human being, no matter how civilized, has an animalistic nature within them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay While presenting the visitors' book, Ondaatje uses symbols related to the visitors' book to demonstrate the fact that there is an animalistic nature in each of us. More specifically, in this passage, Ondaatje develops the idea that this whole feud simply represented the evolution of news and media in developed countries, which, at the height of their conflicts, best represented the animalistic nature of the people. When the conflict is first introduced, Ondaatje refers to it as his “father waging war with… a close relative of the eventual Prime Minister of Ceylon” (Ondaatje 151). Not only does it refer to something so extreme that it means "waging war," but it also makes a key note about Sammy's position and rank in the society of the time. Ondaatje uses that symbol of the two rich, high class men waging war with each other to symbolize the press and how there are constant conflicts between significant people, but more importantly to symbolize the animalistic nature in both Sammy and Mervyn after creating a war for a visitors' book. Furthermore, later in the passage, as the 'war' intensified, "pages kept being torn out, ruining a good archival history of two semi-prominent families of Ceylon" (Ondaatje 152). Their literary war goes so far as to ruin a historic relationship between their two families, yet Ondaatje uses this as a symbol for modern media as well. The fact that this simple conflict was enough to separate two families was only Ondaatje's attempt to symbolize the horrendous effects of an all-out war even on the press and media, which ultimately end up showing the animalistic nature of these two elite men who otherwise seem like completely civilized people. Finally, the fact that “the literary war broke so many codes” was another attempt by Ondaatje to symbolize the animalistic nature of these two men and the conflict they were a part of (Ondaatje 152). The war between them, by this point, had escalated so much that it was considered a violation of even the codes of normal warfare, symbolizing what Ondaatje thought about the nature of humanity in general. Therefore, these symbols were used by Ondaatje to present the fact that humanity always has an animalistic nature within itself which can reveal itself in times like this. Furthermore, Ondaatje uses vivid imagery throughout the Book of Visitors passage to highlight the point that humans are essentially animalistic in nature. During the onset of the conflict highlighted in this passage, the kinds of things Sammy and Mervyn wrote in the visitors' books were truly extreme, starting with "complaining about everything from the service to the poorly made drinks..." all the way to “…a page and a half of vengeful prose, dropping hints of madness and incest” (Ondaatje 151). The images used to describe the conflict and the actions of the two men are so strong that they seem unreal, yet they arecreated specifically by Ondaatje to illustrate the wild nature in which these two men find themselves. So Ondaatje uses that highly expressive and extreme imagery to illustrate how equally extreme these men were becoming due to their inner animalistic. Nature takes over. Later in the piece, as the conflict begins to reach unsustainable levels, Ondaatje describes the situation as meaning that “pages [must] be torn apart by the bools of visitors. In the end one wrote about the other even when the other was not even remotely close to the other” (Ondaatje 152). The vivid language and imagery used by Ondaatje in this excerpt not only underlined the gravity of the situation with the two men, but also the extent to which they had lost their human aspects and had completely followed their animalistic nature and instincts, bringing them to such a situation. dangerous situation. Therefore, Ondaatje not only uses the vivid imagery to present the extent to which these men displayed their animalistic nature in comparison to their human nature, but also to convey how dangerous a situation is created when people resort to their animalistic nature. Ondaatje also uses hyperbole throughout the Visitor's Book passage to establish the fact that all people have a fundamental animalistic nature within them, which, at a basic level, defines how they act. When Ondaatje introduces the conflict that started the feud, he writes that "it was during his road trips that my father made war on one Sammy Dias Bandaranaike" (Ondaatje 151). Despite the fact that the entire conflict was simply an issue between the two men themselves, and led to each writing negative comments about the other, it is spoken of as a war in Ondaatje's perspective and therefore greatly exaggerated for the effect of dramatizing the implications of this conflict. Ondaatje ultimately uses this hyperbole as a method to more meaningfully present the fact that humans, in essence, operate from an animalistic nature. Later in the passage, as the conflict was escalating, "Sammy went first, wrote a half-page annex about my father... My father wrote a page and a half of vengeful prose about the Bandaranaike family" (Ondaatje 151) . Both men begin to escalate the conflict to new highs on a much more personal level, which was completely unjustified based on the origin of the actual conflict. The real effect Ondaatje achieved with that hyperbole, however, was to exemplify the animalistic nature of the decisions and actions made by both Sammy and Mervyn, to highlight that, despite how civilized they were as men, there was no escape from acting based on their animalistic nature and their instinct, which led them to do what they did. Finally, towards the end of the passage, when Ondaatje reflects on the effects of the literary war that occurred, he comments that “the war ended when neither Sammy… nor my father was allowed to write down their impressions of a stay or a meal… dates back to this period the 'constructive criticism'” (Ondaatje 152). The effect of the two men's actions resulted in both of them being effectively silenced to prevent the war from continuing further. Ondaatje uses this hyperbole to comment not only on the fact that men were so animalistic in their actions by their nature, but also that they were so destructive that they had to be completely silenced. What Ondaatje is trying to present at the end of this passage is not only that humans are fundamentally animalistic in nature, but also that the way civilization deals with this problem is to completely silence those aspects.