Ethnic tensions are established early in the novel as Yasodhara introduces herself immediately following images of a “rifle-toting tiger” and a “sword-gripping lion” (7). The author does not attempt to blame one side—Tamil or Sinhala—over the other but instead reveals the complicated and cyclical nature of unresolved resentment and conflict. These cycles are played out at both the domestic and the national level, demonstrating the deeply rooted nature of the cycle and the extent of its repetition through family lines.

Early in Yasodhara’s family history, Beatrice Muriel reinforces stereotypes associated with race and class. Immediately upon Mala’s birth, Beatrice Muriel laments Mala’s gender and skin color, fearing it will be difficult to ever get her married. Beatrice Muriel’s history is not explored in depth, but her strong-rooted beliefs in racial superiority and class division are clear, as is the shame she carries over marrying a fishing village doctor with only the name of a prince. On the other side of her family, Sylvia Sunethra maintains aspects of high colonial culture in her household and similarly ashamed of her husband’s humble roots. In the next generation Visaka is cruel to Nishan in ways her daughters do not understand, maintaining a grudge against her husband for aspects of his heritage that she looks down upon and repeating the cycle of class-based frustrations within the domestic sphere.