The poem alludes to the history of Ondaatje’s home country, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and provides a romanticized version of the cinnamon peeler. In the poem, the cinnamon peeler relates to desire, with cinnamon representing the speaker’s desire for the woman—his future wife. In reality, being a cinnamon peeler wasn’t so idyllic. For a time, Ceylon, under Dutch rule, had a monopoly on the cinnamon trade. The scholar Dr. Dilhani Dissanayake says that many peelers received cruel treatment, explaining, “They had their ears cut off and were confined in chains and also whipped and branded” (Romensky, Larissa, and Jo Printz. “Brutalised And Forgotten Sri Lankan Cinnamon Peelers Recognised In New Research.” ABC Central Victoria, 24 July 2020). In “The Cinnamon Peeler,” the speaker uses the subjunctive mood—“If I were a cinnamon peeler” (Line 1, emphasis added)—to imagine a hypothetical and less inhumane life as a cinnamon peeler (a job Ondaatje himself never actually held) and a world where the peeler would have the freedom to court a woman and shower her with an all-consuming desire.

The poem also arguably alludes to Ondaatje's personal history. While Ondaatje isn’t necessarily a confessional poet, his poem correlates to his marriage situation, as he wrote the poem while his marriage to Kim Jones was ending and he was about to marry Linda Spalding.