A Family Supper - analysis PDF

Preview

Summary

Analysis of the short story A family suppper....

Description

A Family Supper Kazuo Ishiguro

A. Narrative techniques

 1st Person sg.  The narrator is the main character: autodiegetic  Focalized internal narrative: story is told through the eyes of the main character and the narrator’s knowledge is the same as the character’s knowledge  Non-detached (judgmental) Ex: “Regrettably, ...” (434) “…hideously painful...” (434)  The mode of presentation is mimetic  Type of discourse: mainly indirect discourse, but also direct discourse  The narrative chronology is mostly linear with proleptic passages (the beginning of the story when he talks about his mother’s death, slight prolepsis here and there when talking about his past with his sister) and there is foreshadowing using symbols and images.  Characters are static (there is no transformation) and flat (relatively uncomplicated)

B. Themes  Rebellion is an escape from societal conventions and family expectations.  Death is an escape from loneliness and life’s difficulties.

C. Stylistic Devices  Tone: Dark, gloomy, lonely when: -describing the rooms in the house (“…startlingly empty”, “…the lights did not come on”, “stark walls and tatami in pale light” (439)) -talking about the ghost in the garden (“The light in the garden had grown very dim.” (438)) -they sat down to eat (“The only source of light was a big lantern that hung over the table, casting the rest of the room into shadow” (440)) -on the last page, the words silence and darkness are repeated a lot (“…we sat in silence”, “We fell silent again”, “I looked out into the darkness”, “…into the darkness”, “We fell silent once more…” (442))  Dramatic (maybe tragic) Irony: The story begins with a flashback of his mother dying from eating a certain fish and at the end of the story they eat fish for supper.

 Figures of speech: o Simile: “…like an old woman” (435) o Personification: “The sun had sunk low and much of the garden had fallen into shadow” (435), “The light in the garden had grown very dim”

 Images: o “… the end of a sunny autumn day.” (434) – maybe foreshadowing the end of light and joy, a transition into a more somber mood o “The sun had sunk low and much of the garden had fallen into shadow.” (435) – the beginning of a somber mood o “… a girl’s voice came echoing…” (436) – a ray of light in the darkness o “The daylight had almost gone” – the mood is deteriorating slowly throughout the text o “…the light in the garden had grown very dim.” (438) o “… the lights did not come on…” (439) o “… pale light…” (439) o “… a dimly lit room… casting the rest of the room in shadow” (440) o “It’s dark” (repetitive) (440-441) o “One side of his face had fallen into shadow” (441) – maybe foreshadowing his intentions, hinting at his hidden motives o “It smells very good.” (441) o “It felt soft, quite fleshy against my tongue.” (441) o “silence” and “darkness” repetitive throughout the page (442) o “The sound of locusts came in…” (442) – reinforces the image of silence, because everything needs to be silent to be able to hear crickets. o “… then sighed.” (442) – shows inner turmoil or sadness  Symbols: o White (kimono) – symbol of death in Japanese culture o The well – as a ladder is a symbol of the connection between heaven and earth, a well could be a symbol of the connection between earth and hell

o Autumn – symbol of decline, nearing death D. Summary

A Family Supper is a story about a man whose mother died from eating Fugu-a poisonous fish. He travels from America to visit his family in Japan. His father’s firm had recently collapsed and his business partner committed suicide and killed his wife and 2 daughters because of it. They have an awkward drive home, once at the house, his younger sister Kikuro arrives and they go for a walk in the garden while their father prepares the supper. She smokes a cigarette while telling him about her boyfriend and his plans for them to hitch-hike to America and her reservations about it. She also tells him that their mother always blamed herself for him leaving Japan, that she thought that she didn’t raise him correctly and that she wanted to do a better job raising her. They pass by a well in their garden that he believed to be haunted, because he the ghost of an old woman in a white kimono. Their mother used to assure them that it was just an old woman from the vegetable store who was taking a shortcut through their garden, but they never believed her. They return inside and his father gives him a tour of the house. The rooms are empty and dark. His father tells him that he believes that his mother’s death was not an accident and implies that she might have killed herself because he left. They return to the dining room to eat and he notices a picture of an old woman in a white kimono that turns out to be his mother. They had fish for supper and after they were done, his father and him went to the tea room while Kikuro made tea and they discussed whether he would stay with his father in Japan and whether Kikuro would stay with him after her studies. The story ends on a cliff hanger.

E. 1st Theme

There are 2 main themes in the story. First of all, I think that the author wanted to show how rebellion is an escape from societal conventions and family expectations. It is a well-known fact that Japanese culture puts a lot of pressure on children. They are usually raised very strictly and pushed to be the best at everything and bring honor to the family. The main character’s childhood wasn’t much different. His father is described as a strict, serious, prideful man (*). The slight prolepsis in the story (*) gives us a sense of what his childhood was like and we begin to understand why he left Japan and his family. His relationship with his father is very distant and cold, but his father, although very disappointed in him, wants him to stay in Japan. He asks him multiple times throughout the story about what his plans are and if he will stay, but the main character always seems to avoid answering or just says that he hasn’t thought about it. We also see in the story the toll his rebellion took on his family. His father blames him for his mother’s death, saying that she took her life because she was so sad about him leaving. His sister tells him about how their mother blamed herself for him leaving, how she didn’t raise him right. So we begin to sympathize with his parents, but on the other hand, that is also proof of how much pressure and blame is put on the main character. The images of the house, all the empty dark rooms, reflect how lonely his father is, and then when he’s asked if he regrets leaving America, he answers with “… I didn’t leave behind much, just some empty rooms”, which makes us think that he too is very lonely there. On the other hand, we have his younger sister, another typical example of rebellion. Her mother promised to raise her better than her brother and her father holds hope that she will come live with him after her studies and says multiple times how she is a good girl, so she obviously has a lot to live up to and a lot of pressure on her, but little does her father know, she smokes and has a

boyfriend who wants to take her hitch-hiking to America, and she even admits to having hitch-hiked by herself. When she is around her father, she is portrayed as an innocent girl and obedient daughter, but as soon as he leaves, the mood is lighter and we see a different person. There is some dramatic irony here, because her father believes her to be his only good child, while we can see that she is the exact opposite and she is following in her brother’s footsteps. Because of their father’s strict personality and military background, they are not comfortable around him. There is a lot of silence when they are with him (*) and I think the author, by giving us 2 perfect examples of rebellion, the main character and his sister, and the images of a strict and gloomy household, showed us how if too much pressure is put on children, they will inevitably rebel, as a means of escape. And the topic of escape doesn’t end there…

F. 2nd Theme

The second and more predominant theme of this story, is that death is an escape from loneliness and life’s difficulties and dishonor. The entire story is filled with subtle foreshadowing to death. The very first image the author puts in the story is “… it was nearing the end of a sunny autumn day.”, the fact that he says from the beginning that the end of a sunny day is nearing, we know that the story isn’t going to be a happy one, and the word autumn itself is a symbol for decline and nearing death. The images from then on get darker and darker (***key words), foreshadowing that the end is getting closer and closer, because the more the story progresses, the darker it gets, until it completely dark and the story ends. There are a lot of subtle examples of “honorable suicides” in the story, which supports the theme that suicide or death is an escape from dishonor. Early on we learn that his father’s business partner, Watanabe, committed suicide after the collapse of their firm. He also killed his wife and 2 children. This is, of course,

terrible, but his sister mentioned that he killed himself by cutting his stomach with a knife, which is a form of a Japanese ritual suicide called Seppuku or Harakiri it is usually done by people who wish to restore honor to their family. Before, it was only done by samurai and the main character’s father comes from a samurai bloodline (coincidence?). Another reference to an honorable suicide is when his father talks about how he wanted to be in the air force during the war. (*) He is obviously referring to the Kamikaze, which was a Japanese aircraft in WW2 that was loaded with explosives and the pilots would make a deliberate suicidal crash on enemy territory. Even though the characters in the story condemn Watanabe’s suicide out loud, by reading between the lines and finding the author’s references to these things, it makes us wonder if they are not secretly admiring him for what he did and subtly foreshadowing what is about to happen. There are a few more “hints” in the story that indicate that it will end with death. The main character mentions multiple times, when asked about his plans that “he hasn’t thought that far ahead”, which may mean that there is no need to think about the future because there is none. His father also says “a little more time” (439), which can also be interpreted literally and he may have said that because he knows that he/they don’t have much time left. There is also a reoccurring symbol of an old woman in a white kimono. The color white in Japanese culture is a symbol for death, which also foreshadows the ending. When he was younger, he saw a ghost of an old woman in a white kimono near the well in their garden, which is mentioned multiple times in the story. We know that a ladder is a symbol of the connection between heaven and earth, so maybe in this case a well can be a symbol of the connection between hell and earth. And during their supper, he sees a picture of his mother in a white kimono, which I think the author used to connect the beginning and the ending of the story, because the story starts off with an explanation of his mother’s death, which was caused by eating fish, and now here they all are at the end of the story, eating fish. The title, A Family Supper, at first makes us think that it might be a nice, happy story about a family having supper, sets the mood for something lighter which is

immediately contrasted by the story, it also draws our attention to the supper itself and hints that that is the most important part of the story and that something important must happen there since it is in the title. It could also be referencing the famous last supper, which could be foreshadowing the end and saying that that one will be their last one as well. By using all of these images and symbols and hidden references to suicide, we expect the story to end with death, most probably by their father killing himself and his children with the same fish that killed his wife, but the story ends on a cliffhanger and we can only guess, but it is amazing how all of the characters, save for Kikuro, aren’t very talkative and there aren’t many inner monologues, but the author still managed to talk about a very complex issue just by using hidden references and stylistic devices. The topic of death and suicide is probably taboo for many of the readers, and they probably have a hard time imagining how death could be a violable option, but we need to take into consideration the Japanese culture, which to this day has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world and the people themselves don’t see death as a dark and horrible thing. This can be seen a lot of their literature, like the Japanese death poems and even Haruki Murakami wrote in his book Norwegian Wood that “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it”. So, the Japanese don’t have the same fear of death as most European cultures do and this is why it is not hard to believe that in this story it is very probable that the characters will chose death if faced with life’s difficulties and disappointments. The 2 themes actually tie together very nicely in the story, on one hand we have the 2 children, using rebellion as an escape from their father’s strict rules and expectations, and on the other we have Watanabe, who escapes the dishonor of his firm collapsing by committing suicide in the most honorable way possible, and the father, who might or might not do the same....