60 pages • 2 hours read
Kazuo IshiguroA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The fugu fish is a symbol that appears numerous times in “A Family Supper.” The narrator explains that it is a fish native to Japan, with “poison [that] resides in the sexual glands of the fish, inside two fragile bags” (1). Should the preparation of the fish be less than perfect, poison will leak into the veins of the fish and kill those who eat it. Ishiguro writes: “Fugu poisoning is hideously painful and almost always fatal” (1). According to the narrator, there is no way to know if preparation of the fish has been successful until after it has been eaten. The fugu’s poison is in its sexual organs, a detail that the narrator is quick to point out. The significance of this detail speaks to the larger themes of misogyny in the text. The fugu fish’s poison is the reason why the narrator’s mother passed away. Though the narrator’s father suggests that she might have intentionally killed herself, Ishiguro does not provide any additional details to support this.
What little there is to know about the narrator’s mother suggests that when she ate fugu for the first time, she did so out of obedience, not wanting to offend a friend, and died as a result.
By Kazuo Ishiguro
An Artist of the Floating World
An Artist of the Floating World
Kazuo Ishiguro
A Pale View of Hills
A Pale View of Hills
Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
The Buried Giant
The Buried Giant
Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
The Unconsoled
The Unconsoled
Kazuo Ishiguro
When We Were Orphans
When We Were Orphans
Kazuo Ishiguro