37 pages • 1 hour read
Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant
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Themes
Family
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is the story of the Tull family, so it should come as no surprise to find that “family” is an important theme throughout the novel. By focusing on the lives of three generations of the same family, it is possible to track the way that events of decades past can have ramifications in the future. Beck leaving Pearl, for instance, ultimately compels Luke to run away from home. Throughout, the novel encourages the audience to ask themselves what it is to be a family.
The Tull family is a disjointed, fractured mess. The novel charts the way that these bitter grudges develop over the years, but this was not always the case. Viewed through Pearl’s perspective, there seems to have been a time when the family was happy, though not everything was perfect. The second chapter describes the early marriage of Beck and Pearl and the birth of the three children. Pearl finds joy in the birth of her children, even though her husband is constantly struggling with his work. At this time, she is willing to make the most of the situation, allowing herself to acquiesce to Beck’s demands to move around the country in order to keep the family together. The result of this is that the family is drawn tighter together. By moving constantly, the Tulls are not locked into any one community or group of friends. By the time they reach Baltimore and stop moving, Pearl has come to depend entirely on her family. She has learned that family is the most important part of her life.
Then, Beck leaves. In doing so, he shatters the conception of the traditional, nuclear family unit. He leaves Pearl alone to raise the children, and she surgically removes him from her life. She does not mention his departure to the children and pretends as though nothing has happened, all while removing herself from any motional attachment to Beck other than anger and resentment. The family changes at this time. After so long moving around, they are bound together and can never separate. However, Cody blames his father for leaving the children with their increasingly monstrous mother; Ezra withdraws even further into himself; and Jenny—perhaps too young to remember her father—acquires disjointed and unstable notions of what a marriage should be. The fracturing of the family unit has long-lasting ramifications on the Tulls and, after years of learning what it means for a family to be constantly together, they must learn what it means for a family to be apart.
Perspective
The novel uses different perspectives across different chapters. Each chapter views events from the perspective of one character only, offering a subjective interpretation of events that colors the way the audience understands what is happening. Rather than a single omniscient and subjective narrator, these different perspectives become an important theme, demonstrating the extent to which the characters hope to confirm or ratify their own opinions and biases.
The best example of this is the incident with the archery set, in which Pearl is shot by an arrow and must go to the hospital. Pearl, Cody, and Ezra describe this, with a fleeting mention by Beck in the final stages of the novel. Each interpretation is different; though the events described are mostly the same, the way that blame is apportioned demonstrates how the characters function in relation to one another. Pearl’s perspective reveals her resentment toward Beck; Cody’s perspective reveals his resentment toward Ezra; Ezra’s perspective reveals his inclination to blame himself and his desire to be forgiven; and Beck’s passing mention demonstrates how much he feared Pearl. By providing the different perspectives, the novel demonstrates the manner in which personal interpretation of events can have lasting implications.
The final chapter includes another example. For decades, Cody has resented and feared his mother. Frequently, he has described to people outside the family how abusive and angry Pearl had acted during his childhood. After her funeral, with the family all sitting at the table, Cody launches into a lengthy tirade, describing Pearl’s monstrous actions. After an awkward moment, however, Ezra interjects, suggesting that Cody is remembering events incorrectly. In this instance, the veracity of a perspective is challenged. Cody is forced to confront the idea that his recollection might be subjective, colored by his own perspective. This realization ultimately allows him to go to Beck and enjoy a moment of healing with his father. By realizing the importance of perspectives, Cody is able to experience one of the most important reconciliations in the novel.
Loneliness
Throughout the novel, characters experience loneliness and alienation in different ways. While Cody is emotionally distant and Jenny comes to terms with the collapse of two successive marriages, it is Pearl and Ezra who provide the most poignant descriptions of loneliness, turning their personal experiences into an overriding theme that permeates the novel.
As the matriarch of the family and the character around whom the others inevitably revolve, Pearl seems as though she should never be lonely. Indeed, she is always living with at least one member of her family. However, her family is all she has. Over the course of her life, she loses contact with her extended family and her childhood friends. She stops attending church, has few hobbies, and cuts herself off from the community to the extent that the neighborhood children worry that she is a witch. As a middle-aged woman abandoned by her husband, she devotes every waking second of her life to raising three young children and, in doing so, drives herself into loneliness. However, being lonely is a choice for Pearl. Even when her children have grown up and moved out, she has no desire to make friends or integrate into the community. To do so would only mean setting up the possibility to be hurt again. Instead, she withdraws into herself and becomes increasingly atomized. Beck’s departure was so monumental in her life that she never wants to be abandoned again. By cutting herself off and making herself purposefully lonely, Pearl ensures that no one will ever abandon her again.
Unlike Pearl (who acquires loneliness), Ezra is born lonely. His unique personality type means that he is predisposed to see the world differently. He struggles to make friends and integrate himself into the local community. Those friends he does make (Mrs. Scarlatti and Josiah) either leave him or offer little in the way of traditional friendship. The one opportunity Ezra has to escape his loneliness is Ruth, and this ends in tragedy. When Cody and Ruth reveal that they are running away together, Ezra cannot process what has happened. He has come to regard Ruth as his companion, the one person in the world who understands him. Like Beck abandoning Pearl, Ruth abandons Ezra. Ezra returns to his lonely existence. Like Pearl, his only remaining bond is his family. As such, he never stops trying to host family dinners. He hopes that one day, his fractured, damaged family will provide the community and support he craves: an escape from alienation. In the final chapter, he gets his wish.
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By Anne Tyler
