International Journal of English and Literature | 2019
Holding On to the Past and the Fallacy of the Traditional Family in Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Abstract
While many writers during the mid-twentiethcentury focused on the ideality of the traditional family, Anne Tyler, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, challenged such ideality by focusing on a family in which the father abandons his role as the breadwinner. Because the mother must then fulfill the duties assigned to the father and mother, the children grow up reflecting negatively on their childhood. The siblings’ perceptions of the past, however, stem from an inability to achieve the traditional family. This essay therefore examines the characters’ negotiations with the past and exposes the fallacy of the perfect family, for, as Anne Tyler implies, such family structure is not achievable. Keywords— memory, time, past, future, homesick, traditional family. The concept of the traditional family was most relevant during the mid-twentieth-century with media and other mainstream outlets portraying such lifestyle as the expected norm. While living a modest, family-orientated life, the father must provide for the family, while the mother must take care of the house and children. This family, though unrealistic for many Americans, expands across various mediums. But in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler challenges the notion of the ideal household by incorporating a father, Beck, who abandons the household. This then prevents the rest of the family from modeling such ideal structure as the mother, Pearl, must serve as both father and mother by raising the Tull children alone and working a full-time job. Because the novel’s structure weaves between time, readers are provided with glimpses into the present (with the siblings as adults) and the past (with the siblings as children). From this structure, the children’s differing memories and obsession with the past exposes the flaws of memory. Cody, an angry and yet ambitious character, reflects poorly on his childhood and strives to avoid the family as an adult. Ezra, an eager and yet complacent character, reflects positively on his childhood and strives to recreate the perfect family as an adult. Jenny, who raises her daughter as a single mother, regrets some of the parental decisions she has made as a single parent and strives to parent better after she marries and has time to co-parent while working. As an aged woman, Pearl also reflects on her time as a mother with regret, for there are many unsettlingparental decisions she would have done differently, should she have had more time to parent her children. When examining the Tull family, time and how they negotiate their past can correlate to gendered obligations. While Cody and Ezra focus on a past and present filled without contentment, the issues they grapple with pertain to power and their urge to achieve male authority. Pearl and Jenny, however, grapple with time differently. As single mothers, they are too busy enacting the duties of both father and mother to consider the past as a motivator for their current actions and life choices. These correlations, however, should not be read as a result to their gender. Rather, such reflections should instead correlate to the amount of time they are able to spend reflecting on the past. Though all characters perceive the past differently, the brothers, especially Cody, consider their past to an obsessive degree, so much that it influences their present lives. “The past,” according to David Lowenthal,“is every where. All around us lie features which, like ourselves and our thoughts, have more or less recognizable antecedents” (xv). With features such as past conversations , objects, and locations enticing specific memories, the Tull brothers regard the past not only as a means of escape (for Cody) orideality (for Ezra), but as a burden on who they are as adults.The novel, which fixates each chapter on a different International Journal of English, Literature and Social Science (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-4, Jul – Aug 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4439 ISSN: 2456-7620 www.ijels.com Page | 1159 member of the family, exposes the unreliability of memory as each sibling remembers the past differently. The issue, however, does not apply to which memories are mostauthentic to the past, but rather how each character responds to his/her memories. And though Caren Townjustifiably argues that Tyler’s intentions are not to“celebrate the triumph of the traditional family nor mourn its loss, but instead [to show] how each member of this particular family creates for her/himself a fictional family” (21), she fails to understand thatthe past does not provide the characters with “nostalgic and nourishing ...satiety” (21). Rather, memory and the siblings ’ perceptions of the past burden their adult selves. Though most characters are nostalgic to some degree, their fond memories of the past are not productive, for such memories prevent these characters from considering a future exempt from lingering regrets and past differences. Because of their inability to accept the flaws of their family, the siblings and mother are stuck in the past, unable to progress to a more fulfilling future. By centering the novel on the children’s and Pearl’s inability to accept the flaws of their past, Tyler exposes the fallacies of the traditional family. Looking towards the future therefore entails, as suggested by the novel’s ending, the characters’ ability to release the haunting and unfulfilling past that they hold during their present lives. Haunted By the Past While providing extensive attention on Cody and his inability to accept Pearl’s flaws, Tyler portrays Cody asa disturbed heteronormative man. Unable to imitate the expectations required to achieve the perfect household, Cody responds negatively to his childhood. One of the leading issues with his past, however, entails his inability to overshadow Ezra.No matter how many times he attempts to please Pearl during his childhood, he always fails, for “Ezra was [Pearl’s] favorite, her pet. The entire family knew it” (Tyler, 37). Mary Louisa Cappelli attests to this, observing, “Cody vies for his mother’s love and attention always trying to sabotage his brother Ezra’s reputation and place of affection in the family unit” (55).Because Cody’s attempts at sabotaging Ezrafail, Ezra then appears even more perfect to Pearl. When Cody attempts to shoot an arrow at a family gathering, he fails miserably and is then overshadowed by Ezra’s successful shot. Instead of providing words of encouragement, Beck scolds him, claiming, “This just goes to show that it pays to follow instructions ....If you’d listened close like Ezra did, and not gone off half-cocked” (Tyler, 38). Though Beck merely provides Cody with a lesson on listening to instructions, Cody’s determination to excel past Ezra’s abilities prohibits him from dismissing Beck’s lesson. Cody then passive-aggressively attempts to shoot an arrow at Ezra—as if believing physical threats will provide Cody with the satisfaction of defeating Ezra. Instead of accepting his flaws and inability to please Pearl, he further attempts at overshadowing Ezra by tarnishing Ezra’s reputation in front of Pearl. Hiding magazines that feature “women in nightgowns, in bathing suits, in garter belts and black lace brassieres, in bath towels, in useless wisps of transparent drapery, or in nothing whatsoever” (Tyler, 46) exhibits merely one of Cody’s many cynical responses to his anger-driven mentality. Upon finding these elicit magazines, Pearl responds with shock, for she would never suspect that her favorite child could possess such pornographic magazines . “Truly, Ezra,” Pearl admits, “I never suspected that you would be such a person” (Tyler, 46). As a result, Cody and Ezra fight, resulting in victory for Cody and defeat for Ezra. No matter how many times Cody attempts towin Pearl’s affection, his efforts always result in defeat. As Cody rationalizes, Pearl’s love for Ezra will always overshadow her love for her other children. Because Cody never understands this throughout much of his life, he views his relationship with Ezra as a competition. For Ezra, however, such competition does not exist. What Cody perceives as competition is merely Ezra living his own life. Surely then, the competition that Cody always alludes to does not exist, for “one of the contestants didn’t even know he was a contestant” (Tyler, 152). Because of his competitive mindset, Cody’s mental isolation from the family lingers throughout much of his childhood. Every time the family gets together, he thinks of other places he could be at instead, such as going to the movies with friends. “Cody would have given anything to be with them” (Tyler, 36), rather than his family. Such favoritism from Pearl clearly provides an understanding for Cody’s removal from the family. By holding on to the concept of the perfect family, Cody understands Pearl’s favoritism for Ezra as a flaw in the traditional family structure. With such flaw, Cody would much rather avoid the family entirely. Cody, like Beck, thus abandons the family when he starts college. And while Jenny also leaves for college a few years later, Cody never quite comes back home mentally throughout the novel. When he does return, he creates excuses that suggest his time could be spent on more pressing matters. Cody’s toxic mentality as a child persists into adulthood, forcing him to hold onto the past. His life, International Journal of English, Literature and Social Science (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-4, Jul – Aug 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4439 ISSN: 2456-7620 www.ijels.com Page | 1160 however, is far from turmoil, for he ultimately claimed victory over Ezra by marrying Ruth, was hired by a successful company that shut down Beck’s company , and he was finally able to achieve living a life based on the traditional family with Ruth and Luke. Even with all these accomplishments, Cody’s desire to surpass his family, especially Ezra, persists and draws him back to his past. After the terrible work