The backyard of the narrator’s childhood home contains a well, which the narrator and his sister Kikuko believed was haunted during their youth. While discussing childhood stories about the ghost that haunted the well, the narrator and Kikuko are reminded of their mother, who told them that “the old woman from the vegetable garden” was the ghost. The narrator explains that he can still see a ghost near the well and describes her as an old woman wearing a white kimono. Kikuko thinks he is trying to scare her. Later in the story, the narrator sees an old woman by the same description pictured in a photograph on the wall. His father is surprised to discover that the narrator does not recognize the woman in the photograph as his own mother.
The well symbolizes the way in which grief causes the siblings’ mother to appear both absent and present in the lives of her grieving family members. When they see the well, they are reminded that she is gone. But her “ghost” suggests that grief is a kind of haunting; she maintains a presence in the form of memories, even though her family may try to avoid remembering. Like the fish that reminds the family of their mother’s death by poisonous fugu, the well forces the family—who often avoid talking about her—to confront her absence, thus causing her image and the emotions associated with her passing to reappear momentarily in their lives. It’s also notable that the well likely contains water, but that the water itself is never mentioned; this hidden depth may hint at the family’s deep but invisible grief and even their suppressed tears. After the narrator and his father finally have a vulnerable conversation about Watanabe’s death and the father’s loneliness, the narrator notices that “the well is no longer visible” through the window, a change which suggests that speaking more openly with one other has lessened the “haunting” quality of the family’s unarticulated grief, and brought them at least the beginnings of a sense of closure with regard to the mother’s passing.
The Well Quotes in A Family Supper
“She looks a lot older,” I said.
“It was taken shortly before her death,” said my father.
“It was the dark. I couldn’t see very well.”
The Well Symbol Timeline in A Family Supper
