A Family Supper Themes

“A Family Supper” follows an unnamed narrator returning to his native Japan from the United States two years after learning of his mother’s death. Though the story is not clearly set during a particular period of time, readers can assume that the story is set in the modern day due to the presence of modern technology and language familiar to 21st-century readers. This modern setting creates a clear tension between the progressive sensibilities of the…

Though “A Family Supper” has a relatively uneventful plot, the story is rife with instances of cultural and societal expectations. One of the most prevalent of these is the pressure to adhere to traditional gender roles, which exert their influence on every member of the narrator’s family. The narrator’s father not only embodies the prototypical hard-working, stoic, and self-sacrificing Japanese father, but he also attempts to propagate traditional gender roles through his role as…