Teaching notes and materials for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Sight theme

Themes revision

Ezra's optimism

Self Respect

Character profiles

cf King Lear

'Author' speaks

Readers' forum

Baltimore

De Mott nyt review

csmonitor review

287 Ezra . . . had been his mother's eyes.

274 "Come closer so I can see your hair

271 For the first time, Ezra fully understood that she was blind."

259 "She's blind," her doctor said.

258 All she said carried references to sight.

213 We have a child in trouble here, don't you see that?"

182 She couldn't have said what it was she was looking for.

185 "Don't you see?" Cody had cried.

153 I see everything in your heart, Cody Tull!

109 He's nothing to me, don't you see?

05 memory seemed to be going blind with the rest of her.

 

---

Ezra's Optimism:

Extracts from student homework 1988

"Cody Tull was too bitter about his childhood experiences to be able to see any of the positive aspects in Ezra's optimism. Pearl was much too narrow and inflexible in her nature to be able to see anyone else's point of view. . .

 

She sees no reason for optimism at all. Perhaps she is frightened of it because she may have to reappraise her attitude to life, something she would find very hard to do... . Ezra's optimism is the very antithesis of Pearl's pessimism."

 

"Jenny's attitude to Ezra and his optimism was one of sympathy."

 

"It is Ezra's range of experiences which have also enabled him to be an optimistic person."

 

"Jenny was too wrapped up in her own world of children and career to heed Ezra's words of encouragement . The Tull family does not perceive the importance of Ezra's dinners.. . . He was too often taken for granted."

 

"Jenny, Cody and Pearl were all unaccepting people and ignored Ezra's optimistic attitude.. . . His encouraging words to Pearl as she was dying were ignored."

 

"Ezra's optimism and encouragement may have finally paid off . . ."(in the final funeral dinner)?

 

"Cody is jealous of Ezra. . . for having the capacity to make friends easily, and Jenny spends time putting up barricades and keeping to herself. So no Tull appreciates Ezra's optimism and encouragement . Because Ezra is incapable of retaliation, he is underrated. . in his efforts to keep the family together."

 

"His optimism is underrated because he never lets his past affect his life . . . . Very little bothered Ezra; he was happy.

• sole source of it in the novel
• Cody resented it
• Pearl misunderstood it; took it for granted
• Jenny ignored it

Study Questions

• Are misunderstandings underrated?
• Can Tulls handle his encouragement?
• Can they accept it?
• Can they trust one another to be genuine?

Negatives

• Is Ezra 'filling in" for Pearl's lack of optimism? Why is he able to offer encouragement?
• Why is he strong enough to offer encouragement?
• Does he have an extra strength? and where did it come from?

Characteristic	Novel: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant	Play: King Lear.
Lead character	Pearl	Lear
major fault	blind to self, blind to others' needs and affection, rejection, misunderstanding	blind to self, blind to others' needs and affection, exile, rejection, misunderstanding
children	Ezra, Cody, Jenny	Cordelia, Goneril, Regen
rejects favourite offspring	Ezra	Cordelia
outcome	dies unhappy, unbelieving, unaware?	dies mad, despairing, self aware: "Pray now, foregt and forgive. I am old and foolish."
agent of redemption	Ezra	Fool
key symbols	arrow, meal,	letters, eyes, eyeball, weather, flowers
metaphors and similes	apple, apple	blindness, foolishness, nothing, division
truant	parents	derelict Ki ng, self indulgent king
character development	Pearl fails to ever see her children as other than extensions of her own insecurities; no redemption/ release/ resolution 'That's life!" but, the mistakes are worked out in the second generation	Lear learns to become responsive to the needs and concern of someone else
setting	rigid boundaries at the door	disordered divided kingdom
subplots	Luke and Slevin	Gloucester, Edmund and Edgar

© G. Smith 5 March 2001 http://home.pacific.net.au/~greg.hub/dinner.html

Some notes for a profile of Ezra

Question: If Jenny's chief fault is flippancy (not taking important things seriously), Cody's is jealousy, power and competition, and Pearl's is sheer defensive negativity, unpredictability and impulsiveness, then what is Ezra's? What was the trademark flaw she saw in him?

Answer: Ezra and Pearl shared the same fault - low self esteem, insufficient self respect.They both suffered from a low sense of their own worth. They both seems to disregard themselves, not take care of themselves, not rate themselves by customary measures of worth.

Read from Hill, Thomas E. (1991) Self-respect reconsidered. pp. 19-24. Autonomy and Self-Respect Cambridge University Press:

"Basic respect as a human being does not need to be earned; and if respect is having proper regard for rights, then at least some respect is due each person without his needing to earn it. A person may lack self-respect not merely by underestimating his merits and achievements but also by misunderstanding and undervaluing his equal rights as a human being." (p. 19) Hill goes on, "at least part of a sense of one's own worth is having and living by personal standards or ideals that one sees as an important part of oneself." (23).

Here are some observations from a seminar at La Trobe University, 7 August 1994 led by philosopherTim Oakley:

Self Esteem	Self Respect
a global rating, takes in all sorts of features	an evaluation of some aspects of personality and life
personal estimation, private criteria	conventional, public criteria
counsellor	psychologist:
amorphous changing feeling	Cooper-Smith 1967 Inventory

1. Low self evaluation is cognitive, is global, is a rating in particular respects (either moral behaviour, personal ideals, standards)

2. It has a conative aspect: the will to act on one's own behalf, such as in protecting one's agency, protecting one's rights, entitlements; confidence and determination.

Ezra shows a lack of this in not fighting Cody for Ruth. Is it a fault to be so self giving that you cannot become an individual?

3. The usual sources of self value are: personal traits, achievements, capacities, what we think we are, what we belong to.

Did Ezra not take time to measure his own progress, rate his own achievements, form an honest opinion of himself? Is it a fault to avoid doing so? Does he cope by avoiding any standards knowing that "Expectations will do you in in the end."

4. Effect of failures in self respect as in not meeting personal standards, ideals or others' or own moral standards

Is he working from (1) fixed standards (´ lowered self esteem) or (2) flexible standards (´ coping skills)?

How does Ezra score on these points? Does he suffer undue degrees of debilitation, timidity, underachievements, broken social relationships, etc. Yet he never goes to the brink of fatalism, despair. His self regulatory coping mechanisms unlike Jenny ( problems are unreal, merely misperceptions) Cody (rubbish the problems) Pearl (be blind to problems), Ezra copes with them heroically. He is unfazed, unhurt, powerless, with a servant-like passivity that just "gets through" anyway.

5. Why do we become worried about low self esteem in others? Does it embarrass us who have more of it? Does it make us feel powerless because quite often only the person himself can make it better for himself. Not to succeed in this is both a public and a private failure. Consider the effects of lowered collective self esteem, morale of the Tulls. Very often lowered self esteem correlates directly with identity/ social/ societal problems. If it is raised, then the problems will be managed directly rather than with more education/ health. welfare / employment/ housing assistance.

Homework: Write a letter to Ezra confirming his positives, suggesting ways to help him build up his self esteem and overcome his lack of assertiveness.

G. B. Smith 20/3/01

Ezra (67, 72, 117, 120, 153, 161, 172, 217, 266) finds his fulfillment in the restaurant. His original vision for it is food with love (cf. Pearl's meals). p. 125 "he knows how to get in touch with people" His aims are inclusive, Ezra is a success except it cannot bring the Tulls together.	Pearl's (14, 22, 153, 186, 202, 271, 285) defensiveness, immaturity 6, 125 lack of understanding imperfect motives failure as a mother archery incident: guilt, accusation, stereotyping
Beck 289 invisible man absent presence cause of hollow silence	Jenny 70, 109 shows them how to survive: "We made it didn't we?" fear of connection doctor of the mind yet unable to heal herself
Cody 228, 248, 244,133,200 his camera cruelty on Ezra 63	Give brief profiles for: Luke, Slevin, Becky Harley Baines 84 Ruth Spivey 156, 171 Mrs. Scarlatti 129 Joe St. Ambrose Sam Wiley 207 Novel's title: 122, 242, 75, 135, 128, 187, 289 missed dinners 138, 154, 177, 287

© G. B. Smith 2000 Page numbers the Penguin 1985 edition

All three Tull children are conscious of one another, are typical too.

"a trademark flaw in each of their lives."

• Inherited problems for next generation: Luke, Slevin, Becky.
• association gives significance to things, not arrows/airplanes in themselves
• superior power of symbolic language.

TULL FAMILY REVISION some quotations to discuss 24/10/90

-In one instance Pearl says to Ezra about the offer of a partnership in the restaurant (p 94): ". . partnerships don't cost a dollar; you'll be beholden all your life. Ezra, we Tulls depend on ourselves, only on each other. We don't look to the rest of the world for any help whatsoever. How could you lend yourself to this?"

"I guess your family's enough for you. . Aren't we lucky to have each other?" Pearl would say to Cody (48).

Ezra thinks: "They say I'm pushy or . emotional . . I really honestly believe I missed some rule that everyone else takes for granted; I must have been absent from school that day" (125) The Tull children for instance suffered this lack of clear direction and had to make it on their own, so much so that Jenny remarks: "We made it didn't we? We did grow up. Why the three of us turned out fine."

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant pages 184-5: "Pearl believes now that her family has failed. Neither of her sons is happy and her daughter can't seem to stay married. There is no one to accept the blame for this but Pearl herself . . Still sometimes she has the feeling that it's simply fate, and not a matter for blame at all. She feels that everything has been assigned, has been preordained; everyone must play his role. Certainly she had never intended to foster one of these good son/bad son arrangements."

page 109: "Was this what it came to - that you never could escape? That certain things were doomed to continue, generation after generation? . . She continued to feel fragile though. She went on guarding a trembly, fluid center. . . She would remind herself to draw back, to loosen hold. It seemed to her that the people she admired had this in common: they gazed at the world from a distance. There was something sheeted about them - some obliqueness that made them difficult to grasp."(212)

 © G. Smith 1990, 2000

This page can be accessed again from: http://home.pacific.net.au/~greg.hub/dinner.html

© G. B. Smith 1999, Revised 10/3/01