Why the title: DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT worksheet No 6.
Why this title? Do you think Tyler's title has special significance?
75 ". . . everything solid and wholesome, really homelike."122 "He'd serve what people felt homesick for... He'd call it the HOMESICK RESTAURANT".
242 "Homesick Restaurant indeed."
"There is believe me . . . but it's new .". . . He found himself surprised by HOMESICK "Well I'll be! It exists."
Discussion
What is the experience of homesickness? It is a yearning for one's home, as if that is the real place to be or that happiness is there rather than in the here now. Does this attitude distinguish the Tulls? Yet there is an ambivalence in homesickness that it has a negative aspect too, that of denying the present, the all important present. Just as everyone needs a sense of place or safety and privacy, everyone longs to belong too. This tension between individuality and group identity is one we all share and work out in different ways in different cultures. Individual needs differ too: Jenny was self contained and strong in herself, but Cody was dependent. Ezra represented total belonging, as institution and establishment or where Ezra was, the shadow of Pearl hung. Ezra had very little individuality.
A second meaning is that many (like the Tulls) are sick even at home, so they reject it for its tensions,. are afraid of its intensity/ involvement / suffering/ shame/ poverty/ connection/ etc. 'Home' in the US culture has hints of Thanksgiving, joy, ultimate rest, unconditional acceptance of one another and amelioration of differences, the strongest venue of one's identity and belonging, etc. But if that venue is tainted by negativity, rejection, pain , hurt, it is a sickness that can never be cured. Unresolved mental suffering like that is destructive into the next generation.
Were the Tulls sick of Pearl? How did they reconcile their duty to her with this overriding anxiety? How much guilt did they carry? Was it shared fairly?
Do children have guilt of this kind at all anyway?
What are the dynamics in this family? 1. when the Tulls were children, 2. in adult life?
Who made decisions? How powerful was Cody? Pearl? Ezra? Where power lies.
Rate Beck & Pearl as role models.
How do the Tulls cope with conflict?
How well they were prepared for adult life?
"What influence does the family has in shaping individual perceptions, values and behaviours in and beyond childhood?"
Homework
Write about 200 words picking up one or two of the points above with reference to Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Select scenes and themes in the novel you can study. Show where and how such points are illustrated in the text, and demonstrate any conclusions you hold about the structure, life, culture or values of the Tull family and Australian families you know of.
© G. Smith March 5, 1990. http://home.pacific.net.au/~greg.hub/homesick.html
Theme handout 10 THE FAMILY: A SKELETAL ESSAY PLAN
Topic: "Families cannot grow without some sort of suffering."
Whether short or drawn out, all growing is painful. For it tests a family as it is. It demands choices and the options it offers may be critical for the survival of the family.
Suffering occurs in every family as well as in the members. Growth can catch us off guard; it poses painful choices and brings unplanned results. But common to all growth are the tests it often entails. For example, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Pearl is so caught up in her own overwhelming problems that she seems to refuse to allow the children to grow at all. It seems to surprise her that they scatter as adults. In living, her family was indeed suffering but not growing and confronting itself.
Growth shapes a family's values. In the process of growing and experiencing, the family's beliefs are then thrown into relief. Sally Morgan's discovery of her Aboriginal heritage shaped her family's values. She discovered that genealogical link that her family had so well hidden. The resultant suffering led to a change of family values. She knew at last that this newly revealed information would change their lives. In it she saw the family grow as a group.
Growth also shapes family relationships. The Tull children as adults experience a loss of this ability to relate to each other and to others because growth as a family was not encouraged by Pearl. She never allowed them choices nor freedom nor encouragement to grow. They find out that family life shapes adult life for better or for worse. The kind of growth they experienced shaped them as people. This fact can be observed very widely.
Growth shapes family identity too. In Ruth Park's novel The Harp in the South, "cancerous growths" destroy the self esteem of the Darcys and give them a clear fringe identity in society. Like young plants, our ideas about ourselves are tender and as yet unformed, until tested in the wider society. Environment, social pressures and family traits destine families too. Such a family identity can be both destructive or affirming when starting out in society.
So not all experience can be called growth. Living is not necessarily growing. However families cannot grow without some sort of suffering too. That suffering is part of the growing process, as growing together entails giving up personal choices, jealousies and animosities. Family life tests personal strengths, demands conformities to family values in the building up of relationships. The family identity shapes lives and careers too. It is even sometimes destructive. So it is true to say that family life involves some suffering for the individuals and the group but hopefully it is for the better - for more acceptance and love of one another. #
G.B. Smith 18/1/90 http://home.pacific.net.au/~greg.hub/homesick.html
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