RESPONSE TO THE LINKS AND JOINTS HOMEWORK PASSAGE

No wonder Ezra noticed the "links and joints" in the relationships of the patients in Mrs. Scarlatti's hospital! He himself was someone who was very sensitive to the experience of relationship within a family.

Indeed all the Tulls were very self-conscious when with one another; they had together experienced the suffering of growing up with Pearl. They all bore the scars of that family life and knew all too keenly that their own personal needs were not being met then, and that now as adults they still seemed to look on into the lives of others, seeking signs of a happiness they had missed out on. Era, the food giver, was adept at perceiving the needs of his customers in the soon-to-be-named Homesick Restaurant (122). For instead of offering a menu with food that they thought they wanted, Era would sooner offer them rather what they needed, so sure was he of his ability to perceive the signs of need and loneliness.

The relationships between the Tulls squeaked and the links stood out like sore thumbs because they were not perfect. The links between mother and children were keenly felt but not comfortable. As Cody was to say at the final meal: "Our mother was a witch, a raving, shrieking, unpredictable witch."(294)

There is little evidence of harmony and friendship between the Tull offspring. First Cody had taken Ruth Spivey, Ezra's only love in life, and married her not out of love but to spite Ezra. Then Jenny's flippant nature had seemed so different to that of Ezra and Cody. She never seemed settled, never happy. It was only in the chaotic life in the third marriage with Joe St Ambrose that she was able to forget the past and immerse herself in the demands of the present in a rollicking family, one of "those great, big, jolly, noisy rambling families" that Beck imagined (294).

Second, Ezra himself never felt forgiven for the archery incident, "where his mother nearly died, wounded by a misfired arrow"(120) and where he was protected as his mother's favourite for shooting the damaging arrow and Cody was unjustly punished. Finally Cody the eldest had been forced to bear the task of responsibility for the family. Pearl had confided to him: "You're the only person I can turn to; it may be you and I are more alike than you think. Cody, what am I going to do?" (64). Cody shrank back from this unexpected confidence and untypical show of uncertainty.

Yes the links and joints of the Tulls were there to be seen. The warts and all relationships were both painful and yet all they had too. They had all suffered hurt, neglect, misunderstanding and rejection. Their preoccupied mother and their truant father offered them no useful role models; their right to be understood and encouraged to grow was denied them. Their dreary lives and their feeling of having missed out on what they saw in other families made them sadder and wistful. No wonder Ezra chose to be a restaurateur to feed others where he had been starved; Cody had become a time-and-motion man to replace the inefficiency of his working mother's household; and Jenny had became a paediatrician to doctor to others' children and remedy what she had never been given herself as a child.

It was no wonder then that the Tulls could barely look at one another without being reminded of their shared suffering and inflicted hurts that kept them together in an unhealthy bondage to the past and to their dreams of happiness and a better future. It was also no wonder that they could never finish a meal even in the Homesick Restaurant!

G. Smith 14/3/90

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