A Family Supper

The fugu fish is a symbol that appears numerous times in “A Family Supper.” The narrator explains that it is a fish native to Japan, with “poison [that] resides in the sexual glands of the fish, inside two fragile bags” (1). Should the preparation of the fish be less than perfect, poison will leak into the veins of the fish and kill those who eat it. Ishiguro writes: “Fugu poisoning is hideously painful and almost always fatal” (1). According to the narrator, there is no way to know if preparation of the fish has been successful until after it has been eaten. The fugu’s poison is in its sexual organs, a detail that the narrator is quick to point out. The significance of this detail speaks to the larger themes of misogyny in the text. The fugu fish’s poison is the reason why the narrator’s mother passed away. Though the narrator’s father suggests that she might have intentionally killed herself, Ishiguro does not provide any additional details to support this.

What little there is to know about the narrator’s mother suggests that when she ate fugu for the first time, she did so out of obedience, not wanting to offend a friend, and died as a result.