Anguish In Anne Tyler’s ‘Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant’

Abstract

A family is made up of a diverse group of people who have similar interests and dislikes as well as bonds of friendship and jealousy. It preserves some of the most powerful and deep emotions that are either tying or breaking bonds. Despite contradictions, the family is unquestionably the social structure that people can depend on to provide them with understanding and unwavering support. While many writers of the mid-twentieth century emphasized the ideal of the traditional family, Anne Tyler questioned this ideal by focusing on a family in the novel, ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ where the father gives up his job as the provider. The children grow up thinking poorly of their childhood, since the mother has to carry out the responsibilities given to both the mother and the father. However, the siblings' memories of the past are rooted in their failure to fulfill the ideals of the conventional family. Thus, the purpose of this research is to examine the dynamics of Tyler's dysfunctional family, concentrating on the psychological effects of living in a mother-headed household and the father's abrupt disappearance.