On Parents and Children

            In the short stories, A Doll House and “A Family Supper,” by writers Henrik Ibsen and Kazou Ishiguro respectively, the theme of family is heavily displayed. But more specifically, the theme of the parent-child relationship is shown. Both writers uniquely exhibit the relationship, which seemed strained, from different perspectives: people putting something at stake for their children and a son returning home to his father. Through various views , the writers expose the reader to various different relationships while staying under the umbrella of family.

            In “A Family Supper,” Ishiguro shows us the uncomfortable relationship between the narrator and his, World War II veteran, father when the two come together after years of separation. In the story, itself, the narrator admitted to having a strained relationship with his parents. He says, “[…] My relationship with my parents had become somewhat strained around that period,” (Ishiguro 1). A major example of the distance they had between them was the fact that the narrator found out that his mother died until years after her death. “At the time of my mother's death, I was living in California… consequently I did not learn of the circumstances surrounding her death until I returned to Tokyo two years later,” (Ishiguro 1). This shows how much the narrator and his parents relationship has deteriorated over the years.

            It is also interesting how the narrator describes his father. The diction he uses captures the image of a stern and domineering elder. For example, he outlined his father as “a formidable-looking man with a large stony jaw and furious black eyebrows,” (Ishiguro 1). From this description alone it has negative connotation to it. The narrator’s words make his father seem cold and unforgiving. Another example would be how he described his father’s face as “stony and forbidding in the half-light,” (Ishiguro 4). What is also interesting is the interactions between the narrator, his sister, Kikuko, and their father. For example, the moments punctuated by long pauses (Ishiguro 1) and how the father looked at Kikuko coldly after she joked about him cooking (Ishiguro 3) are two ways that show the family’s uneasy relationship.

            In Ibsen’s A Doll House, there are multiple examples of the relationship between parents and children. For example, the relationship between Kristine Linde and her younger brothers. Granted, Kristine is not their parent, but their older sibling, but she end up having to become their parental figure. Kristine’s mother was so ill to where she was bedridden. The text does not mention her father, also. As she says here that her “mother was still alive, but bedridden and helpless—and I had my two younger brothers to look after,” (Ibsen 1454). Kristine took responsibility and sacrificed her happiness to what needed to be done when taking care of her brothers. She had to marry, mainly, for money. This showed the love and dedication she had to her family.

            Another example from Ibsen would be the relationship between Nora, her parents, and Anne-Marie, her nurse. Nora’s mother is not mentioned in the play, but her father most defiantly is. It is revealed by Krogstad that Nora forged her dying father’s signature for a loan from the bank. This is one of the main parts of the play: the secret Nora has kept from her husband, Torvald, for many years. There has been two instances where Nora is compared to her father: by Torvald and Kristine. Torvald uses the comparison to describe Nora and the way she spends money. These are his words, “You’re an odd little one. Exactly the way your father was. You’re never at a loss for scaring up money; but the moment you have it, it runs right out through your fingers; you never know what you’ve done with it,” (Ibsen 1450).

            Pursuing this further, Nora has a long relationship with her children’s nurse, Anne-Marie. Not only was she (Annie-Marie) Nora’s nurse when she was young, but she is also the nurse of Nora’s children (Bob, Ivar, and Emmy). Much like Kristine, Anne-Marie had to make parental related sacrifice that had money involved. Nora askes Anne-Marie, “Wait, tell me, Anne-Marie—I’ve wondered so often—how could you ever have the heart to give your child over to strangers?” (Ibsen 1468). To which Anne-Marie responds:

But I had to, you know, to become little Nora’s nurse… When I could get such a good place? A girl who’s poor and who’s gotten in trouble is glad enough for that. Because that slippery fish, he didn’t do a thing for me, you know. (Ibsen 1468)

            This shows the sacrifice Anne-Marie made; to give away her child in order to get the job of taking care of Nora. This also makes Anne-Marie the mother figure of Nora. During this conversation, Nora even refers to Anne-Marie as her mother. “You old Anne-Marie, you were a good mother for me when I was little,” (Ibsen 1468). And Anne-Marie goes on to say, “Poor little Nora, with no other mother but me,” (Ibsen 1468).

            The relationship of the Helmers, Nora and Torvald, and their children are shown as well. Nora’s only interaction with her own children is near the beginning of the play. She gets excited when they come in from playing outside. Her positive attitude seems almost superficial as she plays with them and even tells Anne-Marie that she will undress them herself. Afterwards, when the children want to be with her, she tells Anne-Marie that she “can’t be together with them as much as she was,” (1468). This was after Krogstad threatened to tell everyone about her secret. She wanted to keep herself separated from them, so she would not morally corrupt them. In the play, Torvald is never seen with the children. He speaks of them of a few times, but nothing major. To the reader this shows great distance between Torvald and his children.

            There is a reoccurring theme inside of the parent-child theme in this play (a sub-theme if you will), which the offspring is suffering for what the parents has done. The main example is between Dr. Rank and his father. Rank contracted a disease that was called tuberculous of the spine from his father. Rank says his spine is “serving time for his father’s gay army days,” (Ibsen 1474). This sub-theme also shows up with the relationship between Krogstad and his children. Krogstad is actually trying to prevent anything negative to fall upon his children, even though he was involved with some dirty, or cynical, deeds in the past. It seems as if he is trying to avoid having his children become Dr. Rank.

            The sub-theme is visible when Torvald is talking to Nora about Krogstad. Torvald says, “Almost everyone who goes bad early in life has a mother who’s a chronic liar,” (Ibsen 1466). He goes on to say, “it’s usually the mother’s influence that’s but the father’s works in the same way of course,” (Ibsen 1467). When he says that Krogstad was poisoning his children, it strikes a nerve in Nora. She refuse to believe that she is poisoning her own children by her secret. When Rank says, “[…] to suffer this way for somebody else’s sins. Is there any justice in that? And in every single family, in some way or another, this inevitable retribution of nature goes on—,” (Ibsen 1473) Nora interrupts Rank, because how familiar it sounds due to her internal problem of her secret and with Krogstad threatening to go public with it.

In closing, Ibsen and Ishiguro show the reader different spectrums of the relationships between parents and children. Ibsen shows us a wide spectrum of relationships, even though some are not exactly blood relation. Meanwhile, Ishiguro keeps the scope narrow focus on one family without branching off into other’s relationships. These two writers, both, was able to effectively capture the relations of parents and children.