Unidentified Fish (Symbol)
The unidentified fish the narrator's father serves the family at the end of "A Family Supper" functions in the story as a symbol for uncertainty. After learning that the narrator's mother died from ingesting improperly prepared fugu and that Father's business partner murdered his wife and daughters when he killed himself, the reader is led to question the fish at the dinner table. Ishiguro increases the tension of the moment by describing the father's opening of the steaming pot in terms that lend the action the weight of ritual. When the narrator asks his father what kind of fish he has just put in his mouth, Father answers, "Just fish," injecting more uncertainty into the plot. Kikuko and the narrator eat with their father without protest, however. It is only when the father speaks of Watanabe's murder-suicide as a misguided result of weakened judgment that the tension dissipates, as it seems the father would not resort to the same extreme measures to avoid disgrace. While it seems the fish he served may not have been the same fugu that killed his wife, Ishiguro ends the story before the poison would have had a chance to set in, leaving the reader to make up their own mind about what the unidentified fish might have been.
The Old Woman in the White Kimono (Symbol)
The old woman in the white kimono is a symbol for guilt. The symbol first appears when Kikuko and her brother are chatting by the well in their garden. Kikuko reminds the narrator that when he was younger he claimed to have seen a ghost of an old woman in a white kimono staring at him from the clearing. Kikuko says their mother said the woman was actually a local who'd cut through their property one evening, an explanation the narrator accepts without seeming particularly convinced by it. The image of the old woman in the white kimono arises again when the family is sitting down to dinner. Behind Father's shoulder, the narrator sees the woman in a photo on the wall. His hands go still and he asks who she is, eliciting a stern response from Father, who asks if he really doesn't recognize his own mother. In words that echo what he earlier told Kikuko in the garden, the narrator explains that it was dark, so he couldn't see well. But the eerie coincidence suggests that the narrator saw his own mother's ghost long before she was dead. Knowing his father believes she didn't die because of an accident but because she couldn't live with the pain of her son's estrangement, the narrator looks upon the photo of his mother with the guilt of thinking his decisions may have led to her death.
America (Symbol)
As the country to which the narrator moved, and to which Kikuko may travel after graduation, America is a symbol for the split from tradition. While the details of what the son did to upset his parents are never made clear, from context clues it seems he left Japan to live with his girlfriend, Vicki, in California. The symbol also arises when the narrator's father laments how the ways of doing business have changed for the worse as a result of increasing dependence on foreign business relations in the post-war Japanese economy. As someone who once fought against the U.S. in WWII, the narrator's proud father carries a sense of dishonor and defeat, and is likely humiliated that his son chose to live among his former enemies. The symbolic resonance of America comes up again when Kikuko reveals that she is thinking of hitchhiking through the United States, a decision that will be yet another blow to her father, who has his own dreams of her returning home.
