The story is told from the first-person point of view of the son, but because he reflects on little, the information could as easily be revealed through a very objective third-person narrator. We learn a few facts; we hear dialogue; but the narrator does not tell us his feelings, indicate his reaction to the events of the story, or offer much background information. Indeed, the narrator’s lack of communication—with the other characters as well as with himself and his audience—shapes an important theme of the story: the clash in values between the generation (represented by the father and mother) that governed Japan immediately after Word War II and the succeeding generation (represented by the son and his sister).
The story opens with the narrator explaining that fugu, a fish caught off the shores of Japan and popular in the years after the war, can cause a painful and immediate death because it contains a poison in its sexual glands. It must, therefore, be carefully prepared to be eaten, but one wonders why anyone would dare do so if it is so dangerous. Regardless, the narrator’s mother died from eating this fish, prepared by a friend, two years before the son returns on a visit to Japan after living in California for a number of years. He had not known about this, because while he was abroad, his “relationship with [his] parents had become rather strained.”
Conversation between father and son is difficult, but eventually the father tells his son that his business partner, Watanabe, killed himself when the business collapsed, for “he did not wish to live with the disgrace.” The son’s response, “I see,” is typical of the lack of substantial communication in this family. The father admires his friend’s action, calling him “a fine man. A man of principle.” Now in retirement, he himself is uncertain of his plans for the future, but he is beginning to think there is more to life than work and hopes his son has come back to Japan to stay. “I for one am prepared to forget the past,” he tells his...