Eating Together

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1986

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Trout

The Mandarin word for “fish” is yu––a homophone for, or word that sounds the same as, the word that means wealth. Because of its importance to the nurturing comfort created by the lunch that brings the family together at the hearth, the trout thus symbolizes abundance. The speaker and their family aren’t conspicuously wealthy, but they are not materially deprived. The lunch is simple, but it is wholesome and flavorful: The family prepares it with “slivers of ginger, / two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil” (Lines 2-3). The seasonings enrich the meal’s centerpiece, allowing the family to enjoy the familiarity of Chinese cuisine. The lunch is also plentiful enough to be shared with the speaker’s siblings, their mother, and the memories of their dead father. Through the trout, the speaker experiences the richness of his family.

However, the trout also symbolizes death. The fish was once a living creature. Someone killed it, making it fit for human consumption. When the speaker and their family eat the trout, the poem connects the trout’s death to the death of the speaker’s father, as befits Lee’s belief that death is always a part of life.

Fish Head Meat

The speaker describes the head of the fish as “the sweetest meat” (Line 6), the most delectable part. This most desirable part of the meal is due to the most respected family member; now that the speaker’s father has died, that person is his mother. Thus, the head symbolizes preeminence—the reverence due to top of the hierarchy. In traditional Chinese family dynamics, that position is reserved for elders, who are regarded as above their offspring.

The speaker’s mother and father thus get the most regard because they are parents—a generation removed from the young people who happily treat them with awe. However, this fact carries bittersweetness: The siblings’ grandparents have not been able to come to the US alongside the family, so there are only two generations of family members to form this hierarchical dynamic. Moreover, rather than simply deriving their position from age, the mother and father have earned their status and the “sweet” rewards that come with it. They handle the fish head “deftly” (Line 8), implying masterly; they deserve obeisance due to their control and expertise. The mother and father aren’t subpar or corrupt authorities. The speaker legitimizes his parents’ power by affixing it to the fish head. The tangible part provides material proof that the parents deserve their exalted status.

Chinese Heritage

Lee has expressed mixed feelings about the label of Chinese American poet, comparing himself to one of his peers, Philip Levine—a poet who happens to be American and Jewish, but who is not introduced as a Jewish American poet. Lee worries that identity-based labels such as the one he is often given are less a “term of empowerment” and more a fetishizing of “minority poets” (Breaking the Alabaster Jar, p. 62).

The poem shows this double-edged sword of identity. The lunch meal is clearly using a recipe from Chinese cuisine—the herbs, steam as the cooking method, and the accompanying rice all point to this being traditional comfort food. Moreover, the trout’s homophonic name symbolizes abundance in Mandarin, linking the dish to the speaker’s Chinese heritage. There is power and nourishment in this lunch. However, the poem does not explicitly identify the family’s racial identity or the provenance of the recipe they share, refusing to tie the people in the poem to a single label. Their experience of coming together in grief is universal and human—it does not need to be attenuated by being defined by a specific geographic or cultural marker.