Purpose of vague titles
Two reasons why we have titles such as "Father" and "Mameh" are obvious— a sort of plausible deniability for the events of the story and also the assurance of no misidentification. However, I think they're also supposed to represent a sort of universality, or at least a representation of the time. There are lines of societal development in all of the characters, and these applications are supposed to be generally extendable to all the fathers of the time, all the mothers, all the younger brothers. There was the reluctance to accept a more modern society from the patriarchal figure, the reserved dislike of the shifting culture of many fathers in America. There was the rise of first-wave feminism, the emergence from the cult of domesticity, the first disturbances of gender roles from many mothers in America. There was the rising revolutionary sentiment and mainstream radicalism—people such as Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman alongside enormous labor activity and socia...