OBASAN

Obasan

Obasan

Introduction

This paper aims to discuss the novel Obasan written by Joy Kogawa, a Canadian-Japanese writer. The novel was first published in the year of 1981 by Lester and Orpen Dennys. The novel records the persecution and internment of Canadian citizens of Japanese origin during the period of World War II, from a young child's viewpoint. The book was selected in 2005 as One Book, One Vancouver. The novel is usually required reading as part of Canadian literature in different universities of Canada as part of English courses. In United States of America the novel also figures in courses of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Literature (Kogawa, 1994).

The author Joy Kogawa utilizes throughout the novel powerful imagery of stones, silence and streams. Themes, which are illustrated in the novel, entail identity, forgetting and memory, tolerance and prejudice and injustice vs. justice. In fact, in different poetic themes Joy Kogawa also contemplated these themes as well. In relation to this, the following paper will discuss the significance of silence to the character in the novel, and will explain the effect that silence has on an individual character level within the novel as well as a cultural level in the era that this novel is set.

Plot Summary

The plot of the novel develops when the central character of the novel Naomi visits briefly to her aunty known as Obasan in Japanese after the death of her uncle. This was the visit when she started constructing her painful past and memory and realizes the impact of World War II on her childhood. Naomi received an aid-box from her aunt Emily, which detailed the account of suffering of Japanese-Canadian and the measures taken by Canadian government against its citizens of Japanese origin (Oh, 2007). The novel presents account how the war impacted the childhood of the main character of the novel.

Naomi learns the impact of nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by United States on her mother, eventually traumatizing and shattering all of her beliefs (Grice, 2001). These accounts in fact have completely altered the opinion of Naomi regarding the Pacific War and renew the heartbreak she has suffered during her childhood.

Significance of Silence in Novel Character

The use of strong imagery silence by Joy Kogawa has its own significance in the novel; in fact it will not be inappropriate if silence in the novel character is attributed as the lifeline of novel. The central protagonist of ...