In his article “Literature, Imagination and Human Rights,” Willie Van Peer asserts that the development of human rights is greatly influenced by literature and imagination. Van Peer believes that reading fiction allows us to catch a glimpse of alternative realities and offers new perspectives that compel us to escape from our “encapsulated world,” as he calls it, permitting society to expand the definition of “human” and consider human rights. However, Van Peer’s article, which offers an excellent defense of the societal significance of literature and the arts, ignores the essential role of historical fiction in the development of human rights. Historical fiction, which tempers the imagination of fiction with the reality of history to achieve high levels of political persuasiveness, has played a critical role in the development of human rights, evidenced particularly in Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan. Historical fiction has impacted human rights in a way that purely imaginative fiction cannot.
Historical fiction is a very politically persuasive genre of writing, a characteristic that makes it a particularly effective medium for addressing the exclusiveness of society and furthering the development of human rights. In the decades directly following the end of World War Two, the internment of Japanese-Canadians was an issue largely swept under the rug to be ignored and forgotten. These Japanese-Canadians not only suffered the injustice of being forcefully displaced, or “evacuated,” as the government described the internment, to sub-standard internment camps in interior BC, but received little to no compensation for the loss of their possessions and property. Many were forced to start over again, marginalized and excluded by their own country for a racial and ancestral affiliation with one of the countries that Canada happened to be at war with. The gross injustices and breaches of human rights committed by the Canadian government against its coastal Japanese citizens were largely forgotten until Joy Kogawa published her novel, Obasan.
Obasan is an account of the internment of Japanese-Canadians through the eyes and experiences of a little girl. Obasan draws its political significance and persuasiveness from the fact that it is both imaginative fiction, which allows readers to develop empathy with the characters and relate to the story in their own unique way, but its role in the development of human rights is also due to its foundation in reality. As historical fiction, Obasan allows readers to imagine and empathize with different characters and situations, but is also lent a certain power and persuasiveness because the reader knows that, as history, stories like Naomi’s occurred in reality. The fact that it was historical fiction allowed Obasan to impact readers in a way that no piece of purely imaginative fiction discussed by Van Peer could, forcing Canadians to confront the injustices committed by their government and contributing significantly to the eventual apologies, compensation and recognition offered to the Japanese-Canadians affected by internment. Indeed, due to its unique political persuasiveness and role in addressing the violated rights of Japanese-Canadians, Obasan was read in Parliament as the Canadian government attempted to make amends for the injustices and exclusion that it forced upon Japanese-Canadians during World War Two.
Van Peer is right to argue that literature and imaginative fiction are essential to social change and progress, but he ignores the critical role and unique power of historical fiction in the development of human rights. By blending imagination and reality, historical fiction offers readers an empathetic and personal experience that is particularly impactful because the reader knows that similar stories have occurred to real people in the past. This unique impact makes historical fiction the most effective literary medium through which issues of human rights may be discussed. Van Peer is correct in his assertion that imagination plays a central role in the development of human rights, but does not discuss the aspect of reality conveyed by historical fictions such as Obasan, which grants historical fictions a unique measure of political persuasiveness essential to the development of human rights.
Gavin- thanks for your post. I wonder to what degree Van Peer ignores the impact of Historical Fiction because his article deals specifically with what he refers to as “canonized literature,” or the body of literature that educated society has deemed worthy of in-depth study. Though Obasan is read and studied at many different levels of academia, I feel it doesn’t quite fit in the canon of respected literature, and upon reflection, it struck me that most historical fiction wouldn’t be considered a part of this accepted canon. In Obasan’s case I find this particularly troubling- Kogawa is a prime example of an author who many might choose to ignore because she falls outside of the encapsulated society to which she is writing. Van Peer doesn’t really allow for the outsiders of an encapsulated society to give themselves a voice, only for them to be given one by writers within that society. So why doesn’t historical fiction make the canon? I wonder if that which makes historical fiction especially persuasive- the personal account of a writer or narrator who has experienced firsthand the harm dealt by crimes against their rights as a human, is what makes it canonically unacceptable. Perhaps there is simply too much reality and too little “imagination” in historical fiction for the liking academics like Van Peer and others who define the western canon.