Initial Thoughts On Obasan

Hello All,

The moving piece of historical fiction, Obasan,  by Joy Kogawa, is the work most recently examined by my university english class. The piece invites the reader into the trauma of the B.C. Japanese Internment Camps during the second world war. Joy Kogawa is a surviver herself, but chooses to express the story, previously largely undiscussed in popular discourse,  with fictional characters. The book was a hard hitting, accessible work which was instrumental in the redress movement. A segment from the book was read in parliament when the apology and reimbursement was announced. For historical context, during world war two, the Canadian government moved to remove all those with Japanese descent from the west coast of British Columbia. They suffered work camps, inhumane living conditions, their properties were taken by the government, and in some cases forced deportation. Their families were dispersed and communication was censored. It was a system of institutionalized racism that is not often talked about when speaking about Canadian history.

Obasan is a fragmented story, switching between different moments in memory. Her style is genre bending, mixing history, with fiction, with testimony, and, at times, what comes off as poetry. One of my favourite examples appears as a muddy memory of Nomi, the main character, being sent away from home, and her ruminations on that treatment.

“We are sent to the sending, that we may bring sight. We are the scholarly and the illiterate, the envied and the ugly, the fierce and the docile.”

Her use of this highly symbolic, figurative language interspersed within the story forces the reader to accept the emotional, leaving no room for the question of what these people had to live through. Once you break Obasan into a rhythmic piece, you can discern devices like repetition of theme, which starts as subtle and becomes recurring. I personally loved the relationship between helpless animal and human, which I felt was there to represent the relationship between the Japanese Canadians and the White Canadians. For instance, there is a point when a hen is confronted with new chicks, which she promptly begins to peck to death. A similar situation happens when Stephen discovers a backyard full of butterflies in Slocan. He rampages through them, trying to kill as many as possible, saying that they eat holes in clothes. He kills something beautiful and delicate, that the reader thinks is going to turn into positive imagery. It shows a simplistic form of the difference between reality and perception, representing the difference between what the Japanese Canadians do and what they are perceived as. The continuing image of animal vs. human is excercised throughout the book, and I wonder if that was an internalized sentiment felt by the Japanese Canadians who were interned.

I Continue to analyze this book, and I’m sure I’ll be speaking more about it.

All the best,

Nicola Cox