Obasan Character Analysis

In the novel Obasan , by Joy Kogawa, there are many personal and societal matters that contend with the past and Naomi’s development as a character. With the past, Naomi digs deep into it concerning whereabouts of her grandmother and mother and how her mother passed away, her memories and the affect they had on her, and the racism and concentration camps that surrounding characters experienced. Naomi’s past is not her own, but the past of Japanese Canadians during World War Two.

Throughout the book, Naomi’s Mom is often associated with the term “yasashi”. Naomi states that “She has often spoken of mother’s ‘yasashi kokoro,’ her tender, kind, and thoughtful heart”(Naomi). Before she departed, this was what Naomi knew her mother to be. She was kind soul that took other feelings into consideration. One of those feelings may have been grief. Instead of having her children grieve over the whereabouts of their mother and grandmother, Yasashi and other family member chose to keep these things hidden for what was thought to be “there own good”. As the novel develops, and later on at the end, Naomi finds out that her mother was a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing. Although

She was only years old but as a thirty-six year old woman she began to remember her exact thoughts and feelings when it happened. Naomi explains that “If Stephen come he will see my shame”(Naomi). She says this at the moment when Stephen was looking for her. Old Man Gower gave him a penny to go buy something and keep him away. What seems to be odd and the last thing the reader may have in their mind is what Naomi really fears. She does not want to be seen the way she is, she actually wanted her brother to “rescue” her but she was too ashamed, and she found his hands to be “...frightening and pleasurable”(Naomi). So not only was she ashamed but she actually sought him out rather than him just advancing