Obasan (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Joy Kogawa
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: 1972, with flashbacks to the 1940’s
- Setting: British Columbia and Alberta, Canada; Nagasaki, Japan
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Domestic realism, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, 1970’s, Family or family life, Mothers, Parents and children, Racism, 1940’s, World War II, Oppression, Canada or Canadians, Asian Americans, Atomic bomb, Japan or Japanese people, Japanese Americans
- Locales: Alberta, Canada, Vancouver, Canada, Nagasaki, Japan
Characters Discussed
Naomi Nakane, the protagonist and the narrator of the prose sections. At the age of thirty-six, she is an unmarried elementary teacher in Cecil, Alberta, and is bored with her dead-end life. She is a quiet, subservient, and evasive adult whose victim-oriented personality has been shaped by childhood abuse of both a sexual and a political nature.
Ayako, “Obasan” of the title, is a timid and victimized “everywoman” who endures abuse and believes that the best way to live is to hide unpleasantness and simply endure. The words “silence” and...
[The entire page is 817 words long]
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