Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Obasan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Identity, and Citizenship
History and Memory
Speech vs. Silence
Selflessness and Decorum
Summary
Analysis
The story moves to September 1941, when Naomi is five years old. Grandma Kato and Mother leave for Japan to visit Naomi’s ill great-grandmother, and Naomi wonders why her great-grandmother’s need for Mother is more important than Naomi’s own need for her. In Mother’s absence, Obasan moves in with the family.
Naomi needs her mother, but she can’t articulate that without prioritizing herself over her great-grandmother, which the culture of self-sacrifice has taught Naomi never to do. As such, Naomi loses her mother, and Obasan’s importance in Naomi’s life solidifies as Obasan becomes a surrogate mother to her.
Themes
One night, Naomi wakes to discover that all the lights are out, as the neighborhood is in a deliberate blackout. She goes to the living room, where Old Man Gower is promising Father that he will look after the family’s property. Naomi thinks of the air raid drills that her brother Stephen has told her he does at school, and of the racist violence he faces from his classmates. After one of Stephen’s classmates told him that he and the other “Japs” will be sent away, the siblings’ father assured Naomi that they were Canadian. Stephen has told Naomi that they are caught in a “riddle,” as “both the enemy and not the enemy.”
Town-wide blackouts were a safety measure taken during World War II to hide areas from planes that might carry bombs. The blackout signifies that the war is making itself known in Canada, and along with it comes an increase of anti-Japanese prejudice. Stephen recognizes that the dual identities of Japanese Canadians make them open to suspicion, as their Japanese heritage makes them “the enemy” despite their loyalty to Canada.
Themes
