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
Neither Naomi nor Obasan sleep that night. Obasan sits awake beside Naomi looking at family photos and Uncle’s ID. Naomi wonders if “it was enough” that her family had a few years of happiness before being torn apart. At one time, she thinks, her loved ones were there for each other, but now so many of them are dead and unable to heal or help each other heal. Obasan, who doesn’t realize that Naomi is awake, whispers to Uncle’s photo that she will endure for the sake of the children. Naomi grieves and bids her loved ones rest. Obasan prays, and Naomi leaves the house and walks to the ravine she used to visit with Uncle.
Naomi’s story does not end with closure; rather, it ends with her at the beginning of the path toward closure. She is left with unanswered questions and unresolved feelings about what happened to her family, and she will likely never find a completely happy ending. However, she has allowed herself to grieve her lost loved ones, and when she returns to the ravine, she is not the same person who visited it at the start of the novel.
Themes
The novel closes with an excerpt from a 1946 memorandum to the Parliament of Canada from the Co-Operative Committee on Japanese Canadians. The memorandum passionately argues against the Parliament’s deportation of Japanese Canadians to Japan. Its writers insist that deportation is racist infringement on the rights of Canadian citizens and can no longer be justified by a state of emergency because the war has ended. The memorandum directly compares the deportation orders to Nazism and insists that they contradict the mandates of the United Nations Charter on human rights.
The story of Naomi and her family is a work of fiction, but it reflects the truth of the Japanese Canadian experience during and after World War II. Closing the story with a real-world document contextualizes the novel’s mission to document and publicize the mistreatment of Japanese Canadians.
Themes
