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
Obasan wakes Naomi late at night to look for something in the attic. Obasan is out of sorts, murmuring “lost” to herself, and Naomi notes that the Japanese word for “lost” also means “dead.” Obasan finds an old ID card that lists Uncle’s name and a number, and she stares at it for a long time before putting it in her pocket and continuing to search. As Naomi looks around, she reckons with the idea that a person’s life can be reduced to relics in an attic.
Uncle’s death forces both Obasan and Naomi to face physical reminders of the past. Obasan is clearly distressed, but she doesn’t communicate to Naomi what she is looking for, just as she doesn’t communicate her own pain to Naomi. Facing relics of the past also causes Naomi to consider the nature of history and legacy and to ponder what makes up a person’s life.
Themes
Naomi finds an old quilt Mother made when Naomi was a child, and though she wants to go back to bed, she feels that she and Obasan are “trapped” in the attic by the memories of lost loved ones. She revisits an old question, wondering why her mother disappeared and recalling her childhood pleas to Obasan to tell her about her mother. Naomi asks Obasan if they can go downstairs, and Obasan agrees without explaining what she was looking for.
To Naomi, the past is a prison—and memory is what locks people inside. This hints at how traumatic her life has been, as well as how many loved ones she has lost. The fact that Naomi believes that she and Obasan are both “trapped” suggests that she sees some of her own struggle reflected in Obasan despite Obasan’s silence on such topics.
Themes
