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
In a short prologue, the narrator (Naomi Nakane) muses on her hatred and fear of the “silence that cannot speak.” She believes in a “hidden voice” that has the power to free, though she doesn’t specify what needs to be freed. She doesn’t know how to find that hidden voice.
Naomi recognizes the power of silence as a form of violence and oppression, and she knows that there is a “hidden voice” somewhere that could challenge that silence. However, her description itself is full of silences in its lack of specifics. This obscures whether Naomi understands the true nature of silence and speech, as well as what those true natures might be.
Themes
