Conflict & Change in Obasan by Joy Kogawa

Naomi was separated from her parents at the offshoot of the War (m other) and early in the detention period (father). She was non able to understand why her parents did not contact her. The thirdly serious conflict was amid Naomi and her aunt (Aya Obasan) and Uncle, with whom she lived as a child (during the detention period and later in Alberta. The record of this conflict was the refusal of Aya Obasan and Uncle to divulge information to her that she was certain that they possessed (although she was not sure what the nature of the information might be).

Kogawa fixed deuce important themes in Obasan. The first important theme was that the volume Canadian population segment and the Canadian government acted in discriminatory, unfair, and unlawful ways toward Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. The second important theme was that Naomi could not attain self-realization and become a self-assured, secure person because she could not accept her abandonment by her parents.

Conflict between Naomi and the wide Canadian population was presented in several ways. First, the continual monitoring by and the suspicion exhibited by Canadian government personnel during the detention period. Second the rejection and, at times, the taunting of Naomi and other Japanese-Canadian children by white Canadian children in Alberta schools. Third, as an adult, the conflict was manifested as the resistance that Naomi experienced to broad acceptance as a Canadian

by white adults and even by white children in her classrooms (Naomi was a school teacher). Kogawa employ these conflicts very effectively to develop the theme of discriminatory behavior toward Canadian citizens of Japanese heritage.

Kogawa used these conflicts to develop the change in Naomi from being a more or less bewildered child to becoming an adult who was dissatisfied with enjoy to the failure of the wider Canadian society to recognize and to acknowledge her and other Japanese-Canadians as Canadian citizens to the fullest extent. The disclosure at the end of Obasan of Canadian government documents that validated the existence of the discriminatory behavior offered fine comfort because, at that time, no official, public recognition had been made.

The conflicts between (a) Naomi and her silent parents and (b) Naomi and Aya Obasan and Uncle were related. Naomi's mother had been visiting Japan when the War started, and was unable to return to Canada. Later, her mother was horribly injured and disfigured in the atomic bomb attack by the Americans on Nagasaki. It was her mother's indirect request that Naomi should not be traumatised as a child by this knowledge. Early in the detention period, Naomi's father developed terbium
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