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Chapter 1
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
One month later, Naomi is at the school where she works. Most of the children are white, and they mispronounce her Japanese last name despite her patient instructions on how to pronounce it. One of the students asks her why she isn’t married and how long she has been in the country. Naomi explains that she is Sansei, a third generation Canadian, while her parents are Nisei (second generation) and her grandparents are Issei (first generation immigrants born in Japan).
The casual racism of Naomi’s students highlights how pervasive racism is in Canadian society. They assume she is an immigrant because to white Canadians, Naomi’s Japanese heritage makes her foreign despite her Canadian citizenship. Naomi’s calm response to this racism suggests that she is used to encountering it, and it also demonstrates her general stoicism and passivity.
Themes
A student calls Naomi an old maid, and she accepts that she is one, much like her aunt Emily Kato. Naomi wonders if Aunt Emily has been in love, or if Uncle is in love with his wife Obasan. The lesson is interrupted by a phone call from the hospital, informing Naomi that Uncle has died. She takes time off work and drives slowly back to Granton. She is in no hurry to see Obasan.
Though Naomi’s feelings about Aunt Emily are complicated (and she explores them more deeply over the course of the book), she feels a kinship with Emily over their shared rejection of societal expectations for women. However, Naomi does not explicitly choose to be single as an act of feminist rebellion, and her curiosity about whether Emily has been in love suggests that Naomi is single largely because she is not emotionally prepared to be in love.
Themes
