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Chapter 20
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
The following week, Naomi and Kenji make their way to a lake in the woods, where Kenji finds a log raft and goes paddling in the shallow water. Naomi wants to join him, but Uncle has told her she must not go on rafts. Rough Lock Bill comes upon them and offers to tell them a story. He remarks that all children enjoy stories, regardless of race. Rough Lock Bill, who is a First Nations man, tells the children that several generations ago, a native man was searching for a new home for his tribe, which was suffering from a mysterious affliction. He found this lake and told his people, “If you go slow, you can go.” The name Slocan is a shortening of “Slow-can-go.” Rough Lock adds that he is the last Indigenous person he knows in the area.
Although the Canadian government accuses Japanese Canadians of being disloyal to Canada because they are immigrants, that government is not native to Canada either. The government dictates who can live in Canada and where in the country they can live, and it has used this control to displace Japanese Canadians, despite the fact that white Canadians have no more ancestral claim to Canada than Japanese Canadians. Rough Lock Bill’s mention of the displacement and genocide of First Nations people also highlights that the racism being levelled against Japanese Canadians is part of an colonialist tradition of racism.
Themes
Naomi has thus far been too nervous to talk to Rough Lock Bill, but when Rough Lock teases her, she speaks. Rough Lock tells her that Indigenous people know that “smart people don’t talk too much.” He muses about the King bird and the lack of birdsong in the mountains, then he departs.
Rough Lock Bill affirms that silence can be an effective way to protect oneself from danger. On the other hand, he also suggests that silence can also be a loss: the birds that have stopped singing no longer create beauty in the mountains.
Themes
Kenji pressures Naomi to come on the raft with him, and he pushes them further into the lake than she has ever gone. He ignores her request to go back, and the raft capsizes. Kenji swims to safety, but when Naomi cries that she can’t swim, he abandons her. Naomi begins to drown, until finally Rough Lock Bill appears and pulls her from the water.
As she starts to drown, Naomi faces the real possibility of death for the first time in her young life. She also confronts the danger of trust when Kenji, a friend she trusted, puts her in danger and then abandons her. When Rough Lock Bill steps in to save Naomi, he demonstrates that silence and stoicism do not preclude care.
Themes
