Fragmentary Identity and Childrens Survival

1
Fragmentary Identity and Childrens Survival

• In Obasan Part II

2
Outline

• Main Topics
• Fragmentation and Reconstruction
• Childrens Responses to Racism
• Stephen
• Kenji and the other boys
• Naomi
• Reconstruction of the community

3

• Main topics
• Fragmentation ? reconstruction
• childrens responses to racism,
• their influence on Naomis sense of identity,
• Survival of the community (including Rough Lock
  Bill)

4
Fragmentation to Reconstruction

• Beginning of Chap 15
• We are the hammers and chisels in the hands of
  would be sculptors, battering the spirit of the
  sleeping mountain. We are the chips and sand,
  the fragments of fragments that fly like arrows
  from the heart of the rock. We are the silences
  that speak from stone. We are the despised. . .
  
• We are those pioneers who cleared the bush and
  the forest with our hands, the gardeners tending
  and attending the soil with our tenderness, the
  fishermen . . .to flounder in the dust of the
  prairies.
• We are the Issei and the Nisei and the Sansei,
  the Japanese Canadians. We disappear into the
  future undermanding as dew.

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Fragmentation to Reconstruction

• Chap 15
• Relocation the Japanese are sorted out and
  placed in some run-down huts in some ghost towns.
• e.g. Noamis chap 15 118 121-- two-roomed log
  hut at the base of a mountain like a giant
  toadstool when see from afar.
• ? Chap 20 Slocan is greening the yard.

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fragmentation Reconstruction

• 1972
• 1942 train to Slocan

• Chap 7 Emilys packageher last visit and the
  question if Naomi wants to know everything
• Chap 9 starts to remember photo (as a fragment
  of fragments)
• Chap 15 leaving for Slocan
• Chap 16 the trip to and arrival at Slocan,
  Stephens violent reaction
• Chap 17 Nomura-Obasans difficulties, Goldilock?

7
fragmentation Reconstruction

• 1942
• 1943
• (attend school)

• Chap 18 Grandma Nakanes death, wake and
  cremation,
• Chap 19 Uncle back, questions about the father,
  Stephen out of his cast
• Chap 20 back to school, vegetable garden, Rough
  Lock Bill, Kenji and the red insect
• Chap 21 Naomis drowning

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fragmentation Reconstruction

• 1943
• 1945
• 1945 to Alberta Ethridge, and then Granton,
  Barker Farm--

• Chap 22 -- experiences of hospital and deaths
  (chicken, kitten)
• Chap 23 -- bathing
• Chap 24 -- father back
• Chap 25 -- prayer before departure
• Chap 26 -- leaving Slocan

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fragmentation Reconstruction (for next time)

• 1945 to Alberta Ethridge, and then Granton,
  Barker Farm

• Chap 26 -- leaving Slocan (p. 179
• Chap 27 -- Emily's package (last year of the
  present) facts about not having a
  choice, documents
  that show racism (send them back home)
• Chap 28 -- 1945 Lethbridge restaurant--Granton
• Chap 29 -- experience of fly and dust-v.s.
  documents
• Chap 30 -- Granton school p. 200
• Chap 31 -- the swamp a frog with a broken leg
  revelation of father's death

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fragmentation Reconstruction (for next time)

• 1954

• Chap 32 -- start to talk about the mother -- must
  be dead, two government letters about admission,
• Chap 33 -- Emily's first visit in 1954 (Stephen
  leaves for Toronto in 1952)
  "Kodomo no tame" "they
  should be told"
• Chap 34 -- Mr. and Mrs. Barker's visit their
  offensive sympathy "Have you ever been back to
  Japan?
• Chap 35 nightmare
• Chap 36 -- ought to tell "Kodomo no tame"

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fragmentation Reconstruction (for next time)

• 1972

• Chap 37 -- revelation, listening
• Chap 38 -- presence without flesh letters as
  bones, love sent through graves and underground
  roots
• Chap 39 -- going to the coulie
• Chap 40 -- the document

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Childrens Responses

• How do Naomi and Stephen respond differently to
  the departure? (chap 15)
• How are the children in this novel related to
  nature (animals)? How is it different from, say,
  the children in The Found Boat? Or the adults
  in The English Patient?

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Childrens Responses (1) Stephens

• Limp
• Violent to the butterflies (end of chap 16)
• Focus on the music, ignore Numura-obasan (chap
  17)
• Refuses to go to the wake of Grandma Nakane
  (chap 18)
• Off the cast, gallop in the mountains (chaps 19
  -20)

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Childrens Responses (2) Kenjis

• The red insect (chap 20)
• The King bird
• Rough Lock Bill
• his raft and his glasses
• P. 148 orders Noami to jump into the lake.

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Childrens Responses (3) Naomis

• Fails to understand (A riddle end of Chap 12)
  fear Chap 13 (73)
• Sense of guilt Old Man Gower (end of Chap 11)
• Nightmares chaps 6 11 20 22, 35
• As a grown-up the three Oriental women a
  soldier with a beast commanding a couple to work
  
• (end of chap 20)
• Nightmare (chap 22)
• Tense

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Childrens Responses (3) Naomis (2) as a victim

• In Slocan
• Quiet (chap 21)
• Naomi as a victim,
• like a red insect chap 21,p. 140, 142
  King bird
• little yellow chicken vs. white fairies chap 22
• Her guilt over the deaths of little chicken
• ? The death day (chap 22) The kitten in the
  outhouse (end of chap 22)

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Childrens Responses (3) Naomis (3) images of
chicken and birds

• Chicken yellow ? Japanese
• e.g. mothers hands quick as birds (26)
  Stephen, after the casts being removed, hops
  about hsitant as a spring robin (137)
  Nomura-obasan like a plucked bird (125) in
  Granton, the family members cling to the stove
  for warmth and rotate like chickens on a spit
  (195)
• Chicken little worried about the falling of the
  sky

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Childrens Responses (3) Naomis (3) images of
fairy tales

• Snow White end of Chap 11
• Humpty Dumpty end of Chap 15 19 (pp. 115 136)
• Goldilock chap 17,
• The fathers return chap 24

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The Adults adaptation

• Rough Lock Bill Chap 21 slow can go p. 146
• The uncles garden Chap 20
• Local community Chap 23
• stores,
• public bathhouse like a hazy happy dream
  (internal discrimination)
• The return of the father

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For next time

• 1. Different kinds of language and silence
• 2. Images of water, stone and flowers