Obasan, Obāchan: Japanese Canadian History, Memory, and the Noisy Silences of Joy Kogawa and Hiromi Goto

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to discuss the contrast between voice and silence, as well as the ways postcolonial issues are present in the autobiographical novels Obasan, by Joy Kogawa, and Chorus of Mushrooms, by Hiromi Goto, using family relations as the central theme of my investigation. Both novels deal with Japanese Canadian families, one being a second generation (Issei) family, in Joy Kogawa's novel, and the other a third generation (Sansei) family, in Hiromi Goto's novel. In Obasan, Naomi, the central character, is a thirty- five year old woman who, as a consequence of her Uncle s death, begins a journey in search of her past and of her family. Naomi s memories are related to the Second World War and to the Japanese Internment in Canada. Kogawa´s book is a mixture of personal narrative, official letters, and dreams. In Chorus of Mushrooms, Murasaki, the central character, tells her lover about her memories as a child in Alberta, where she lived with her parents and grandmother in a mushroom farm. The stories are divided between three voices: the adult Murasaki´s voice, Murasaki´s voice in the past, and the voice of Naoe, her grandmother. There are stories within other stories, in a mixture of oral tradition, novel and autobiography. Hiromi Goto deals with hybridism and assimilation, and tries to establish bridges between the Japanese and the Canadian cultures through elements that go from language to food. The book is also a gathering of recollections. The main focus of the novel is the relationship between three women, three generations of the Tonkatsu family: Naoe, Keiko and Murasaki. Both novels have in common strong women, the main difference being the ways of communication used to convey this strength. Obasan and Chorus of Mushrooms are about how to negotiate a place in-between cultures, about how to make amendments with yourself and with your past.