Summary Of Obasan By Joy Kogawa

In Obasan by Joy Kogawa, the relationship between Naomi and her older brother Stephen is not the closest; it has been eight years since they last saw each other. Obasan explores how hiding truths causes familial relationships to drift apart. Stephen and Naomi were not particularly close to their mother. She went to Japan before World War II to care for her sick mother, and they never heard from their mother since. Stephen and Naomi would ask Aunt Emily and Ayako Obasan about their mother’s fate, but they would not answer. Eventually, they moved on and stopped asking; however, it caused them to drift apart. Because Stephen was “unable to bear the density of [Ayako Obasan's] inner retreat and the rebuke he felt in her silence.” (17). For Stephen,