Obasan Chapter 6 Summary

In chapter 6 of Obasan, a novel written by Joy Kogawa, Naomi, the protagonist had a dream showing her inner thoughts and emotions. In her dream sequence, she sees herself and another man encounter another man and woman. The other man, a british Martinet is toiling away cutting trees for a reason unknown while the other woman, a old lady is walking up a wooded hill. When the British man looks at Naomi she and her man join in and start cutting the tree as well. Soon after Naomi sees a lion dog that yawns revealing its true nature as a robot lion dog.At this point, Naomi’s dream alters and she sees her uncle making a cerimonial bow with a red rose in his mouth later then doing a ritual flower dance for the dead. Behind her uncle Naomi sees a figure

straining the speak but just before she distinguishes the person, Naomi is awakened and receives an orange package from Aunt Emily.
In chapter 6 of Obasan, Naomi has a dream showing her thoughts about the things that happened to her and the rest of the japanese interned in B.C.

The dream showed her true thoughts about the events in a way that was very cryptic. Similarly in a game called Far Cry 3 the main protagonist, Jason, has several dreams/hallucinations where he saw strange things such as talking dogs and endless forests. Like Naomi, Jason has suppressed many things in his life but the dream showed the players and Jason what he really needed to do. Jason went through a similar struggle Naomi did as he did not know where he really belonged displayed when she said “ And so, Stephen tell me, am I. ‘are we?’ I ask Father. ‘no,’ Father says. ‘we’re Canadian.’ (84)“ Jason was vacationing at an island somewhere in the pacific with his group of friends when they were captured by pirates. To rescue them, Jason had to engross himself in the culture and the customs of the native people. He received tribal tattoos and followed the footsteps of a warrior from their culture. After spending so much time with the natives of the island, Jason did not know whether he belonged there or back home in America where he came from. He lived in between both cultures and for a moment tried to forget that he was really not a native. In the end of the game Jason had a choice to either stay with the island and forget about his friends or rescue his friends and leave the island. This choice is the same choice Naomi and many

other Japanese had after the war of either staying in the place where they became familiar with or leaving to a home that is no longer home.
In the dream sequence of chapter 6 many strange events were shown and a vast amount of imagery was used to show hidden meanings.

Joy Kogawa’s used colourful language and seemingly random characters such as the lion dog to portray the message in a dreamlike hazy way. The theme of control is shown through the British man in her dream. The british man wearing a soldier's uniform represents the control that the Canadian government forced on to the Japanese Canadians. The British man is described as: “ taller, thinner and precise---a British martinet. It is evident that he is in command (34).” The british man is an euphemism for the oppression that the western world put on the Japanese Canadians proved because the man is wearing an army uniform representing the government. Later, Naomi and the other man work helping the british man prune the tree. Naomi thinks that “his glance is a raised baton … the endlessness of labor has entered our limbs (34),” showing that Naomi views the british man as a enforcer or slaver, making her work with just a glance. Many Japanese Canadians were taken from their families and forced to work in labour camps where they were monitored and guarded by people similar to the British man. Another way control was portrayed was though the lion dog, the lion and dog are both loyal and powerful creatures that is controlled by the British man. The lion dog could represent the Japanese people being loyal but still under control by the western world. Through

these seemingly random happenings, Joy Kogawa has shown that Naomi still remembers the control that was forced upon her and her people. Pablo Coelho once said “ If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.” Naomi is still scarred from the fear and total control of her life she faced as a child, dreaming about it many years later.