1. Fragmentary Identity and Children’s Survival In Obasan Part II

2. Outline w Main Topics w Fragmentation and Reconstruction w Children’s Responses to Racism: Stephen; Kenji and the other boys; Naomi; w Reconstruction of the community

3. w Main topics: Fragmentation  reconstruction children’s responses to racism, their influence on Naomi’s sense of identity, Survival of the community (including Rough Lock Bill)

4. Fragmentation to Reconstruction w 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.

5. Fragmentation to Reconstruction w Chap 15 w Relocation – the Japanese are sorted out and placed in some run-down huts in some ghost towns. e.g. Noami’s – 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.

6. fragmentation & Reconstruction w 1972 | w 1942 train to Slocan  Chap 7: Emily’s package—her 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, Stephen’s violent reaction  Chap 17: Nomura-Obasan’s difficulties, Goldilock?

7. fragmentation & Reconstruction w 1942 | w 1943 (attend school)  Chap 18: Grandma Nakane’s 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: Naomi’s drowning

8. fragmentation & Reconstruction w 1943 | w 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

9. 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

10. fragmentation & Reconstruction (for next time) w 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"

11. fragmentation & Reconstruction (for next time) w 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

12. Children’s Responses w How do Naomi and Stephen respond differently to the departure? (chap 15) w 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?

13. Children’s Responses (1): Stephen’s w Limp; w Violent to the butterflies (end of chap 16); w Focus on the music, ignore Numura-obasan (chap 17); w Refuses to go to the wake of Grandma Nakane; (chap 18) w Off the cast, gallop in the mountains (chaps 19 -20)

14. Children’s Responses (2): Kenji’s w The red insect; (chap 20) w The King bird; w Rough Lock Bill; w his raft and his glasses w P. 148: orders Noami to jump into the lake.

15. Children’s Responses (3): Naomi’s  Fails to understand (A riddle: end of Chap 12); fear Chap 13 (73); w Sense of guilt; Old Man Gower (end of Chap 11) w 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) w “Tense”

16. Children’s Responses (3): Naomi’s (2): as a victim In Slocan: w 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 w Her guilt over the deaths of little chicken;  The death day (chap 22); The kitten in the outhouse (end of chap 22)

17. Children’s Responses (3): Naomi’s (3): images of chicken and birds w Chicken yellow  Japanese: e.g. mother’s hands “quick as birds” (26); Stephen, after the cast’s 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) w Chicken little –worried about the falling of the sky

18. Children’s Responses (3): Naomi’s (3): images of fairy tales w Snow White: end of Chap 11 w Humpty Dumpty end of Chap 15; 19 (pp. 115; 136)  Goldilock chap 17, w The father’s return chap 24

19. The Adults’ adaptation w Rough Lock Bill Chap 21 slow can go p. 146 w The uncle’s garden Chap 20 w Local community Chap 23: stores, public bathhouse “like a hazy happy dream” (internal discrimination) w The return of the father

20. For next time  1. Different kinds of language and silence;  2. Images of water, stone and flowers