Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 Summary

Obasan is Joy Kogawa's autobiographical novel of her memories of life as a Japanese Canadian growing up in the 1940's and 1950's. Kogawa's novel explores the horrors of the internment of thousands of Japanese Canadian people during World War II, as well as her emotional catharsis, as she comes to terms with her own personal history.

As the novel opens, it is August of 1972 and a woman named Naomi Nakane is visiting an open field near Granton, Alberta, Canada. Naomi is accompanied by her elderly uncle, Isamu Nakane, with whom she has made the pilgrimage to this spot for eighteen years. Naomi keeps her silence, as her uncle sits cross-legged in the tall grass meditating, as he does during each visit.

A few weeks later, Naomi is involved in a discussion in her classroom with her students about the probability of...