| Summary: | 碩士 === 華梵大學 === 外國語文學系碩士班 === 98 === Joy Kogawa (1935- ) is one of the famous twentieth-century Canadian novelists. One of her works, Obasan, is based on her personal experience during World War Two. Obasan discloses the truth hidden in history and gives the reader another angle to read the Canadian history. Because Obasan holds irreplaceable place in Canadian literature, critics give different opinions from different points of view. Most critics explain Obasan in consideration of racism and nationalism. Only seldom do critics explain Naomi’s mental change from social influence to family influence.
This thesis explains Obasan from the realm of social study to that of personal experience. People have a sense of their status in a society. Because of the sense of the status in a society, they behave differently from one to the other. Most of their behaviors on and attitude towards things happening around them are greatly influenced by their social standards and disciplines. As to social values, they help build an accepted common sense to control people's mind, whereas the power of social mechanism reinforces the society’s power to internalize social attitude and develop it into every individual’s mind. In brief, the constructed lifestyle and habit contributes to the formation of people's social identity.
Naomi is a prisoner locked in the darkness of her own isolation. Her dreams only represent her dilemma within herself; however, it is impossible to solve her problem simply by gaining access to her dreams. Then there is a key that opens the door to the larger world that she is meant to act in. The interplay between selves as a socialized object being acted upon and a subjective agent acting upon others is the root of what makes the human existence both terrible and profound.
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