But the old sores remain Trauma in Joy Kogawa's Obasan (1981)

Abstract

Joy Kogawa's Obasan deals with the complex interplay of silence, language, identity, memory, and trauma in the lives of Japanese Canadians during World War II. This dissertation analyses how silence functions as both a coping mechanism for the characters and explores the impact of traumatic experiences on individuals as well as collective identities within a context of historical erasure and cultural displacement. The intricate relationship between memory and trauma is another focus of this dissertation. The study is based on the works of Dominick La Capra and Cathy Caruth that explain historical trauma and its representation in our selected work and the different mechanisms to cope with traumatic experiences