Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thoughts on Obasan
I have selected the novel Obasan by Joy Kogawa for my final AP writing assignment. The novel, which I read over spring break, is a fictional account of the plight of Japanese-Canadians during World War II. The story is the account of the Kato-Nakane clan, a Japanese-Canadian family, and is told from the point of view of Naomi Nakane, a school teacher in Alberta who was a child during the war. I wrote a research paper for AP US History junior year on the Japanese American Internment and I was surprised to learn that the plight of Japanese Canadians was far worse than that of the Japanese Americans. Even after the war ended, Japanese-Canadians were unable to return to British Columbia and were forced to do agricultural labor on farms in the interior of Canada. I really enjoyed reading this book especially since the dialogue was in both English and Japanese, a language I am fluent in. The mix of Japanese and English elements in the novel made the story come to life for me. I particularly liked how Joy Kogawa countered Naomi’s personal narrative with actual historical data and news-clips from the war and after. They provide a contrast between accepted historical facts and the reality of the situation. The notion that facts can be used to distort the truth is a constant theme throughout the novel. My paper will focus on the key theme of the novel, that knowledge alters identity and responsibility. It is the same theme in Adam and Eve and Oedipus and it is a reality that the protagonist Naomi must face. Naomi has silently endured the pain of what she and her family suffered during the war. Now she must face her fears so that she can speak out against the injustice suffered by her people. As her aunt Emily tells her, to remain silent in the face of injustice is to allow Canadians in the future to suffer a similar fate (325).
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Black Lies
Natasha Tretheway’s poem “White Lies” is a story of innocence, childhood, and the struggle for personal identity in America. Tretheway uses the techniques of irony and double meaning in her poem to explore racial identity through the first person narrative of a bi-racial black woman looking back on her childhood.
The speaker of the poem employs a double entendre to explore her struggle as a child uncomfortable with her racial identity. In this poem, the speaker, a woman whose skin is “light-bright, near white” looks back on her childhood as a little bi-racial girl who would pretend to be white in order to fit in with the white children of her community. She uses the double entendre “white lies” to portray both the innocence and nature of her “lies.” As she states at the beginning, “[t]he lies I could tell, when I was growing up…were just white lies.” They are “white lies” because she is deceiving white society into believing she is white but also because the deception is done with a certain innocence. White lies are innocent lies, lies that children tell, fibs that harm no one. The speaker told these “white lies” as a little girl, because she was simply trying to fit in and escape the racial prejudices of white society. She is ashamed of her black heritage and wants to "pass for white" because she is growing up in a society where African Americans are viewed as inferior to white people. Looking back, the speaker believes they are white lies, perhaps because she was young and innocent and unaware of the implications of her actions. However, these lies are anything but harmless.
Tretheway utilizes the play on words “White Lies” to show the irony of the speaker’s situation and actions. Although the speaker of the poem insists that pretending to be white was “just” a white lie, Tretheway uses irony to show that these lies were indeed detrimental to both the speaker and her society. By telling these “innocent” white lies, the speaker is denying her own racial identity. Instead of accepting her bi-racial heritage she is ignoring her black ancestry and preventing herself from developing a mature personal identity. Her lies are also damaging to her society. By denying her black identity, the speaker propagates the institution of racial segregation and prejudice. If bi-racial children are ashamed of their own racial identities, they prevent their respective groups from one day gaining an equal place in white society. The speaker’s mother in the poem represents this mature racial identity which the speaker still lacks.
Tretheway uses irony and double meaning in the final stanza to show the speaker’s continuing inability to accept her bi-racial identity. In the final stanza, the speaker talks about the punishment she faced every time her mother caught her telling white lies. The speaker’s mother washed out her mouth with Ivory Soap to “purify…and cleanse [her] lying tongue.” However, there is both double meaning and irony in the speaker’s acceptance of her punishment. The soap that the mother uses is Ivory, a symbol of the whitest of whites. The speaker swallowed the white suds hoping “they’d work from the inside out,” underscoring her desire to be white. In accepting her punishment, the speaker is trying to cleanse herself in the hopes of becoming white. She does not understand her mother’s insistence to stop the white lies because she is ashamed of the black part of her racial identity. The ultimate irony of the poem is as an adult the speaker is still unable to accept her bi-racial identity because of the white lies she told throughout her childhood.
On the surface, “White Lies” seems to be a simple poem about a little bi-racial girl pretending to be white. A deeper look into the poem reveals many layers of irony and double meaning that touch on the sensitive and complex issue of racial identity within a bi-racial America. (660)
The speaker of the poem employs a double entendre to explore her struggle as a child uncomfortable with her racial identity. In this poem, the speaker, a woman whose skin is “light-bright, near white” looks back on her childhood as a little bi-racial girl who would pretend to be white in order to fit in with the white children of her community. She uses the double entendre “white lies” to portray both the innocence and nature of her “lies.” As she states at the beginning, “[t]he lies I could tell, when I was growing up…were just white lies.” They are “white lies” because she is deceiving white society into believing she is white but also because the deception is done with a certain innocence. White lies are innocent lies, lies that children tell, fibs that harm no one. The speaker told these “white lies” as a little girl, because she was simply trying to fit in and escape the racial prejudices of white society. She is ashamed of her black heritage and wants to "pass for white" because she is growing up in a society where African Americans are viewed as inferior to white people. Looking back, the speaker believes they are white lies, perhaps because she was young and innocent and unaware of the implications of her actions. However, these lies are anything but harmless.
Tretheway utilizes the play on words “White Lies” to show the irony of the speaker’s situation and actions. Although the speaker of the poem insists that pretending to be white was “just” a white lie, Tretheway uses irony to show that these lies were indeed detrimental to both the speaker and her society. By telling these “innocent” white lies, the speaker is denying her own racial identity. Instead of accepting her bi-racial heritage she is ignoring her black ancestry and preventing herself from developing a mature personal identity. Her lies are also damaging to her society. By denying her black identity, the speaker propagates the institution of racial segregation and prejudice. If bi-racial children are ashamed of their own racial identities, they prevent their respective groups from one day gaining an equal place in white society. The speaker’s mother in the poem represents this mature racial identity which the speaker still lacks.
Tretheway uses irony and double meaning in the final stanza to show the speaker’s continuing inability to accept her bi-racial identity. In the final stanza, the speaker talks about the punishment she faced every time her mother caught her telling white lies. The speaker’s mother washed out her mouth with Ivory Soap to “purify…and cleanse [her] lying tongue.” However, there is both double meaning and irony in the speaker’s acceptance of her punishment. The soap that the mother uses is Ivory, a symbol of the whitest of whites. The speaker swallowed the white suds hoping “they’d work from the inside out,” underscoring her desire to be white. In accepting her punishment, the speaker is trying to cleanse herself in the hopes of becoming white. She does not understand her mother’s insistence to stop the white lies because she is ashamed of the black part of her racial identity. The ultimate irony of the poem is as an adult the speaker is still unable to accept her bi-racial identity because of the white lies she told throughout her childhood.
On the surface, “White Lies” seems to be a simple poem about a little bi-racial girl pretending to be white. A deeper look into the poem reveals many layers of irony and double meaning that touch on the sensitive and complex issue of racial identity within a bi-racial America. (660)
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