Obasan Jkig

Fairy tales in Obasan
Throughout the novel Obasan, fairy tales elicit Naomi’s thoughts and views on how society treats her. The fairy tales in Obasan are imagery because when you read this figurative language in the fairy tale, you make mental images to understand them, which is imagery. The fairy tales also express Naomi’s sense of displacement and fragmentation in society. Some of the fairy tales used were Momotaro, Snow White, and Humpty Dumpty.

In chapter ten Naomi remembers as a child always asking for her mother to tell her the bedtime story about Momotaro. “The tale of Momotaro is a peach was found in a mountain stream by a childless couple, and when they took the peach home and opened it, Momotaro was born. Momotaro was born a perfectly formed human boy. The couple raised him as their own, and he grew up dutiful and brave.” The significance of the myth Momotaro is that it elicits the cultural integration between the Canadians and Japanese...