Obasan The setting of the novel, Obasan, changed throughout the book. The narrator, Naomi Nakane, is a teacher in Granton, Alberta in 1972. The book explains from her point of view her life during the Second World War from 1941-1954. The plot of her flashback starts when she is 5 years old in Vancouver, BC. She then moves to Slocan, BC in 1942 due to the evacuation of the Japanese. In 1945, the family settles in Granton, Alberta where they live in a shed on the Barker's farm for six years, at which point they move into their own home.
Vancouver- "We go to the zoo at Stanley Park and sit on the grass by the dome of the outdoor theatre, listening to the symphony concerts in the dusk"� (pg.73) Slocan- "Ghost towns such as Slocan - those old ining settlements, sometimes abandoned, sometimes with a remnant community - were reopened, and row upon row of two-family wooden huts were erected."�
English: This image shows the family tree of Noami...
Naomi
Naomi(pg. 83) Granton- "When we stop finally, it is at the side of a small hut, like a tool shed, smaller even than the one we lived in in Slocan. We are at the far end of a large yard that has a white house in the middle. Between the shed and the farmer's house are some skeletons of farm machinery with awkward metal jaws angled upwards, like the remains of dinosaurs in a prehistoric battleground."� (pg. 211) One of the main characters in Obasan Naomi Nakane. She, who is the narrator of the book, is a dynamic character. In the present, she is a teacher in Granton. For a large portion of the book, she describes herself, family and friends growing up through the war. She doesn't know very clearly what is going on because she is so...