Stillness In Joy Kogawa

In her novel, Joy Kogawa tells a tale of a Japanese family that was unexpectedly torn apart because of the effects of World War Two and the treatment of Japanese Canadians during that time. She depicts the life of a young women, Naomi, who was separated from her mother as a child. Naomi, now an adult, examines her life and starts to question her past, specifically the interminable question of what happened to her mother. The reality of Naomi’s relationship with her mother is that it was nonexistent because it was based on endless wondering, waiting and many unanswered questions, followed by grief.

With her mother being in Japan and without any form of communication between the two, Naomi is faced with a struggling debate to either

She wonders about her mother’s love, waits for her return and tries to understand. The absence of knowledge about her mother’s return or if she was ever to return was a continuous thought for Naomi. “What matters to my five-year-old mind is not the reason that she is required to leave, but the stillness of waiting for her to return” (59). Naomi speaks again of stillness later in the novel. Although this time the stillness represents not waiting for her mother’s return but her lifelong preparation of handling the news of her mother’s death. “What stillness in this pre-dawn hour. The air is cold. In all our life of preparation we are unprepared for this new hour filled with emptiness” (221). Naomi is still in the sense that she never knew when her mother was to return and whether it would be tomorrow, in twenty years or never. She is frozen in the waiting zone and only wishes to be able to be with her mother again. “I close my eyes. Mother. I am listening. Assist me to hear you” (216). Naomi often speaks about her mother this way, as if to speak to her in her own head or in a dream. In a way, this helps Naomi cope and feel closer to her. “My mother hid her love, but hidden in life does she speak through dream? Her tale is a rose with a tangles stem. All this questioning, this clawing at her grave, is an unseemly thing” (205). The endless waiting and wonder eventually cease when Naomi finds out about her mother’s death, and

When Naomi examines her life and interprets the unanswered questions about her mother she never really comes to a conclusion about her true feelings. She still feels uneasy and the absence of her mother affected her more than she leads her other family members to believe. Grief is a huge theme in this novel and Naomi experiences it in a different way because of the unknowing. She never knew what her family thought of the situation because it was never discussed in detail with her and therefore she never knew how to deal with her emotions or even to express her emotions. The haunting silence of her past was later examined in her present only to find that Naomi was often in the dark when it came to knowing about the troubles going on around her, and now being in the light of the situation she realized the true pain of the situation she was