OBASAN - Opus "I want to break loose from the heavy identity…I am tired of living between deaths and funerals, weighted with decorum, unable to shout or sing or dance, unable to scream or swear, unable to laugh, unable to breathe out loud." (102). In Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Naomi, a young female of Japanese decent is forced to adapt and grow into the Canadian society. She is faced with great pressures because of the events of WWII and the internment of Japanese Canadians. Her childhood is complicated by the absence of her mother and she is driven to grow up under two separate definitions of womanhood. Guida