#8221;(Obasan 26). Aunt Emily believes that the only way to live at peace in the present, you must live in peace with your past. Emily gets this across to Naomi when she goes on a rant and says “You have to remember. You are your history. If you cut any of it off you’re an amputee. Don’t deny the past. Remember everything. If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. Look at you, Naomi, shuffling back and forth between Cecil and Granton, unable to go or stay in the world with even a semblance of grace or ease”(Obasan 60).Unfortunately, for the quiet Naomi, Emily also believes that in order to be at peace with your past you must stand up and yell at those at fault for reconciliation. Emily shows that her beliefs remain contingent upon facts, and that everyone needs to be on the same page before healing can begin. “’It matters to get the facts straight…Reconciliation can’t begin without mutual recognition of the facts,’ she said. ‘Facts?’ [said Naomi] ‘Yes, facts. What’s right is right. What’s wrong is wrong. Health starts somewhere.’” (Obasan 219)Naomi cannot comprehend the angle with which her aunt approaches life.While Naomi may believe reconciliation is in order, she is only discouraged when she looks to see where speech has placed her Aunt Emily. “If Aunt Emily with her billions of letters and articles and speeches, her tears and her rage, her friends and her committees—if all that couldn’t bring contentment, what was the point” (Obasan 50). Naomi becomes more and more frustrated when she sees the futile efforts of her Aunt. Albeit, she does believe that what her Aunt is doing is important for her Aunt, she cannot see the use if the results of such hard laborious tasks go for naught.“All of Aunt Emily’s words, all her papers, the telegrams and petitions, a...
