nothing about me that my mother does not know, nothing that is not safe to tell her” (Obasan 72). Unfortunately, Naomi was molestated by a man known to her as Mr. Gower when she was at the tender young age of four. “He lifts me up saying that my knee has a scratch on it and he will fix it for me. I know this is a lie. The scratch is hardly visible and does not hurt. Is it the lie that first introduces me to the darkness? The room is dark, the blind drawn almost to the bottom. I am unfamiliar with such darkness. The bed is strange and pristine, deathly in its untouched splendor.” (Obasan 75)Mr. Gower, a fat and balding man, is at fault when considering the sources for Naomi’s silence. The hideous experience with Mr. Gower caused Naomi to feel that it was her fault that he did it to her, and to believe that “If I tell my mother about Mr. Gower, the alarm will send a tremor through our bodies and I will be torn from her”(Obasan 77). Naomi keeps Mr. Gower a secret and thus begins Naomi’s quiet life of non-communicative silence. Before Naomi can tell her mother and make her wrongs right, her mother leaves. Naomi did not know why, it is Japanese custom not to question or show sorrow when parting others, and she would not find out until much later in her adult life. When Naomi’s mother left, it was to return to Japan. Along with Naomi’s grandmother Kato, her mother was going to return to take care of Naomi’s great-grandmother. Sometime after arriving, WWII broke out and the United States began their bombing of Japan. The mother and grandmother fled Tokyo for Nagasaki just before the Atomic Bomb was dropped on the city. Naomi’s mother was caught in the blast of the bomb and was cruelly disfigured. Half of the flesh on her face was blown away leaving terrible scars. From the moment her bandages were removed in the Japanese hospital, Naomi’s mother wore a c...
