How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Everyone someday dies," she says eventually. (3.9)
Obasan says this phrase repeatedly after Uncle Sam dies. Even though it's technically true, we know from the beginning that there's something strange about this statement. By the end of the novel it's clear that Obasan repeats the phrase because she's trying to convince herself that it's true.
Quote #2
"Lost," she says occasionally. The word for "lost" also means "dead." (5.13)
The word that Obasan is probably using is nakunaru (無くなる). Just like Naomi later finds two versions of the word love, here one word has two meanings. Nakunaru literarily means "to stop existing," or "to become nonexistent." It's pretty appropriate that she uses this word instead of a word that would only be used for losing objects, since throughout the novel people and memories are compared to the things in Obasan's home.
Quote #3
The bed is strange and pristine, deathly in its untouched splendor. I have never seen his wife. Does she not live here? Is this where they sleep? (11.41)
This scene takes place when Old Man Gower molests Naomi. If we weren't sure before that he wasn't a good guy, his bed being "deathly," is a pretty good sign that something bad is going to happen.
Quote #4
Stephen whispers to me that the man who is going to take Grandma's body up the mountain is called Mr. Draper. He owns a grocery store in New Denver, and when people die he uses his truck for funerals. He drove Grandma's body all the way down from the hospital at New Denver to Slocan. (18.17)
Are we the only ones who were a little creeped out by the same truck being used for groceries and funerals?
Quote #5
The kids in school said that when old Honma-san died in Bayfarm, there was a ball of fire that came out of the house and then moved off up the mountain. (22.11)
The children in Slocan have magical views of the world. Death, unfortunately, is all around them so they try to understand it to magical objects like fireballs.
Quote #6
"It's old people who die, isn't it, Stephen?" "Yes." "Daddy won't die.'' "Of course not." (22.17)
Do you think Stephen believes what he's saying? Or is he just saying it to comfort Naomi?
Quote #7
Hospitals are places where Death visits. But Death comes to the world in many unexpected places. (22.30)
In this quote Naomi is talking about the boys killing the chicken near the school, but is that the only unexpected place that death comes? What other places does death turn up unexpectedly? Is death ever expected?
Quote #8
Perhaps, in the end, it's Penny Barker who really convinces me that Father is dead. I say the words so casually. "My father's dead." It's as if I've known for years, yet when I actually hear myself talking I feel a strange shock as if I am telling a monstrous lie. (32.1)
Why do you think that Naomi feels she's lying when she tells Penny Parker that her dad is dead? What is it about speaking of death that changes its reality?
Quote #9
The last day she spent with her mother and sister in Tokyo, she said they sat on the tatami and talked, remembering their childhood and the days they went chestnut-picking together. They parted with laughter. The following night, Grandma Kato's sister, their mother and her sister's husband died in the B-29 bombings of March 9, 1945. (37.15)
Just when you think that everything is going great, death shows up again. This moment is even more shocking because only a few sentences earlier the family had welcomed the brand-new baby girl into their midst. That's a total about-face in fortune.
Quote #10
My loved ones, rest in your world of stone. Around you flows the underground stream. How bright in the darkness the brooding light. How gentle the colours of rain. (39.14)
These words take place just before the end of the novel, in the final chapter. It's like Naomi is finally saying goodbye to her dead family members. Do you think it was possible for her to have done this earlier in the novel?