Even after the war ends, the momentum of discrimination and the after effects of war do not cease. Suffering does not simply disappear, and neither does the pervading attitudes of the past. When Naomi relocates to Granton, she works as a sugar beet picker, consciously aware of her appearance and humiliation of her situation. She is no longer a child, and her experiences at Slocan and sudden departure from her father reveal the cruel nature of all people. She “slash out the Canada thistle, Dandelions, crabgrass, and other nonbeet plants”(234), metaphorically attacking her rage against the evils of society. She begins to “mind everything… the flies... growing ugly”(233-235). Her internal anger is revealed further by a news article that claim the Japanese are “Grinning and happy”(236), which inspires her silent criticism towards the established institutions of power, ignorance, and manipulation that continue to
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She comes to the conclusion that “Greed, selfishness, and hatred remain as constant as the human condition”(283), and doubts humans’ efforts to change will truly “extricate ourselves from out foolish ways?”(283). However, it is this resignation that only furthers stagnancy. As she continues to grow up, Naomi does not change in her mentality, thus leaving her behind emotionally. Her experience at the beet farm echoes the pain and suffering of her mother due to mutilation and injury from a bomb explosion. Her mother too finds herself ugly, her body changed and worn away by war. Both are silent in their pain, as Naomi trudges on with life, and her mother wishes that Naomi and her brother “be spared the truth”(283) of her shame. Naomi, upon learning of the nature of her mother’s death, realizes that in her silence and her mother’s silence, their “wordlessness was [their] mutual destruction”(291). Their resistance against change contrasts with Stephen’s escape from
She comes to the conclusion that “Greed, selfishness, and hatred remain as constant as the human condition”(283), and doubts humans’ efforts to change will truly “extricate ourselves from out foolish ways?”(283). However, it is this resignation that only furthers stagnancy. As she continues to grow up, Naomi does not change in her mentality, thus leaving her behind emotionally. Her experience at the beet farm echoes the pain and suffering of her mother due to mutilation and injury from a bomb explosion. Her mother too finds herself ugly, her body changed and worn away by war. Both are silent in their pain, as Naomi trudges on with life, and her mother wishes that Naomi and her brother “be spared the truth”(283) of her shame. Naomi, upon learning of the nature of her mother’s death, realizes that in her silence and her mother’s silence, their “wordlessness was [their] mutual destruction”(291). Their resistance against change contrasts with Stephen’s escape from