Animals play an important role in the novels "Obasan" by Joy Kogawa and "The Wars" by Timothy Findley, although that they mean two very different things to them. the characters in each text. In "Obasan", animal imagery is used to demonize Japanese Canadians by comparing the helplessness and oppression they experience at the hands of the Canadian government to the treatment of animals. Yet in “The Wars,” protagonist Robert Ross finds the greatest kinship with animals and prefers them to the company of other humans. In this essay, I will explore how each text uses animals and animal imagery, as they play a significant role in the demonization of Japanese Canadians and their national identity, as well as the role they play in the development of Robert's identity and morality during the war. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original Essay As a child, Naomi, the protagonist of “Obasan,” remembers her parents taking care of “yellow, soft cotton chicks” , placing them in a chicken coop where they look more like “yellow balls” than chickens (Obasan, 83). Immediately after placing the chicks in their cage without warning, a white hen pecks at a chick with the intention of killing it, "[a]gain and again the hen's beak strikes and the chick lies on its side on the ground , his neck twisted back, his wings, his fingers outstretched” (Obasan, 83). The chicks with their yellow fur represent Japanese Canadians, having the stereotypical yellow skin of East Asians, with the white hen representing the Canadian government. Pecking the chicks to death symbolizes the brutal acts committed by the government against Japanese Canadians, such as their forced internment and the theft of their homes and possessions, while also representing the white Canadian's wish to eradicate all Japanese Canadians. outside the country. The chicken is an animal that comes up frequently throughout the novel. For Naomi, being a hen – more specifically a chick – means being yellow, downtrodden and weak. Essentially, being Japanese. As a young girl, she recognizes that to be yellow is to be a chicken, and she rejects her yellow (Obasan, 217). She subconsciously wants to reject her Japanese ethnicity, if it means that she and her family will no longer be subject to this discrimination that is specific to Japanese Canadians, but not to German Canadians. Symbolically, Sho and Danny, two helpless and disadvantaged Japanese Canadian boys, kill a chicken and are adamant that they must "make her suffer", by choking and decapitating the chicken's head (Obasan, 222). Another example of chicken imagery is when Naomi refers to the house that the government forces her family to live in, a small, disgusting house located in the isolated town of Slocan, Alberta. She describes the house as a "chicken coop", due to its poor insulation against cold and heat, and the numerous flies and mosquitoes coming from the cows in a nearby barn (Obasan, 279). In winter, the only warm place is by the coal stove where the rest of Naomi's family "turns like chickens on a spit" (Obasan, 279). The presence of flies and mosquitoes around their chicken coop attests to the filthy conditions in which Japanese Canadians were forced to live, in displaced homes and in internment camps. it also reinforces the demonization of Japanese Canadians by the Canadian government, by not?