Recovering Wholeness, Recovering Vulgar Everydayness: A Reading of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan through Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time

Abstract

This article applies Martin Heidegger’s concepts in Being and Time to the reading of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan. These two texts establish the hierarchical relation between the authentic and inauthentic terrains of being by aligning the former with the overruling presence of wholeness, and subjugating the latter in fragmentation and vulgar everydayness. Jacque Derrida’s concept of “the supplement” and Paul de Man’s “figural language” are employed to redeem fragmentation and vulgar everydayness from subjugation of the hierarchy.