About Comfort Woman

Throughout the story of comfort woman we see the characters of Akiko (mother) and Beccah (daughter) navigating through their "haunted" lives. With the use of ghosts, this story shows us the negative impact that being a "comfort woman" had on the mother, Akiko.

The chapters in this novel go back and forth between the narration of the mother, Akiko and the daughter, Beccah. It starts with a story of Akiko confessing to Beccah that she was actually the one who murdered her father, although she did not directly. You can tell that something is wrong with Beccah's mother, the story explains how she occasionally goes into trances and is medium between our world and the world of ghosts and spirits. She spends her whole life trying to protect Beccah from the evil that surrounds her, making Beccah's life nearly unbearable with the humiliation and disappointment she is forced to deal with. Eventually Beccah is thrown into the obligation of planning her mother's funeral, when she realizes how much her mother loved her, and in turn, how much Beccah loved her mother.