No-No Boy Book Analysis

The last chapter of John Okada’s No-No Boy is an evaluation of Ichiro’s choice that shapes the story. Before the beginning of the novel, Ichiro chooses not to fight the Japanese as an American soldier, and, as a result, he spends two years in jail. Ichiro’s friend, Freddie, was also a “no-no boy” who refused to fight as an American soldier. Freddie also does his jail time. However, at the end of the novel, Freddie makes the decision to go to war in a different context, and he dies (with a strong comparison to Ichiro’s good friend Kenji, who also dies as a result of going to war). As Freddie and Ichiro had made the same choices up until the final scenes of the book, Freddie serves to represent the contrast between Ichiro’s choice (to abstain from fighting) and the decision he could have made (to go to war). Ultimately, Ichiro defends his people and is on his way to becoming fulfilled. The novel ends on an optimistic note as Ichiro feels validated by all of the difficult decisions he had made. Right from the beginning of the ending, Freddie plays the role of society during the war (Japanese-American and otherwise), as he tries to get Ichiro into action. Freddie coerces him: “What the hell. You gotta get out and do somethin’. I’ll pick you up, yeah? . . . Goddammit, you gotta get out and live, I told you’” (208). This is similar rhetoric to what was used toward Japanese-Americans who were

The option of sleeping instead of fighting is analogous to the decision of whether to go to war or go to jail: in bed and jail it’s dark and devoid of action, but everyone’s alive. Freddie keeps up his war-like bravado as they go to Club Oriental, a bar, next: “He cursed a steady stream of violent oaths all the way around the block”