Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutterson

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Recommended: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson ESSAY

David Gutterson’s 1994 novel Snow Falling on Cedars set on the suffocation island community of San Piedro, comes the interesting story of Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American being accused of the murder of the well respected Carl Heine Junior on September 16, 1954. The novel set before and after World War II explores major concerns such as the racial discrimination apparent in the community, the effect that many of the men carry from the war and the toll this takes on their life, as well as the evil that occupies ones heart and overcoming this to do the right thing. The sensitive time in which the novel is based helps in developing these major concerns, and gives the reader the ability to understand society, culture and the historical period in which the text was set. Despite the fact that many Japanese had been on the island just as long as the American citizens, there was still a great deal of racial discrimination as well as hypocritical racial discrimination from the white community long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066. Throughout the novel racial discrimination towards the Japanese is most apparent in two individuals, Etta Heine and Alvin Hooks. Etta despite also being a foreigner seems to have quite a hatred towards the Japanese community. When Etta’s husband Carl passes away she has no hesitation in selling the seven arces of land the Miyamotos have steadily but illegally been paying off, regardless of the agreement Carl Heine Senior and Zenichi Miyamoto had come to before the Japanese were ordered off the island “We’ll worry about this come picking season,” said Carl ...We’ll just play this by ear a little bit...One way or another you get your payments finished, maybe down the road somewher... ... middle of paper ... ...o do some investigation of his own and from this he comes across ship notes that suggest that Carls boat struck but wall of water from a freighter the night he died. Instead of going straight to Judge Fielding or Art Moran with the information he has obtained instead he procrastinates on what to do with the notes for some time. Sitting in his father chair Ishmael realises, “He was, it occurred to him, his father’s son”(p.386) He has been harboring hate and rage for so long that it prevented him from living and now it was time to start living again, start doing the right thing for truth, honor and justice, and to achieve this he needs to give Hatsue the notes. This is the major turning point for Ishmael, proving Hatsue with the notes shows that the evil that occupies ones heart can be overcome regardless of the fact that the war ruined all the he believed in.

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