Snow_Falling_on_Cedars

Snow Falling on Cedars Ishmael Chambers: Ishmael is one of the novel’s central characters, a bitter and lonely man sulking around San Piedro Island mourning the loss of his arm (an injury from WWII) and nursing the broken heart caused by Hatsue Imada 13 years previous. After spending a brief time in San Francisco attending university, in the years immediately following the war, Ishmael returned home to take over his father’s newspaper upon his father’s death. Working as a “small town newspaper man”, sets Ishmael up as an observer of life rather than an active participant, he was never able to fill the emptiness inside him that Hatsue and his horrific experiences in combat produced. When he discovers the lighthouse archives that prove Kabuo’s innocence, Ishmael’s resentment towards Kabuo and his longing for Hatsue stops him from immediately turning the evidence into the sheriff. In the end it is ironically a memory of a Japanese – American man comparing him to his father that leads him to make the decision to tell Hatsue of the data he has uncovered. Ishmael will always be haunted by the events of his past, but at the very end of the novel, we are granted a glimmer of hope that he will finally learn to live his life. Hatsue Miyamoto: Hatsue Miyamoto nee Imada is the wife of accused man Kabuo Miyamoto and the childhood sweetheart of Ishmael Chambers. All her life Hatsue has struggled with her identity, caught between her Japanese upbringing and her American dreams. When she was younger Hatsue was in love with the idea of love, her secret romance with the Caucasian Ishmael always felt wrong to her but it wasn’t until her mother found out about her indiscretions that she finally ended the relationship. In the end her upbringing won out and she married Kabuo Miyamoto focusing instead on practical love rather than romantic love. Kabuo Miyamoto: Kabuo is a strong, stoic Japanese-American accused of the murder of Carl Heine. Kabuo is married to Hatsue, the beautiful woman Ishmael Chambers has loved for most of his life. Kabuo is honest and ethical, though given to anger. Trained in kendo stick fighting, Kabuo is a war veteran who is capable of killing and prizes his abilities as a fighter, but still has nightmares about what he saw in the war. He values a traditional and simple life, and longs to work the strawberry fields his father worked before him. Accused of murder mainly out of racism, Kabuo maintains a coldly rigid stance throughout the trial, hoping to appear calm. Instead, he appears removed and uncaring and, above all, fundamentally different from the other townspeople. Chapter 22: Hatsue confronts Ishmael near the end of Chapter 22. She urges him to write something in the San Piedro Review to defend Kabuo and expose the racist nature of the trial. Ishmael’s reply—that Hatsue, or anyone else for that matter, should not expect fairness—stems from his resentment of Hatsue and is a veiled reference to her rejection of him. Hatsue seeks to empower Ishmael with her response here. She may still feel some guilt over rejecting Ishmael, but she insists that people do have the power to intervene against chance. Specifically, Hatsue means that Ishmael has the power to affect the future if he chooses to be brave, kind, and mature enough. Ishmael knows that Hatsue is right but has no response to her pleas. At this moment, we realize that the novel’s main conflict is Ishmael’s struggle to overcome his cynicism and disillusionment and help the woman who caused his resentment. He must accept that life is not always fair or just but that there are aspects of life that need not be left to chance. Chapter 1: When we are first introduced to the courtroom. The courtroom is not only the physical setting but also a metaphor for Guterson’s overall intent in the novel. While the citizens of San Piedro put Kabuo on trial, Guterson puts the community of San Piedro, and history itself, on trial. Just as a trial relies on testimonies to establish a story, leaving a jury to decide guilt or innocence based on these testimonies, the novel presents testimonies of its characters’ beliefs and values, leaving us to decide who is guilty and who is innocent.