Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson

            In the first chapter of the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster writes about quests that may or may not seem like quests within works of literature.  Foster writes that in order for there to be a quest, there must be a quester, a stated place to go and reason for going there, challenges and trials during the trip, and a real reason for going on the trip, which is typically for self knowledge.  Although the novel, Snow Falling On Cedars is focused on the case of Kabuo Miyamoto and the past memories that the court case brings up, Ishmael is the “quester” in the novel.  He is unhappy with his life and is unable to move forward because of his memories from the war and his inability to accept that he and Hatsue can never be together romantically.  He is not too old to learn and realize his mistakes, especially since he remains stuck in the past.  Ishmael begins his quest with the intention of visiting his mother during the heavy snow storm and to bring her a can of kerosene.  Since his mother lives on the outskirts of the island at South Beach, he travels back and forth between his mother’s home and the courthouse.  Ishmael faces multiple struggles, starting off with having to get chains on the tires of his car in order to drive to his mother’s house.  The next challenge that Ishmael has to face is that he has to drive in the rough terrain created by the heavy snowfall, noticing that there are multiple abandoned cars on the road.  Before going to his mother’s house, Ishmael goes to the lighthouse to find information about the storm for an article, but instead stumbles upon a critical piece of information for Kabuo Miyamoto’s murder trial, creating yet another internal struggle for himself.  Instead of immediately turning over the piece of evidence to the sheriff or judge, Ishmael withholds the newfound information, sitting in the court room as “[the] truth now lay in Ishmael’s own pocket and he did not know what to do with it” (Guterson 428).  As the novel progresses and Ishmael continues to go to his mother’s home, he recognizes his mistakes and slowly begins to realize that even though the war traumatized him and took away his arm, the war has affected practically everyone on San Piedro island yet everyone else has been able to move on except for him.  He accepts the idea that he is just like his father and understands that, like his father, he must move on from the war, open up his heart to others once again, and continue to live his life.  By the end of the novel, Ishmael realizes that “[his] trips to South Beach, he understood now, were as much for his own head as they were for [his mother’s]; he had fooled himself for years into thinking otherwise” (443).  Somewhat ironically, Ishmael has his moment of enlightenment while in the cedar tree that enclosed him and Hatsue from the rest of the world.  In addition, Ishmael “…came to recognize that he did not belong [in the cedar tree], he had no place in the tree any longer” and that “the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty” (443).  Therefore, by the end of the novel, Ishmael has come to understand that he must not let himself remain stuck in the past, whether it be the war or in his delusional love for Hatsue.  Although the reader does not know for sure if Ishmael will have a happy ending, the novel ends with a hope that Ishmael will begin to really live his life instead of letting the trauma caused by the war suffocate him because time and the world moves on, waiting for nobody.

            In chapter seven of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster writes about how many pieces of literature allude to the Bible in some way, whether it be through titles, names, or symbols.  Foster writes that even if a person is not familiar with the Bible, if a part of a novel seems to resonate within itself, then there is probably a deeper meaning behind it and one can therefore assume there is some sort of allusion.  Ishmael received his name from part of the Bible; his personality coincides with the Ishmael of the Bible.  In the Bible, God told Ishmael’s mother that “…[Ishmael] will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren” (Genesis 16:12).  In the novel Snow Falling On Cedars, Ishmael grew up in the wilderness, picking strawberries in the fields and meeting Hatsue in their secret place within the cedar tree in the woods.  In addition, Ishmael inherited from his father, Arthur, not only the love for literature but in his view of humankind since “‘[Arthur] loved humankind dearly and with all his heart, but he disliked most human beings….You’re [Ishmael] the same, you know.  You’re your father’s son’” (Guterson 36).  Ishmael, like his father and the Ishmael of the Bible, has a strong dislike of human beings and often holds himself at a distance from others that his heart becomes small and cold.  There are other allusions to the Bible, such as the loss of innocence.  The novel recounts the tragic time when Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes for camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Although Carl Heine Junior may not have realized he loses his innocence, he does when “[Carl Junior] came back and stood in the doorway.  There was a bite taken out of one of the apples….He was eighteen….He took another bite from the apple” (129).  At age eighteen, Carl was a legal adult, and the fact that he ate three apples signifies his loss of innocence just as Eve did when she took the apple.  Although the garden Carl grew up in is not nearly as perfect as the Garden of Eden, it is a garden nevertheless.  Carl loses his innocence when he loses his friend, Kabuo, due to the American government requiring the relocation of all Japanese Americans.  Finally, the number three continually comes up within the novel.  For example, Kabuo’s trial takes three days until Ishmael comes forward with the new evidence and sets Kabuo free.  The trial taking three days correlates with the number of days before Jesus’ resurrection, with Kabuo as Jesus in the sense that he is returned to the world, his home, and his family after three days of being in court.

            Foster points out that the Greeks provide a lot of subject matter for future authors.  The Greeks have provided writers with the four great struggles of the human being, which include the struggle against nature, the divine, other humans, and with oneself.  The people of San Piedro, for the most part, are farmers and fisherman just like Homer’s characters.  Like Homer, Guterson tests the characters’ nobility while also reminding readers of basic characteristics of human nature.  As Foster points out, Homer provides future authors, such as Guterson, basic human instincts such as “the need to protect one’s family,” “the need to maintain one’s dignity,” “the determination to remain faithful and to have faith,” “the struggle to return home,” and with the “four great struggles of the human being: with nature, with the divine, with other humans, and with ourselves” (Foster 71).  Guterson depicts the need to protect one’s family in the Japanese Americans being forced to leave their homes, drawing on pathos to force the audience to realize the injustice that America placed upon the Japanese Americans during World War II.  Guterson illustrates the need to maintain one’s dignity in the very first line of the novel, when he writes that “[the] accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace, his palms placed softly on the defendant’s table – the posture of a man who has detached himself insofar as this is possible at his own trial” (Guterson 1).  Instead of allowing himself to succumb to the unfairness of the trial, Kabuo does not allow others to see his discomfort at being accused of something he did not do, instead sitting up proudly at the defendant’s table with an impassive expression to maintain his dignity.  Hatsue remains faithful in her husband throughout the entire trial, maintaining her faith in him even though nobody can attest for Kabuo’s innocence, leaving Kabuo with no confirmed alibi, and the evidence definitely makes Kabuo seem incriminating.  Kabuo is faced with the struggle to return home since he has been stuck within a jail cell, accused for first degree murder, for three months.  Ishmael has to deal with at least three of the four great struggles of the human being.  He definitely struggles with nature, other humans, and with himself.  Ishmael, as well as all other characters in the novel, must struggle with nature due to the cold created by the dreary snowstorm.  Ishmael has issues with other people, as depicted with the use of his name and with his inability to open his closed off, cold heart to others after the war and after Hatsue realized that she does not love him.  Finally, Ishmael struggles with himself because of “…the chilly recklessness that had come to waylay his heart” created by the war and his heartbreaking love for Hatsue (428).  However, Ishmael is not the only character having to deal with the struggles of the human being; Hatsue, along with all of the other Japanese Americans relocated to camps, had to deal with the struggle against other humans and with themselves.  Guterson recreates the inner turmoil within Japanese Americans during World War II, causing readers to understand the confusion that the Japanese Americans had to endure during the time period.  The Japanese Americans must have felt confused, especially those born in America, for they see themselves as American, and yet they are being relocated by the American government for their descent.  At the same time, the Japanese Americans, as demonstrated through young Hatsue, begin to hate themselves and their heritage because even though they feel and act as if they are American, there is nothing they can do to change their outside appearance to make themselves seem one hundred percent American and not just Japanese.

            Foster points out that the weather plays a critical role in a work of literature.  Whether it be for plot development or for a democratic reason, rain, snow, or fog plays a significant role in literature.  In general, rain can bring about enlightenment and restoration and snow can bring abstract thought.  What an author does with rain, snow, or fog in the novel can signify a change in character or parallel the atmosphere or what is happening in the novel.  The setting of Snow Falling On Cedars includes heavy snowfall to the point that cars are being left on the side of the road.  By using snow, Guterson creates a reason for so many people of San Piedro to come to the courthouse to witness Kabuo’s trial.  Not only is the murder case unique, but the snow causes “…Judge Fielding’s courtroom [to be] filled with citizens who were thankful for the heat from the boilers” (270).  Guterson uses the snow as inhospitable in order to create the necessary setting for the bleak trial.  In addition to snow, Guterson uses fog for the night of Carl Heine’s death, signifying that what really happened that night was unclear, since Kabuo has his perspective on the story while the prosecutor, Alvin Hooks, creates a story of how Kabuo supposedly killed Carl.  Throughout the trial, the snowstorm is harsh and cruel to the inhabitants of San Piedro Island, but near the end of the trial, the snowstorm ceases, leaving a scene of beauty and chaos.  The snow creates a blanket over everything, so when Ishmael goes for a walk near the end of the novel, all he sees is snow, which can be used to indicate abstract thought.  During his walk around the woods, Ishmael “…listened to the world turned silent by the snow; there was absolutely nothing to hear.  The silence of the world roared steadily in his ears while he came to recognize that he did not belong here, he had no place in the tree any longer” (443).  Guterson’s use of the blanket of snow over everything allows Ishmael to think about everything and nothing at the same time until he realizes that he needs to move on from his past with Hatsue, which is symbolized by the cedar tree that Ishmael becomes enlightened with the truth.

            Foster writes that almost anything in a piece of literature can be a symbol.  However, what symbols mean depends on the reader’s personal past and experiences, so there is an unlimited number of things a symbol can mean instead of one symbol having only one specific meaning.  The cedar tree in the woods becomes the symbol of Ishmael and Hatsue’s intimate past and relationship.  Only Ishmael and Hatsue knew about that specific cedar tree, and “inside their cedar tree, for nearly four years, [Ishmael] and Hatsue had held one another with the dreamy contentedness of young lovers….[the cedar tree] inspired in them the temporary illusion that the rest of the world had disappeared” (171).  The cedar tree came to symbolize Ishmael and Hatsue’s secret affair when they were young.  However, the fact that the tree was broken and on the floor symbolizes that although the two seemed to be in love, their relationship, like the fallen tree, will never grow or develop and will eventually die.  Another symbol is Ishmael’s lack of an arm.  Not only does the missing arm create an individual, special mark on Ishmael, but it also symbolizes his distance from the world.  When Hatsue left Ishmael, he was “…a handsome boy with one arm outstretched, beckoning her to come back” (215).  Ishmael only had one arm outstretched towards Hatsue and even though Guterson does not write which specific arm Ishmael has outstretched, one can think that the arm Ishmael had out was the same arm that was amputated.  In doing so, Ishmael’s amputated arm signifies his lost relationship with Hatsue and that he will not be able to have another romantic relationship with her again.  In addition, the fact that it is Ishmael’s left arm that is amputated can signify and heighten the isolation of his heart.

            Foster points out that a novel would not be the same novel if it was not for the setting and geography.  Geography can mean a variety of things, ranging from people to setting to theme to symbol.  Geography can be used to develop a character as well, particularly if they are going on a trip or going south, in which case they are probably going south to “run amok,” but either way, by having a character leave one place for another can determine whether or not a character grows.  Geography is very important within a novel, for the geography can help to explain the plot or the people within the novel.  San Piedro Island creates an isolated setting so that practically everyone knows one another or is connected with one another in some way.  The setting also helps to create a typical type of person on the island, helping to explain the attitudes of the characters on the island, such as when Guterson writes “…they were lonely men and products of geography – island men who on occasion recognized that they wished to speak but couldn’t” (39).  By creating the isolation factor of the setting, the audience can better understand the meaning behind the silence and allows for the author to inject the past smoothly without losing focus of the main story.  The silence signifies that the characters of the novel do not speak of the harsh realities of life during World War II in America, but when Kabuo and other people are forced to bring up the past, the entire past is brought in.  Therefore, without the isolation of the island, there would not have been silence, and if not for silence, Guterson would not have been able to smoothly bring the audience into the heartbreaking truth of what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II.  San Piedro Island is a Northwest part of the United States.  When Hatsue and her family are relocated to a camp, they must travel south to Los Angeles.  When they reach the camp, “Fujiko saw that [Hatsue] had gotten older in the three weeks since they’d left San Piedro.  Her daughter was suddenly grown up, a woman, weary from the inside.  Her daughter had suddenly grown hardened” (23).  As Foster points out, by going down south, Hatsue runs amok because she battles with her subconscious and comes to the conclusion that she can never be with Ishmael.  In doing so, she “runs amok” because she breaks young, innocent Ishmael’s heart.  At the same time, she also grows up and realizes the harsh reality of being Japanese American during World War II, becoming an entirely new person and losing the innocence she had while on San Piedro.

            Foster writes about the importance of season within literature.  He writes that authors can either use the seasons for their intended meaning or they can use them with irony, which many modern writers do.  The original meaning behind the seasons are: spring meaning youth, fertility, and innocence, summer meaning passion, love, and adulthood, autumn symbolizing tiredness, harvest, and decline, and winter meaning old age, anger, resentment, and death.  Writers can also use the seasons’ original meanings with a sense of irony to accentuate a certain characteristic or point during the novel.  The present time in Snow Falling On Cedars is placed during winter to parallel the anger, resentment, and hatred that the past brings as witnesses recall either the night of Carl Heine’s death or the years during World War II.  Ishmael holds anger within him at both Hatsue and for the war because he lost his arm and his purpose to live life to the fullest.  Ishmael continues to maintain bitter towards Hatsue even though she has learned to move on, settling with “the strain between [Hatsue and Ishmael] the hostility he felt – it was better than nothing, he decided.  It was an emotion of some sort they shared” (326).  Ishmael’s bitterness is aimed at Hatsue and because of his losses caused by the war.  He remains angry with the idea of him never being able to be with Hatsue and resents the war because of the standards that the war created, such as looking down upon a relationship between a white American and a Japanese American.  On the other hand, Hatsue hates that her husband is being accused of first degree murder and that she can’t really do much to ensure that he will not receive the death sentence.  She may have accepted that there is nothing she can do to change the fact that she is a Japanese American, but she is absolutely furious with the case because Kabuo became the number one suspect simply because he was Japanese.  Therefore, the winter season reflects the anger the case brings up, whether it be self-loathing or just frustration directed at the world in general.  The novel travels back and forth between the present court case and the past.  Although Guterson does not directly state that it is summertime during a flashback, one can conclude that the time is at least early summer because “Hatsue sat on the moss in her damp summer dress, her broad-rimmed picking hat beside her” (110-111).  During the flashback scene, Hatsue and Ishmael begin their young, innocent romance before the war tore the two apart and reality set in.  Once again, the season reflects what is actually happening within the novel because summer represents romance and passion which parallels the young, naïve romance blooming between Ishmael and Hatsue. 

            Foster teaches readers that in order to fully grasp and understand a piece of literature, one must read not with his own eyes, but of someone understanding of the time period and culture of the novel.  The reader should not look at most works of literature from the perspective of a twenty-first century person living in a first world country but instead with the eyes of someone either during that time period.  By doing so, the reader can look beyond the surface of the novel to try to understand the message the author is trying to make by using a different social, historical, or cultural background.  The verisimilitude within Snow Falling On Cedars causes the readers to understand the tragedy that happened to so many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor as well as the young men who fought in the war.  The novel requires the reader to look at the novel not only from someone during the war and immediately after it, but of someone of the present time as well in order to understand the injustice placed upon the Japanese Americans during the war.  During the time period of the war, many Americans “…‘lost their grip on their senses while in the grip of war hysteria’” (192).  Americans became disillusioned about people they have known for years, people they have lived next to, people they have worked alongside with, simply because the war creates a wall between people of different races.  The Japanese Americans became the “enemy” even if they were born and raised in America because of how they looked, regardless of where their loyalty lay.  The reader needs to understand that during the time period of the war, especially after being suddenly attacked by the enemy country, Americans are going to be particularly careful and can forget that their Japanese American friends and neighbors are not the enemy.  Americans can lose their ability to reason, become racist people, and lose their sense of self.  On the other hand, in order to see that people should not subject themselves to war hysteria, the reader needs to look at what is happening in the novel from the present time in order to prevent the same tragedies from happening again.  World War II was a terrible time for most everyone because practically every person was connected to the war in some way whether they are young men entering the army, they have a loved one entering the war, or even just rationing food, the war became at least some aspect of everyone’s lives.  To understand the full tragedy happening within America, the reader has to look at what is happening from the perspective of a Japanese American during the war.  The Japanese Americans, especially those who were born and raised in America, must have felt so confused and frustrated with themselves because they feel stuck.  Hatsue reflects the inner struggle that so many other Japanese Americans must have felt during the time period, questioning who they are, because “if identity was geography instead of blood – if living in a place was what really mattered – then Ishmael was part of her, inside of her, as much as anything Japanese” (206).  Hatsue is both Japanese and American, but she begins to question who she is and whether she is a part of either, one, or both worlds.  When the Japanese Americans were relocated for doing absolutely nothing, they must have felt so confused and out of place because they do not want to align themselves with the enemy country and yet the country that they feel bound to is turning its back on them.  Those who were born in America must have felt particularly stuck because they are torn since they considered themselves to be Americans their entire lives yet they cannot deny their ancestry either.  In order to receive the full impact and one of the many messages of the novel, such as understanding the heartbreak that so many Japanese Americans must have faced and the injustice placed upon them, the audience needs to view what is happening whether it be during the war or the trial from the viewpoints of both white Americans and Japanese Americans alike.