52 pages • 1 hour read
David GutersonSnow Falling on Cedars
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Kabuo Miyamoto
Content Warning: This guide references violence, combat, and racial prejudice.
Kabuo is the defendant in the murder trial, which is the focus of the novel, but his point of view is presented quite rarely; instead, he is often indirectly characterized by others. As a teen, he is helpful and respectful, evident when he assists Fujiko at Manzanar by building furniture for her. He is a hard worker who is dedicated to his family’s success and to maintaining its reputation of respect and honor. Kabuo farms the strawberry plot and learns Japanese traditions, such as the practice of kendo. From Hatsue’s perspective, Kabuo is a dedicated father and husband who provides for his family out of love and a sense of duty, and both Kabuo and Hatsue represent the theme of Parental Expectations and Family Legacy. Kabuo is quiet and reserved and, for this reason, along with cultural differences, considered by many white people in Amity Harbor to be difficult to read and even hostile. His demeanor strikes others as cold or uncaring. In truth, the rare sections of the novel presented from Kabuo’s point of view reveal that he is not only aware of his inscrutability but also perhaps intentionally masking the guilt and sadness he feels for his participation in the taking of lives during the war.
Kabuo feels strongly about the seven acres of strawberry farm that his father had nearly purchased before the Pearl Harbor attack. As an immigrant, owning land in the United States signifies success to Kabuo’s father, and thus it is important to Kabuo to uphold the family legacy by remaining devoted to this land. Kabuo is angered to learn that the land he regarded as rightly his has been sold, but he does not express his anger in an explicit or violent way. Instead, he calmly but determinedly sets about buying the land back. The seven acres represent the pride of his family name and, in reclaiming the land, Kabuo is reclaiming the dignity of Japanese American citizens that was stolen from them during the war. At some moments, he is presented as capable of murder, but the truth prevails, and Kabuo is exonerated when Carl Heine’s death is proven to be an accident. In this way, Kabuo is restored to a man of honor, pride, and dignity as the novel closes.
Hatsue Miyamoto
As an adolescent and teenager, Hatsue is reserved and quiet yet kind and caring. Her friendship with Ishmael develops when they are adolescents, and then subtly shifts toward a romantic interest. In her interactions with Ishmael, however, Hatsue is demure and polite but unwilling to open herself up emotionally to him. Indeed, he repeatedly speaks of her inscrutable nature, and this quality emerges during Kabuo’s trial. Essential to Hatsue’s character is her dedication to her family and her heritage. She recognizes the expectations placed on her by her mother, and it is important to her that she live according to the values that her parents hold. Once she decides that she must end the relationship with Ishmael in order to remain true to these convictions, Hatsue never wavers.
In a similar way, she remains firmly dedicated to Kabuo throughout his time away at war and during his trial. Though their marriage is perhaps one of duty, it is clear that Hatsue grew to genuinely love him, and the family they built together is of utmost importance to her. Hatsue never wavers in her certainty of Kabuo’s innocence and is committed to doing what she can to bring the truth to light. This dedication and inner resolve are among Hatsue’s most admirable qualities. By the same token, however, upon ending her relationship with Ishmael, Hatsue removes him from her life forever. Though their relationship is long since over, she refuses to speak to him at the trial. In this way, Hatsue demonstrates a stubborn quality that frustrates Ishmael, as he finds it cold or uncaring. However, this behavior can also be read as a mark of Hatsue’s loyalty, as Ishmael makes no secret of his lasting love for her.
Importantly, though, Hatsue demonstrates growth by the end of the novel as she softens toward Ishmael. When Ishmael provides evidence of Kabuo’s innocence, Hatsue is grateful and recognizes the virtue in Ishmael’s actions. In wishing Ishmael well, Hatsue provides him with closure and perhaps finds greater peace herself.
Ishmael Chambers
Ishmael Chambers attends the trial in order to write about it in the local newspaper, which was founded by his father. However, it proves to be an opportunity for him to revisit his past relationship with the defendant’s wife, Hatsue Imada Miyamoto. As a reporter, Ishmael is a silent observer, but internally, he has little objectivity when it comes to Hatsue. Throughout his adolescence, he is a kind companion to her and their fellow classmates. Though Ishmael associates with many of the other boys, he does not truly have intimate friendships with anyone other than Hatsue. Even she, Ishmael laments, is difficult for him to completely read.
As an adult in the post-war years, Ishmael struggles with the loss of his arm but suffers silently. Initially, he is at a loss as to how to spend the rest of his life, briefly considering residing in Seattle, but when he still feels lost and out of place there, he ultimately returns to Amity Harbor to continue his father’s legacy of operating the newspaper. Ishmael keeps to himself, working diligently and caring for his aging mother instead of making meaningful connections with other people. As the trial unfolds, others—such as his mother and Hatsue herself—urge him to seek out a wife and have children. It is apparent to others that something is missing from Ishmael’s life; he harbors an emptiness that he does not know how to fill. He admits to himself that he feels unaccomplished and is certain that others, especially Hatsue, judge him harshly for his failure to live up to his potential.
Ishmael initially believes that rekindling his romantic relationship with Hatsue is the way to fill this void. At the very least, he hopes to reconnect with her in a meaningful way, frustrated by the way she denies ever having had any feelings for him as a teenager. Obtaining a kind of closure from Hatsue becomes important to Ishmael, as he rereads the letter she sent to him from Manzanar. Ultimately, Ishmael finds a way to make peace with Hatsue not being in his life and, as he recognizes the respect the citizens of Amity Harbor have long held for his father, comes to regard his job as a valid one.
Carl Heine
Though Carl is not alive during the novel, he is essential to its plot. As a lifelong resident of Amity Harbor, his family is well-known and respected among the others on the island. He is described by others as a quiet, somewhat gruff, no-nonsense man. He cares for his wife and children but is not overly emotional, displaying qualities that would be valued by a post-war society that defines this as appropriate masculine behavior. After the war, he begins a new life as a fisherman, his mother having sold the family’s strawberry farm. Carl’s decision to buy back the land when it comes up for sale suggests he may feel an allegiance to his family legacy to return to farming, or simply that he is better suited to farming than to fishing. His wife’s brief testimony and inner narrative suggest that he too is at times inscrutable.
Though he and Kabuo are childhood acquaintances—and Carl appears to feel there are no significant differences between them, evident by his acceptance of the gift of Kabuo’s fishing pole—Carl’s experiences in war change his perception. He admits outright that, as an adult, he dislikes Kabuo because he is Japanese. Though Kabuo has done nothing personally to hurt or offend Carl, the war’s conditioning to be prejudiced against Japanese people is not something Carl can easily disregard even now that the war is over. It seems, on some level, Carl is aware of this, and his anger may truly be directed at his own inability to move past these illogical prejudices. Carl agreeing to sell the seven acres back to Kabuo suggests a desire to put his past prejudices behind him and to right the wrong his mother has carried out by withholding the land from the Miyamoto family.
