Snow Falling On Cedars Character Analysis

In David Guterson’s novel Snow Falling on Cedars, there are a lot of characters who has major conflicts in their past, like Ishmael Chambers, who was a soldier in World War Two and which the war caused him a lot of stress and confusion. Ishmael is the protagonist and also he is a literary character because he doesn’t always makes the right decisions at first and he has his flaws, unlike a commercial heroic character, who is perfect and always makes the right decisions.

Before the war, when Ishmael was young, he was friends with a young Japanese girl and her name is Hatsue Miyamoto. During this time, White and Japanese people were not really allowed to interact with each other. So Mrs. Shigemura said to Hatsue, “With all the seriousness of a fortune teller she predicted that white man would desire Hatsue and seek to destroy her virginity. She claimed that white man carried in their hearts a secret lust for pure young Japanese girls”(Guterson 84). So during this time, Japanese’s viewing of white people, is that they are bad and just want to take advantage of them, and that their home country is at war with America. Then the white population viewing of Japanese people, is to be afraid of them

Which left Ishmael in distress and made him feel like he changed, into a person who he doesn’t know anymore. This Ishmael feel distinct from people, because he felt their judging looks, yet he loved humanity, but the war affected the way he sees the world. Like Ishmael said “He preferred not to be this way, but there it was, he was like that. His cynicism-a veteran’s cynicism-was a thing that disturbed him all the time. It seemed to him after the war that the world was thoroughly altered.” (Guterson 35). So Ishmael became a introvert and pretty much hid from society, and was writing the island’s San Piedro newspaper. Until a big disaster strikes San Piedro Island and scares the people on the