When Papa Comes To Manzanar Character Analysis

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When Papa comes to Manzanar with a cane, Jeanne says that he has become a different person. Papa becomes abusive towards Jeanne, Mama, and her brothers and sisters. Jeanne \describes the cane as a Samurai sword/leadership. Even when Papa is healed he still continues to use his cane. “When his limp went away he continued to use it. He didn’t need to. He likes it, as a king of swagger stick, such as military officers sometimes use. When he was angry he would wield it like the flat of a sword, whacking out his kids or his wife or his hallucinations. He kept the cane for years, and it served him well” (Pg. 47). Jeanne uses Papa’s dependence on his cane to symbolize weakness and the difficulty of letting go of the past. Papa holds his cane with