Critical Analysis Of The Novel 'Snow Falling On Cedars'

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Snow falling on cedars Snow falling on cedars is a renowned novel whose story revolves around an American Japanese, Kabuo Miyamoto. Kabuo is charged with murdering his Carl, a white man and the case takes a period of three days. However, the story covers the pre-war period, World War II and the periods after the war. It provides a framework to do an analysis of the effect the Japanese-Americans on the people living in the island of San piedro. Although it covers all these three periods, the story in the novel moves forth and back in time. This novel has become renown because of its efforts to explain the effects of war and the issues surrounding race and human motivation. The events, characters, attitudes and the relationship between the people …show more content…

Snow falling on cedars clearly draws the lines in human characters, both groups and individuals. The whites show resentment to the Japanese immigrants and at the same time they see them as a threat. This is so ironical because the white people reap the economic benefits from the hard work and discipline of the American Japanese. Throught the novel, the white envy and mistrust for the Japanese rounds up and end up to imprisonment and expulsion of the Japanese by the white people. However, the Japanese-Americans may not be the victims but they rather chose to remain separated from the rest, maybe out of a sense of superiority. For instance, Fujiko and Kabuo have contempt for the white people and their culture (Guterson chapter 7). This explains why Kabuo distrusts his white neighbors a lot until he was not willing to co-operate with Arit Morans in the investigation of Carl’s …show more content…

Snow Falling on Cedars. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Internet resource. Martin, Monica J., et al. "The Enduring Significance of Racism: Discrimination and Delinquency among Black American Youth." Journal of Research on Adolescence (Wiley-Blackwell), vol. 21, no. 3, Sept. 2011, pp. 662-676. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00699.x. Singh, Basil R. "Citizenship Education and the Challenge of Racism, Discrimination and Disadvantage." Contemporary Politics, vol. 7, no. 4, Dec. 2001, pp. 299-318. EBSCOhost,

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