David Guterson's Novel: Snow Falling on Cedars

The townspeople would be stupefied to discover that the man whom they train as cold and/or fright wingened is at that moment, despite his predicament or because of it, late appreciative of the falling snow. He is neither a auto or an animal, as they see him, but a deeply moved adult male being who maintains his connection with nature and the hit of the world.

Racial stereotyping is based on seeing the victim of racial discrimination as just such a machine, or animal, or non-human entity. Reducing the hated and/or tutelageed individual to such non-human shape allows the racist to treat the individual as a subject rather than as a fellow human being, a fellow child of God, whatever his or her race or skin color or language or domain of origin. The object of racism is first to see the "foreigner" as so "different" from the racist that he cannot be certain(p) to behave or think or feel as the racist behaves. thinks and feels. As Alvin Hooks says to Kabuo in the courtroom right in front of the jurors: "You're a hard man to trust, Mr. Miyamoto. . . . You personate before us with no expression, keeping a fire hook face through---" (411-412).

At that point, to his credit, the judge rebukes the lawyer, but the author takes us inside the minds of the other observers to make it clear that racial stereotypes with pry to the "inscrutable" Japanese are alive and well in those minds:

The citizens in the gallery were reminded of photographs they had seen of Japanese soldier

s. The man before them was noble in appearance. . . . ; his aspect connoted dignity. And thither was nothing akin to softness in him anywhere, no let out of him that was vulnerable. He was, they decided, not like them at all, and the detached and distant manner in which they watched the snowfall made this palpable and obvious (412).

"I'm not talking round the whole universe. . . . I'm talking rough people--the sheriff, that prosecutor, the judge, you. People who can do things because they run newspapers or snap people or convict them or decide about their lives. People don't have to be unfair, do they? That isn't just grapheme of things, when people are unfair to somebody" (326).

The more fulgent and overt forms of racism and stereotyping are also present in the obtain, but what fascinates this reader are the more subtle forms. What makes Guterson's book powerful and compelling is his study of the mystery of life, for that mystery, or the fear of mystery, strangeness, not knowing, uncertainty--all these states of mind are the basis of racist stereotyping. As Kabuo thinks, sitting in his cell accused of murder, reflecting on those he had killed in the past,

What a mystery life was! Everything was conjoined by mystery and fate, and in his darkened cell he meditated on this and it became increasingly clear to him. . . . Every sentient being push and pushing at the shell of identity and distinctness (169).

Guterson, David. blast Falling on Cedars. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Guterson uses a conversation (between the protagonist's married woman and the newspaper reporter who is still in love with her from a youthful relationship) to show how racial stereotyping and the destruction done as a result of such stereotyping is a result of choices human beings make. Ishmael is suggesting that perhaps "unfairness" is simply a power of the universe which one must simply accept. Hatsue interrupts:

Again, this man whom they see as without softness or vulnerability is at th
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