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Sheldon’s Song (1986)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity
Silence vs. Communication
Family Dynamics and Inheritance
Memory
Love and Self-Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Henry arrives in New York City for the first time. He was too nervous to follow Marty and Samantha’s advice—that he call Keiko to let her know he was coming. Inside Keiko’s apartment building, Henry finds himself in front of her door. Keiko’s name is now Kay Hatsune, and she is a widow of three years. Henry clutches the pristine, intact record Keiko sent to Sheldon. He nervously knocks on the door. Keiko opens it, with “the same eyes that had looked at him all those years ago. Hopeful eyes.”
Henry’s sense that Keiko’s eyes are full of hope suggests that Keiko has kept her love for Henry alive in the same way that Henry did, even as they both moved on with their lives and found happiness where they could. This scene also echoes the one in which Henry brought Sheldon’s record to Keiko in the camp, emphasizing that despite all their years apart Henry and Keiko have sustained the deep connection they had as children.
Themes
Inside Keiko’s apartment, Henry finds himself surrounded by Keiko’s paintings, including ones of “cherry blossoms and ume trees, of lonesome prairie and barbed wire.” Keiko goes to the kitchen to get Henry a drink, and he looks at the photos in her living room. One is of her father, who enlisted in the US Army to fight against Germany. Another framed picture is a sketch of him and Keiko at Camp Minidoka.
Keiko’s paintings suggest that she has used art to help her process the trauma that she experienced as a young girl. The reader cannot know for sure whether Keiko struggled as an adult in discussing her past, as Henry did, but at the very least, Keiko has found art to be an outlet for expressing her memories and perhaps navigating her pain.
Themes
Henry spots a record player, and puts on the Oscar Holden record. When Henry turns around, Keiko is in the room. The two stare at each other and smile, “like they had done all those years ago, standing on either side of that fence.” “Oai deki te,” Keiko says, and Henry finishes the phrase: “Ureshii desu.”
Henry and Keiko’s use of their old catchphrase implies that their love has remained unchanged over the years. Though there is much these two characters have to discuss, the novel closes with this catchphrase alone, which stands in for all that Henry and Keiko will surely share with one another now that they have finally found each other once again.
Themes
