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Fires (1942)
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 continues searching through belongings in the hotel basement. He is struck by how “random” the items seem, reminding himself that “people once cared enough for these things to hide them, hoping to retrieve them another day.” Henry finds a newspaper and realizes it is the last paper printed in Nihonmachi before all the residents were taken away to internment camps.
In a subtle way, the fact that the belongings in the hotel basement seem random to Henry emphasizes how truly brutal Japanese American internment was. Families stored items that were important to their everyday life as they knew it, unable to guess that the suffering they would face would prevent them from returning for these objects, and would render the objects themselves meaningless in the face of the pain they would experience at the hands of their own fellow citizens.
Themes
Palmyra Pettison arrives to let Henry know the hotel is closing for the day. She agrees to let him return the same time next week. As Henry leaves the hotel, he “strains to hear [Keiko’s] voice in memory” and feels sure her presence lingers somewhere in the hotel. He also thinks about Ethel, and feels comforted knowing that she “would always approve of things that might make [him] happy.”
This moment is significant because it shows that Henry is beginning to let go of the guilt he feels about reconnecting with Keiko. The fact that Henry feels confident Ethel would want the best for him also suggests that Henry and Ethel genuinely loved one another, even if their love was not the most important one Henry experienced in his life.
Themes
