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Thirteen (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 visits a nursing home in West Seattle, where Sheldon, now 74, is living. Since Ethel’s death, Henry has been visiting Sheldon every Sunday, but today he has come to give Sheldon the Oscar Holden record he found with Marty and Samantha in the Panama Hotel basement. Henry warns Sheldon that the record is broken, but Sheldon asks to hold it anyway, and closes his eyes as though “listening to the music play[ing] somewhere, sometime, long ago.”
Henry and Sheldon’s friendship has stood the test of time, which seems to hint at the possibility that another unlikely relationship—Henry and Keiko’s—may have done the same. Sheldon’s quiet moment holding the Oscar Holden record attests to the power of music and of memory; Sheldon can still tap into the joy that music brought him even though he cannot hear the actual notes.
Themes
