Snow Falling on Cedars: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

The FBI men confiscate the Imada family’s most precious Japanese items. Seizure of these objects isn’t motivated by concerns for natural security; rather, the FBI takes these particular items to attack the Imadas’ ties to Japanese culture.

The FBI men are acting in response to the political narrative that all Japanese persons should be considered a threat to the United States. It is useless, therefore, for Hisao to try to reason with the men, because no facts will come between them and the prejudiced narrative their country has instructed them to believe in and act on.  The men try to legitimize and minimize Hisao’s unjustified arrest by framing it as “a war sacrifice.” 

Fujiko encourages her daughters to rely on their Japanese culture as a way of coping with Hisao’s arrest and the other injustices they will surely continue to face. She emphasizes how vastly different Japanese culture is from American culture. The Japanese way of life instructs them “not to complain or be distracted by suffering,” so therefore her daughters should accept and learn from the sadness Hisao’s arrest has brought on their family.

Hatsue’s romance with Ishmael represents a partial allegiance to the hakujin, so she is conflicted about going along with her mother’s generalization that all white people hate the Japanese. Fujiko doesn’t know about her daughter’s romance (though she might suspect that her daughter is being dishonest in some regard), so she tries to reason with Hatsue’s hesitations. Fujiko reinforces the major differences in the two cultures: “the whites […] are tempted by their egos,” she claims, while “We Japanese […] know our egos are nothing.” Fujiko believes it is more important to seek a connection the universe than to seek a connection with the self, as the self is unstable and unreliable. She wants her daughter to honor her Japanese culture and abide by these tenants as they navigate their current plight.

Hatsue resents the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. She wants to be able to choose to whom and to where she belongs.

Fujiko reinforces her earlier statement about the Japanese knowing their egos are nothing. She encourages her daughter to not be so bold in her assertions—it is best to keep silent, because nobody can no exactly who they are. What’s more, the impulsive desires of the heart do not define who one is as a person. In other words, Hatsue’s immediate anger at the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor does not define her identity as a whole, nor do her current feelings for Ishmael: both of these emotions are only small, inconsequential pieces of her whole self, and, according to Japanese culture, even the whole self means very little in the context of “the Greater Life.”

Fujiko hints that she knows her daughter is deceiving her in some way when she comments that Hatsue’s soul has become “tainted” and “impure.” In particular, her use of the word “intertwined” is evocative of the intertwined, intimate relationship Hatsue conducts with Ishmael.

Hatsue realizes her mother might know about her secret rendezvous, and she responds to this defensively: “I know who I am.” Still, Hatsue knows this assertion is only a desperate attempt to avoid acknowledging what she knows to be true: that she doesn’t know herself at all, and this is why her meetings with Ishmael have been riddled with so much anguish and uncertainty.

For Hatsue, nature usually represents a space apart from culture—a place where she doesn’t have to choose between following her heart and deceiving her family and culture. But Hatsue’s problems have escalated to such an extent that she can no longer run to nature to escape her problems: “she [is] of this place and she [is] not of this place,” she realizes. There is no way for her to carry on believing that her identity can be rooted in America and in Japan: she must either choose, or continue to feel torn and anguished. 

Hatsue anguishes some more: as obligated as she feels to honor her family, she can’t deny that her feelings of Ishmael are real. Still, Hatsue considers “love” to be what she feels when she’s inside the cedar true. In other words, Hatsue’s notion of love is unable to extend beyond the constraints of the cedar tree and nature. She recognizes, at least unconsciously, that her love will never be legitimate in the prejudiced, human world.

The attack on Pearl Harbor forces the couple to come to terms with the unlikelihood that their relationship will be able to survive the cruelty and bigotry of the outside world. Ishmael, guided solely by his heart, remains optimistic that the couple can one day run away to a more accepting place. Having spoken with her mother earlier that day, Hatsue now realizes that there is more to life than the heart’s desires, and therefore, one must not act on desire alone.  She has a more negative, realistic outlook on their relationship than Ishmael has.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, fearing espionage and future attacks, called for the forced relocation of Japanese Americans. Arthur Chambers continues to use his newspaper to construct narratives that shed light on the injustices being done to the island’s Japanese population. In response, racist islanders continue to discredit Arthur, arguing that he favors the Japanese.  

Ishmael rolls with the punches because he believes it’s “just what [they] have to do.” He continues to act on his heart’s impulses, and Hatsue continues to act pragmatically in a way that acknowledges her connections to both Ishmael and her family and culture.

Ishmael’s love for Hatsue blinds him to Hatsue’s hesitations as he tries to engage her in an act of physical intimacy. His perspective is warped by the belief that Hatsue feels the same way about him as he does for her; “It seemed right to me,” he argues on realizing his blunder. When Hatsue leaves Ishmael in cedar tree, it is symbolic of her decision to leave behind the idyllic world of nature. Up until this point, Hatsue has used nature to avoid choosing between loving Ishmael and honoring her culture; her decision to leave Ishmael and the cedar tree, thus, shows that she has chosen honor over desire.