Snow Falling on Cedars: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Ishmael’s immediate sickness seems to foreshadow the horrors that lie ahead in his career as a marine. Further, his experience in the military coincides with receiving Hatsue’s breakup letter. His later cynicism towards the war seems connected to the painful memory of the shocking breakup.  Interestingly, Ishmael’s “yearn[ing]” for suffering parallels Fujiko Imada’s advice to her daughters to suffer in silence.

The military is wrought with racist anecdotes and propaganda. The former radioman’s horrific mutilation of the dead Japanese boy further contextualizes the source of much of San Piedro’s racism towards the Japanese. 

Ishmael sees fellow soldiers die even before he has the chance to engage in actual combat. This reality underscores the psychological baggage he carries years after his service. Ishmael’s desire not to be indifferent towards war also stands in stark contrast to the ambivalence he projects a decade later, at the book’s present moment. That shift in character shows how significantly the war will alter his personality.

An atoll is a coral reef that surrounds a lagoon. Tarawa (an atoll) is the capital of the Republic of Kiribati, located in the Pacific Ocean. The real-life Battle of Tarawa took place November 20-23, 1943. Thousands of Japanese, Korean, and American soldiers died during the battle, which is remembered as being a significant failure in United States Military history. Previous U.S. offensive strikes on the island had been highly successful, but on this occasion, the United States was opposed by an exceptionally prepared Japanese resistance situated on Betio, an island located in Tarawa atoll. Guterson includes a fictionalized account of this battle to illustrate the horrors of warfare.

Scared at the prospect of dying and looking for an outlet through which to channel his fear, Ishmael writes a prejudiced letter to Hatsue. This moment indicates how societal prejudice can affect the perspectives of even otherwise kind, loving people.

The men enter willingly into their mission, as they have no other choice. Guterson seems to suggest that war is so traumatic to soldiers in part because they are never adequately able to mentally prepare for the violence. 

Again, it’s clear that training hasn’t prepared Ishmael for the logistical or mental aspects of his mission.

Given how precise and well-thought out the mission appears at this point, its failure will come as a shock to Ishmael. The residual bitterness he feels after the war might be a side effect of his inability to prepare for the possibility of failure. What’s more, the failure of such a meticulous mission underscores the broader point that some things are simply beyond humans’ control.

Guterson continues to portray the mission as well-planned and foolproof. The military uses the slur “Jap” to dehumanize the enemy, effectively making it easier for the American soldiers to kill the Japanese with less moral hesitation.

When the marine jokingly calls Ishmael’s platoon’s instructions “suckers first,” he implies that the first squad to reach the island stands a greater chance of dying. Joking about death serves as a coping mechanism.

Ishmael finds the religious fervor of the song pointless. If the soldiers are fated to die, they’re fated to die—no prayers will be able to save them. This is one of the first inklings of the cynicism that Ishmael will show later in life.

Again, the soldiers refer to the Japanese with a derogatory slur. Dehumanizing the enemy will make it easier to kill them. This moment is also one of the first indications that this battle won’t go as planned.

The lieutenant felt confident that the Japanese forces on Betio would be “soften[ed]-up” because this had been the case in previous United States offensives on the island. Harvey’s prediction that there would be nothing but “a whole lot of little Jap pieces” also speaks to the novel’s larger theme of prejudice, which dehumanizes people based on their race. Ishmael’s decision to take Dramamine subtly sets him apart from his confident, bellicose counterparts: he is scared and sick to his stomach about this mission.

Already, holes begin to appear in the mission, evident by the absence of B-24s. A B-24 is an American bomber aircraft that was first introduced in WWII.

Water used to be a source of comfort for Ishmael—he spent hours of his childhood playing along the shore. Now, water is a theater of unspeakable violence and destruction. It may be that this transformation of the natural world is part of what makes this experience so traumatic for Ishmael.

Ishmael would rather be “a dead marine floating harmlessly in Betio’s lagoon” than be alive to witness to violence that surrounds him. So many men have died that the water that surrounds him is “tinged pink by the blood,” an image that calls to mind the pink foam in Carl Heine’s lungs and connects these distant instances of death. Ishmael will think often of Eric Bledsoe, and of the sight of his leg floating away from his bleeding body will haunt him into the novel’s current day.

Ishmael sees war as pointless, and this will make it hard for him to come to terms with its psychological effects years down the line.

Again, Guterson includes more vivid depictions of violence and gore to illustrate how traumatic Ishmael’s experience in the marines is. Horrific images like the sergeant “shot through the spine” help the reader understand the trauma to which Ishmael bears witness.

Guterson’s depictions of the horrors of war don’t stop at the visual; he also describes the “sweetish” smell of the dead soldiers’ bodies.

Despite the hopelessness of their situation, the soldiers push forward. Ishmael is forced to reform a squad after his original group is either missing or dead. The amount of detail in this war chapter is Guterson’s way of making Ishmael into a more sympathetic character. Though the cynicism and selfishness of his character in the novel’s present day can become grating, the trauma he suffered as a soldier contributes, in large part, to these less than savory personality traits.

Ishmael tries not to think about Eric Bledsoe, but he will not be successful in this endeavor: Ishmael will recall the image of Bledsoe bleeding to death later on in the novel, and he will admit that he thinks about him often. The repetitive language describing Ishmael’s circumstances also highlights how inescapable these memories will be for him.

Testaverde’s injury is particularly gruesome. Ishmael carries images like these with him years after the war.

Guterson describes in detail the endless horrors Ishmael witnessed during the war to explain and create sympathy towards the cynicism he carries with him in the present day. Visceral details, such as the man whose “brains [are] leaking out around his helmet,” and Ishmael’s memory of seeing his arm “where it had been dropped in the corner on top of a pile of blood-soaked dressings,” help to bring the horrors to life for the reader. When Ishmael talks about “that fucking goddamn Jap bitch,” it also shows how desperate and unable he is to make meaning of the senseless violence the war has forced on his life. “That […] Jap bitch,” of course, refers to Hatsue. Ishmael’s anger is misdirected, but it shows how he groups together all of the facets of his life over which he has no control. So much of this novel centers around Ishmael’s need to accept the things he cannot control and act on the things he can control, and this moment shows him struggling to do just that.