The father and the son

              In the novel Snow Falling on Cedars (New York: A Division of Random House, Inc.), David Guterson describes importance of fairness and existence of prejudice for Japanese Canadians through the murder trial about 10 years after the World War II in San Piedro Island, a small island of the U.S. Ishmael, one of the main characters, runs the San Piedro Review, the local newspaper of the island, after the death of Arthur, his father who had started the newspaper. The son is like his father in some ways: the job, feathers, hobbies, war experiences, and having cynicism, however, not in other ways: sociability and respectability, fairness, and attitude toward the newspaper.

              The son “run his father’s paper”(355) although the son hadn’t lived in the island when his father has died; consequently, they had the same job. Since they are son and father, their feature is similar each other. Hatsue says, “You look just like [the father], I always thought you looked like your father – the eyes especially”(447). They also have the same hobbies. They like listening to baseball: “[The son]’d listened mostly to baseball games”(350), and “[h]is father , too, had liked baseball”(350). These facts show that the blood is thicker than water.

              The son and his father have had the war experiences. The son has fought to Japanese in the World War II and has lost his left arm. Ishmael says, “[Japanese] shot my arm off. Japs”(332) Moreover, He has seen “hundreds of other men who had come ashore and been shot at[,] …plenty more dead marines on the beach now, and plenty more of the wounded, too”(246). This terrible war experience has made him dislike Japanese and left him trauma. Similarly, his father has fought at Saint-Mihiel and Belleau Wood(33), and “It took him years to get over it. He had nightmares and he suffered just as [the son does]”(348). The fact that both the son and the father have been bothered by the war experiences shows their similarity.

              The son and the father both have the cynicism. His mother points out that the cynicism both the son and the father have had is fairly unbecoming although it is understandable(36). She says, “[The father] loved humankind dearly and with all his heart, but he disliked most human beings”(36). In the son’s case, he desires to love people, but he cannot know how to do it(36). The son hasn’t realized this similarity until he sits in his father’s chair; however, finally, “Ishmael understood … how he’d arrived at the same view of things”(439). They both want to love people; however, they both cannot stand what they are doing and hope them to change their behaviors.

As well as similarities, the son and the father have some differences. The father has sociability and respectability. When the father has died, 170 islanders have come to his funeral(352). This number is large enough to show his sociability. Moreover, many people says that he has been a respectable person. For example, Nel Gudmundsson says, “[the father] was one admirable man”(424). Masato Nagaishi says, “We have always had great respect for him”(352). Mr. Fukida says, “We believe [the son’s] heart is strong, like his father’s”(441). All these words illuminate the father’s respectability. However, although the son runs the newspaper like his father, he is alone and lonely, as his mother asks him, “Why on earth don’t you go out with someone? How can you stand your loneliness?”(348). Moreover, no one respect or compliment him. For instance, Ed Soames thinks that the son is “[ab]out half the man his father was”(310).

When it comes to fairness, the father is much better than the son. When the World War II occurred, the father has written editor’s column, without sleeping, in which he has claimed that Japanese who have lived in the island have not been enemies(184). But the son doesn’t write such a column soon. In another case, the father is compared with the son in the situation in which the son has a coast guard memo that effects the trial. The son didn’t go to the judge soon; however, if it had happened to the father, he would have gone to the judge hours earlier(356). As a result, Mr. Nagaishi respects the father as “a man of great fairness and compassion for others”(352). These facts make the son and the father very different.

Although the son inherited the father’s business, the attitude toward the newspaper is very different. The father recognizes the newspaper should provide for “leverage, celebrity, and service”(33). And so he does. Although he has lost the sponsors and the customers, he hasn’t stopped expressing what he thinks he have to(192). However, the son avoids controversial topics and writes only peaceful topics. He “[fills] the pages of his newspaper with words, [buries] himself in whatever was safe”(442). In brief, the father is brave and the son is coward.

The son and the father have the same job, similar feathers, identical hobbies, comparable war experiences and close cynicism; on the other hand, they have different sociability and respectability, unlike fairness, and dissimilar attitude toward the newspaper. However, as the son have more experiences, he might become a social and respectable person like his father, as he starts changing his behavior at the end of the story, because he has realized that his father is a man of great fairness and is respected by many people and that he had arrived the same view of things with his father.