Snow Falling on Cedars, written by David Guterson is set in 1954 on Washington's remote San Piedro Island and begins with the mysterious death of a local fisherman, Carl Heine. It rouses the community's postwar distrust of their Japanese-American neighbors, and the island's Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of the fisherman's murder. The incident also awakens feelings within Ishmael Chambers, the town's newspaperman who has long loved Kabuo's wife, Hatsue Miyamoto (nee. Imada). Guterson's descriptions, symbolic use of setting and story line of the cedar forest, the strawberry fields, the sea and the town of Amity Harbour, allow us to better our understanding of the characters in the novel, particularly Carl, Kabuo, Ishmael and Hatsue, as is discussed in this essay.

One of the central settings Guterson makes use of in Snow Falling on Cedars is the cedar forest, particularly the hollow cedar tree, in which Hatsue and Ishmael have...