Snow Falling on Cedars Themes

Ahem—excuse us as we clear our throat to sing our favorite song from Cats. Okay, back to business. You may have noticed that characters in this novel spend more time in the past than in the prese...

Kabuo Miyamoto spends a good chunk of Snow Falling on Cedars imprisoned; in the present-day timeline, he's in jail, and in the flashbacks, he's a prisoner in Manzanar—the Japanese internment camp...

Although some people believe that the truth will set you free, it's a complicated business in Snow Falling on Cedars. Characters like Kabuo Miyamoto and Arthur Chambers seem to think there's more t...

Snow Falling on Cedars shows how powerful prejudices and biases can be. The jury comes this close to convicting Kabuo Miyamoto for the murder of Carl Heine, despite the fact there was enough room f...

In Snow Falling on Cedars, the people of San Piedro—veterans and non-veterans alike—are haunted by memories of World War II. Two of the main characters, Ishmael and Kabuo, fought in the war and...

Snow Falling on Cedars is kind of a murder mystery (or at least starts out that way), so you probably guessed that death was going to be a theme. Beyond the Carl Heine murder trial, the characters...

You'd think that with war, murder, and snowstorms, the characters in Snow Falling on Cedars wouldn't have time to get all moony about each other, but you would be so wrong. Love and marriage are pr...

Many of the characters in Snow Falling on Cedars seem to feel tangled up in fate's fishing net, unable to move forward or exercise control over what is happening to them. Take, for example, Kabuo M...