Prejudice, Justice and Love: in the reading of Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

The novel, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, is not only a meaningful drama of the courthouse, but also an excellent description of American society during and after WWII era : it is powerfully committed to engaging with the ideals of justice, law, love and human conscience. The dramatization of the novel is also successfully carried out into the beautiful film that was released from Universal Pictures. The film was highly praised as it captured the public attention. Its eloquent description of the community in which the story took place was especially attractive to our innocent mind. The place is the fictional island of San Piedro off the coast of Washington and the time is 1954, eight years after the end of World War II, a war where many young men from the island volunteered to fight for America and freedom as well as justice. Some of them lost their lives. The protagonists of this novel, Carl Heine, Kabuo Miyamoto, and Ishmael Chambers, all three of them went to war and returned home being seriously wounded not only physically but also mentally. Now one of those survivors- a gill-netter Carl Heine-has drowned under mysterious circumstances and another fisherman is on trial for his murder. The fact that the accused, Kabuo Miyamoto, is a second-generation Japanese-American is not mere coincidence. Among San Piedro's Anglos, hostility against Japanese was still running high. Most of white residents were by and large victims of racial prejudice. Certainly a murder trial has upset the quiet community and naturally this tranquil village has become the center of controversy. In this paper I would like to argue if prejudice intervenes in justice and prevents a jury from passing a clear verdict, if love can help human consciences work effectively even in the midst of social estrangement, and what it is to govern an American system of justice under such circumstances