Summary: Chapter 1
The novel opens in a courtroom on San Piedro Island in
the Puget Sound region of Washington. The date is December 6, 1954.
Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American fisherman, is on trial for the
murder of another local fisherman, a white man named Carl Heine. Kabuo
sits in the courtroom, proud and silent, while the court prepares
to hear the case. A snowstorm is brewing outside. Inside, jurors,
lawyers, reporters, and the public gather for the trial. Among the
reporters is Ishmael Chambers, the editor of the local paper and a
veteran of World War II. Kabuo’s wife, Hatsue, is also in the courtroom.
Ishmael had tried to speak with Hatsue before the trial. But Hatsue,
for reasons not yet clear, told Ishmael to go away.
Summary: Chapter 2
In the courtroom, Alvin Hooks, the prosecuting attorney,
questions the local sheriff, Art Moran. Art testifies that Carl
Heine’s boat, the Susan Marie, was found adrift on the morning of
September 16, 1954.
Upon boarding the boat and investigating the scene, Art and his
deputy, Abel Martinson, found Carl’s body trapped in the boat’s fishing
net underwater. When Art and Abel pulled Carl—a well-built, quiet,
and respected fisherman—up into the boat, they discovered an odd
wound on his head. The wound later led Art to suspect foul play.
Summary: Chapter 3
During cross-examination, Kabuo’s defense attorney, Nels
Gudmundsson, questions the sheriff about the contents of Carl’s
boat. Of particular interest is a dead engine battery that was found
on the boat. The type of battery is different from the type that
Carl normally used to power his boat but it matches the type of
battery that Kabuo used on his boat. The elderly Nels, whose failing
health has left him frail, raises the possibility that Carl may
have fallen out of his boat by accident while he was changing the
engine battery.
Analysis: Chapters 1–3
The first chapters of Snow Falling on Cedars establish
three aspects of the novel’s setting. First, Guterson introduces
the island itself. The residents of San Piedro live in close proximity
to one another and are isolated physically from the rest of the
world. Likewise, their antiquated lifestyle of fishing and strawberry-farming
separates them culturally from people in Seattle and other nearby
urban areas. Together, this physical and cultural isolation heightens
the fragility of the community. It also encourages us to think of
San Piedro as a microcosm, a smaller world that symbolizes the whole world.
Second, the first few chapters introduce the courtroom.
The courtroom is not only the physical setting but also a metaphor
for Guterson’s overall intent in the novel. While the citizens of
San Piedro put Kabuo on trial, Guterson puts the community of San Piedro,
and history itself, on trial. Just as a trial relies on testimonies to
establish a story, leaving a jury to decide guilt or innocence based on
these testimonies, the novel presents testimonies of its characters’ beliefs
and values, leaving us to decide who is guilty and who is innocent.
Third, Guterson describes the snowstorm brewing outside
the courthouse, a storm that lasts through the entire trial. This
storm forces the islanders to cooperate, even as they put one of
their own members on trial. More important, it represents a force
of nature that humans are powerless to control. Yet while a storm
rages outside, inside the courtroom people try carefully to determine
the guilt or innocence of a man. This tension between the aspects
of life that individuals and communities cannot control and those
they can and should control persists throughout the novel.
