Friday, January 24, 2014
Snow Falling, after finishing Chapter 21
Due February 12, 2014: Again, choose two lines that seem important to the text—but this time, choose one that feels important to you and one that seems important to the text. Make sure to note the page numbers. As usual, also read your classmates' posts and reply to them if a response comes to mind. Of course also feel free to pose any questions that are arising for you.
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Line that is important to me:
ReplyDelete(page 172) "...[Ishmael]... gradually reveal[ed] to her how it hurt him to feel there was a part of her love she withheld. Hatsue denied that this was so and explained to him that her emotional reserve was something she couldn't help. She had been carefully trained by her upbringing, she said, to avoid effusive displays of feeling, but this did not mean her heart was shallow. Her silence, she said, would express something if he would learn to listen to it. Yet his suspicion that he loved more deeply than she did nevertheless remained with him..."
I like this quote because I think it correctly describes the type of reserve that many people exhibit, including Hatsue, when it comes to emotion. This quote deepens the complexity of Hatsue's character, and gives even more insight into Hatuse and Ishmael's relationship (the most interesting relationship in the book, in my opinion).
Important to the text:
(page 287) "...he would finish matters by presenting the wife of the murdered man, a woman who had already done much good merely sitting in the gallery where the jurors could view her. The men especially would not wish to betray such a woman with a not-guilty verdict at the end of things. She would persuade them not precisely with what she had to say but with the entirety of who she was."
I think this quote communicates how factors other than the actual testimony can affect the juror's decisions. Brining the wife of the murdered man into the courtroom would automatically bring compassion and pity from the jurors, perhaps persuading them to rule "guilty."
Your reaction to the quote on page 172 is interesting. I also think that Hatsue and Ishmael's relationship is interesting, and I wonder if the author will write about what happens after both Hatsue and Ishmael have returned to San Piedro.
DeleteOne quote that stood out for me as important to the text was, “He knew himself privately to be guilty of murder, to have murdered men in the course of war, and it was this guilt-he knew no other word-that lived in him perpetually and that he exerted himself not to communicate. Yet the exertion itself communicated guilt, and he could see no way to stop it”(155).
ReplyDeleteThis line ends up coming into play later on in, in a flashback to the investigation. Art Moran is suspicious of Kabuo because he has “the eyes of a man hiding something” (269). It seems that in general people tend to be suspicious of Kabuo because he is difficult to read. I wonder if Kabuo will be able to move on from his guilt after seeing it in his face, but I think that it will take much more than seeing his face in a mirror for him to be able to move past years of guilt.
One quote that felt important to me was, “‘Yes, you were born here, that’s so,’ said Fujiko. ‘But your blood-you are still Japanese”(201).
It is interesting that many people identify with their perceived race more than they identify with other people simply on the basis of being human. Fujiko believes that Japanese and white people are fundamentally different. Many white Americans also felt that the two races had too many differences to overcome, resulting in over 100,000 Japanese-Americans being sent to internment camps with no evidence of wrongdoing.
Your first quote I was talking about some with my quotes. Even though he was killing other people, he was still killing them, and so technically, he is a murderer. Even in war time, when you kill other humans, until the day you die, you have to live with the fact that you physically killed other humans.
DeleteMy two lines are both important to me and the text.
ReplyDeletePg. 163: "He remembered the expression on Hatsue's face when he told her he had enlisted. It was not being gone, she said--though the being gone was a horrible thing--it was more that he might not ever return, or that he might return not himself."
This quote is very real to me. Once you sign up to be a soldier, you are almost completely likely to be called on to serve your country. You might die while fighting. You could lose limbs while fighting. This quote is quite powerful for me also because in just over six months, I will have to register myself, (I'll be eighteen), to be ready to possibly give up my life for the U.S. if the U.S. has another war draft, even though having another draft is unlikely.
Pg. 164: "...And then he had returned, a murderer..."
This is powerful to the text and for me. Would Kabuo after killing other humans in war time be able to Carl over a disagreement? This quote also is quite thought provoking for me, as well. When soldiers kill others in war time, are they then considered murderers? I think yes and no. Yes, they are a murderer for killing other humans, but no in the sense that they mostly killing these people in order to help protect their home country. What is the line drawn?
Line important to the text p 296: "'We got into a scrap, I guess. I couldn't talk to him, Susan. I just...didn't...know how to do it. I didn't know what to say to him...'"
ReplyDeleteThis line is important to the text because it could be one explanation for why Kabuo and Carl got into a fight in which Kabuo eventually killed Carl. Their inability to communicate with each other and find the reasoning behind this issue of the seven acres of land could be what killed Carl. It also seams that through out the book there is a general theme of a lack of communication between people; Carl and Kabuo, Carl and Susan; Ishmael and Hatsue, and it seams to lead to a lot of strife.
Line that is important to me on page 255: "This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even-- or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snow bound happiness. Who knew?"
I like the idea that the lives of the islanders are at the are in the hands of the whims of the weather, but also that they have accepted this fact and know that they can only hope for the best. This line gives a good sense of life on the island and how even though the islanders work hard they can't work everything away. Some things happen and they can't stop them.
Line important to me on page 263 "Tides, currents, and winds were one thing, the force of luck another." This line is important to me because i find that it is so true about fishing. You can monitor currents, you can check water temperatures but it never really guarantees that you will catch anything. It reminds me of a saying i heard while fishing; "The fishing today was great, but the catching wasn't."
ReplyDeleteLine important to text page 285 "No it would not surprise Sergeant Victor Maples to hear that Kabuo Miyamoto had killed a man with a fishing gaff. He was highly capable of such a deed." This important to the text because this is a man who trained Kabuo, who knows him. If he is not surprised at all that Kabuo is being tried for murder than that will further the oppositions argument. It's almost a perfect case for the opposition. The murder weapon is covered in blood, it was at the murder scene, and Kabuo is more than capable of using the weapon to kill someone.