“There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are things that we can… leave to fate , coincidence and accident conspire; human beings must act according to reason” (Guterson 418). Reason, especially in the eyes and hands of human beings, is a very fickle thing in the novel Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. It is applied and interpreted in different ways by different people, and often incorrectly. Etta Heine believes that it is pure reason that pushes her to ignore the agreement between her late husband and Zenhichi Miyamoto and sell her land to Ole Jurgensen; however, this is just pure prejudice. Despite this, there are also people on the island of San Piedro who understand reason both in concept and in practice. Nels Gudmundsson is an example of one of these people, as is Kabuo Miyamoto. On the island of San Piedro, reason and lack constantly collide, leaving indelible stains on all the islanders. It is the collision of reason and irrationalism that controls the lives of all the islanders and brings them all to where they are when Kabuo Miyamoto is put on trial for murder. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In Snow Falling on Cedars, Nels Gudmundsson is one of the few characters who represents reason. Although he is around seventy years old and his health is deteriorating, his intelligence remains very astute. No lawyer could do better than Kabuo Miyamoto, because no lawyer could be as willing and able as Nels to look beyond skin color and eye slant and the general blind belief of the island that Kabuo is guilty, because of these physical characteristics. Nels' treatment of his client is one of the greatest humanity and respect, without the vicious pervasiveness of prejudice so prevalent throughout most of the island of San Piedro. During courtroom recess, he steps aside and encourages Deputy Abel Martinson to do the same so that Kabuo and his wife Hatsue can speak in private, without being separated by glass. When they first meet, Nels brings Kabuo two bars of chocolate without acknowledging his charity, which he knew Kabuo would find humiliating. During the same visit, Nels also shows Kabuo his complete indifference towards skin color during a friendly game of chess by having no preference for white or black chess pieces. When Nels determines, not decides, that Kabuo is not telling him the whole honest truth about the events of the night of Carl Heine's death, he pushes him to tell the truth without disrespect, or with the goal that all the world has to prove him guilty. just because of the color of his skin. He truly wants to do his job to the best of his ability, help vindicate Kabuo and return him to his family. Nels is able to treat his client with the fairness, equality and open-mindedness that many islanders are incapable of because he understands reason. He listens to Kabuo and examines the facts, and in the courtroom he implores jurors and the public to do the same and resist prosecutor Alvin Hooks' subtle appeals to their racism. Nels is the champion of reason, but his client Kabuo is a constant and discreet supporter. Kabuo hides the truth for as long as he does, from the sheriff and from Nels, because he has every reason to believe that the truth would be just as, if not more, detrimental to his legal situation. As he tells Nels: "This island [is] full of strong feelings...people who don't often say thisthat they think but still hate inside…they hate everyone who looks like the soldiers they fought” (391). Kabuo is absolutely correct in this statement. This is the truth, unaffected by Kabuo's resentment towards him. Kabuo knows that, like all other islanders of Japanese descent, he is not trusted by the citizens of San Piedro or the United States government. He knows he has been wronged by the family of Carl.Heine, the man who was his good friend when they were boys. He knows they are no longer friends because the men Carl calls his enemies during World War II have faces similar to Kabuo's, while the men Kabuo fights in Europe look like Carl. Kabuo is angry, resentful, and haunted upon his return from the war, but not to the point of decompensation. He retains his capacity for rationalization, his understanding and respect for reason, and this is what allows him to help Carl on the night of his death, because morality can better follow reason. Kabuo could have given in to pettiness and bitterness, but he never even considers it because he sees Carl stranded in the water with a completely dead battery, needing help. He does not push Carl to sell him the seven acres owed to his family because he knows that such pressure would only be counterproductive. The presumption among many islanders is that Kabuo kills Carl because he wants the land that Carl has just purchased from Ole Jurgensen, seven acres of which are those that were essentially stolen from the Miyamoto family. Kabuo, however, recognizes that "the world [is] one world, and the idea that one man can kill another for a small part of it [makes] no sense" (321). Kabuo only helps Carl, reaches an agreement on land, shakes Carl's hand, returns to his own boat and leaves. He's not doing anything unreasonable. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Carl Heine's mother, Etta. Etta is bitterly and relentlessly racist, and therefore incapable of treating Kabuo Miyamoto in the manner that reason (as well as basic human decency) demands. She takes advantage of her husband's death and the fact that Carl is at war to sell their farm to Ole Jurgensen, including on the seven acres, Zenhichi Miyamoto makes all but the last two payments. These last two payments, due in 1942, were missed only because the entire Japanese population of San Peidro was sent to internment camps far away, where completion of the payments was simply not possible. When Kabuo confronts her about the land she is owed, land she wastes no time selling to Ole Jurgensen without regard to the contract between her husband and Kabuo's father, Etta says, "[she] a] nothing a bank [does] not do. [She has] done nothing wrong” (138), a belief to which Kabuo responds “[she has] done nothing illegal…wrong is another matter” (138). Kabuo is right; Etta does not decide or act according to a sense of right and wrong, she acts according to “a thin veneer of cheap reason” (301). His attempted justification is that there makes little economic sense in selling the seven acres to Zenhichi Miyamoto so that when his eldest son Kabuo reaches the age of twenty, he can become a landowner. Although she genuinely cares about money, both in this particular case and in general, it is not, as she claims, her main concern and her main source of opposition to the sale. His reason is as abominably simple as racism. With no evidence to support it, and in fact only evidence to the contrary, Etta becomes suspicious of Zenhichi. As her husband Carl Senior points out, he and his family are hard workers, quiet and neat, but Etta will hear none of it because she has already decided, rather than determined, what kind of people the.