The image of snow drifting windward into the cedars of San Piedro, offers a display of tranquillity, and yet with snow comes storms bringing a fury of habitual destruction. Thus, David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars presents the innocent setting of a small island town untainted by the rest of society; but as the testimonies unravel, they paint a more disturbing portrait. While the courtroom serves as the novel's main rally point, where stories come together and plot advances, it also serves as a structure that pits together the contrasting issues that govern the island inhabitants. Severe racial prejudice, struggles against circumstance, the influence of war, family values, and inhibition of love "are issues that all take centre stage. Throughout the course of the novel, the main characters of Kabuo, Ishmael, and Hatsue all hold back a bitterness of their past, clouded with regret and hurt. The trial takes them back through these events, and follows the challenge these characters face to reconcile with their pasts. Especially, it tells of the journey of Ishmael, a man who learns to shed his cynicism and resentment to become the novel's most tragic hero.
Perhaps the most obvious metaphor "of which Guterson has taken much care in crafting "is the island of San Piedro itself. Its people live in close proximity to each other, and their lifestyle of strawberry farming and fishing segregates them from the more urbanised, mainland city of Seattle. The residents of San Piedro can be divided into the racial groups of Japs and Americans, making the island a map with clean lines of prejudice. The island is a microcosm, a representation of the outside world; and yet in the same sense it represents the courtroom in which the trial takes place. Just as in the larger world, the laws in the courtroom demand justice and equality, and yet it is not completely immune to human cruelty.