Snow Falling on Cedars

Context: David Guterson was born in Seattle in 1956, and has spent nearly his entire life in Washington, in the area around Puget Sound. After receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Washington, he taught high school English on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, writing at the same time for Sports Illustrated and Harper's Magazine. Guterson also published a collection of short stories called The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind and the nonfiction …

…nature of prejudice; the limits of knowledge Motifs - The storm; the body; testimony Symbols - The cedar tree; Arthur Chambers's chair; the courthouse; Ishmael's camera Foreshadowing - The snowstorm brewing outside the courthouse at the beginning of the trial hints at the impersonal forces--prejudice, here--that will be at work during the trial. Arthur Chambers's question to Ishmael about which facts the newspaper should print hints at the unreliability of people's perceptions of the truth.