57 pages • 1 hour read
Yoshiko UchidaPicture Bride
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Hana prepares her home for Kenji’s stay. She converts Mary’s nursery to a cheerful guest room. When Kenji arrives, he is thankful but solemn. Hana shares her dilemma with Mrs. Davis, who sympathizes with Hana’s hospitality and raises her pay.
One day, Kenji offers to take Mary to the park. Hana is cautious but agrees, understanding that trusting Kenji will boost his self-esteem. While she awaits their return, Hana reads a letter from Kiku, who informs Hana that she is pregnant with her first child. Hana writes a response in which she comments that she and Taro have grown increasingly distant.
Anxiety overwhelms her when she realizes that Kenji and Mary have been gone for over an hour. Hana walks to the park herself and is pleasantly surprised to see that Kenji and Mary are eating ice cream. When Taro comes home from the shop, he is obviously despondent.
Chapter 16 Summary
As Kenji shows improvement in his mind and mood, Hana’s concerns shift to Taro’s well-being. He refuses to discuss the shop. When she presses him for information, he reveals that he is in debt due to higher rent, utility fees, and business expenses. Because much of her time has been directed at Mary, Kenji, and Mrs. Davis, Hana feels that she has neglected Taro. She offers to ask Mrs. Davis for a loan, but Taro furiously refuses.
While she has grown fond of Taro, Hana silently notes that he is a stubborn and proud man. She reflects on her connection with Kenji; she relates to his role as an outsider and appreciates knowing someone that never knew Yamaka. Kenji respects her and initiates intellectual discussions with her about the Bible. Kenji also sympathizes with Taro’s masculine pride. He and Hana work together to develop a plan to combat Taro’s debt: Hana will look after the shop while Taro and Kenji paint Mrs. Davis’s house. The painting job will pay sufficiently, and Hana can work to improve the shop. Taro agrees to the arrangement.
Chapter 17 Summary
Taro and Kenji paint Mrs. Davis’s house and are hired for a few additional painting jobs. Hana revamps the store by cleaning, reorganizing, and introducing a wider variety of products. Her presence in the store induces the sympathy of Taro’s suppliers, and they extend the Takedas’ credit.
Proud of her efforts to restore stability to her family, Hana hopes that God has forgiven her. She doubts that Taro will ever forgive her for her flirtatious relationship with Yamaka. She feels nostalgic for summers in Oka Village and imagines the sights and sounds of the home she left behind in Japan. Taro, proud of Hana’s efforts, asks her to work full time at the shop. Before Kenji returns to seminary school, he thanks the Takedas and blesses their home.
Chapter 18 Summary
The novel moves forward in time to 1930. Mary, nearing adolescence, helps her parents in the shop and attends church events. Taro dreams of buying the shop in Mary’s name one day. While Hana takes solace in seeing Mary live a happy childhood, she cannot help but imagine the kind of person Mary’s deceased older brother could have been.
The Takedas decide to visit the Todas for a weeklong summer vacation. When the Takedas arrive at the Todas’ farm, Taro’s car malfunctions, and they crash into a nearby doghouse. Nevertheless, everyone is delighted to be reunited. Kenny and Jimmy, Henry and Kiku’s sons, casually disappear for hours and return covered in mud. Mary enjoys rural life but is surprised by the boys’ rough social habits.
The two families gather together for dinner. Hana becomes emotional at the tender comfort of the evening, remembering her family in Japan. Taro, too, relaxes and forgets about the stresses of work. They sing songs into the evening, and Kiku expresses satisfaction with her move to the country.
Chapter 19 Summary
Country life entrances Mary. She wanders the farm, interacts with the animals, and learns about plant life. One night, the Takedas and the Todas go on an evening wagon ride. The children sing common American rhymes, and Taro surprises everyone with his singing.
Memories of the farm stay with Mary long after she returns to Oakland. Hana and Taro benefit from the vacation as well, feeling “totally at peace” after the trip (119). The return to Oakland reminds Hana of her feelings of disassociation from her larger community. Consumed with self-awareness, Hana is decidedly uncomfortable being the sole Japanese woman in a predominantly white neighborhood. She contemplates what her life would have been like if she had remained in Japan.
After seeing the ease and confidence of Kiku’s sons, Hana worries that Mary will always feel diminutive within white society. Hana practices her English, concerned that a language barrier may arise between herself and Mary. However, she finds it difficult to keep up with English lessons alongside daily tasks.
Chapter 20 Summary
Taro continues to be involved in most church activities, to Mary’s irritation. During an Armistice Day memorial service, the Takedas visit the grave of their son, Ichiro. Despite her disdain for the service, Mary enjoys visiting her brother. She offers him flowers and prayers. Her parents also pay their respects, and Mary notices her father’s restrained emotions. Hana stops by Yamaka’s grave. When Mary asks about Yamaka, Hana describes him as simply “A very good friend” (125).
After the memorial service, the Takedas host a dinner to commemorate the dead. Reverend Okada announces that he and his family will return to Japan. This causes Hana to consider returning, but she decides against it. According to Hana, Mary—acclimated to American norms—could never thrive as a typical Japanese woman. Hana and Dr. Kaneda suggest that Kenji return to the church as their new minister. Taro agrees but seems annoyed that Hana feels emotionally attached to another man.
Chapter 21 Summary
The novel jumps ahead several years. Mary is now a teenager and has become aware of the limitations faced by Japanese American women; while she has white friends, she feels like an outsider among them.
Mary’s school holds an event for the International Day assembly. To celebrate the event, Mary and other Nisei girls are encouraged to wear traditional kimonos. Hana agrees to assist but is cautious of embarrassing Mary at school. Hana is aware that Mary is reticent to acknowledge her Japanese heritage. On the awaited day, Hana comes to Mary’s school and helps her and the other girls wrap their kimonos. When it comes time for the assembly, Mary does not invite her mother to attend.
Hana feels spurned by her daughter. The event contributes to Hana’s larger insecurities about her relationship with Mary. Hana attributes the gulf between them to language: Hana was not able to keep up with English classes, and she did not require that Mary practice Japanese. When she returns home, Hana indicates to Taro that it is too late for her to reconnect with Mary.
Chapters 15-21 Analysis
After the deaths of her son and Yamaka, Hana feels the need to help others to obtain salvation and forgiveness from God. She houses Kenji during a difficult time in his life and improves Taro’s shop when business slows down. When Kenji returns to the seminary as a newly-restored man, Hana reflects on her salvation: “[Hana] felt as though she had saved a life; as though she had repaid a great debt that had weighed her down for so long with the burden of guilt” (106). Hana could not save Yamaka from influenza, but she was able to save Kenji from emotional destitution. By helping others, Hana hopes to please God and settle the debt she feels she owes. She feels she earns God’s forgiveness but wonders if she will ever earn Taro’s, emphasizing the theme of Divine Absolution and the Difficulty of Human Forgiveness. Her improvements to Taro’s store strengthen their relationship, but she still detects residual resentment in her husband.
By contrast, Kenji’s personal growth occurs because of Hana’s trust in him. Though he is emotionally fragile when he moves in with the Takedas, Kenji is a sensible and kind-hearted person. The Takedas’ acceptance allows him to develop self-worth and confidence, emphasizing the importance of community in self-discovery. A major moment of growth in Kenji occurs when he takes Mary to the park. The narration implies that Hana fears that the unstable Kenji could harm Mary: “Perhaps she [Hana] had been foolish to trust him [Kenji] so soon. Taro would never forgive her if she let anything happen to their Mary” (97). However, she witnesses Kenji completely at ease with Mary and understands that he benefitted from feeling trusted. The responsibility that Hana entrusts to Kenji allows him to grow into a self-reliant and altruistic person, and he eventually replicates this role for others as a religious leader.
As Mary grows into adolescence, the third-person narrator occasionally situates itself alongside her point of view. By exploring Mary’s perspective alongside Hana’s, Uchida narrativizes the experience of a Nisei child, one born to Japanese immigrant parents. Through Mary, Uchida shows the cultural and social dilemmas specific to Nisei, even though they share some challenges with their parents. Mary is pulled in two directions, influenced by Japanese and American norms. To the disturbance of her parents, Mary gravitates toward American culture more than Japanese. This exemplifies the long-term effects of assimilation. Mary has a traditional Christian name, speaks English more than Japanese, and has white friends; as a result, Hana feels estranged from her daughter.
Still, Mary feels like an outsider in American society and “[tries] to be unobtrusive, emulating the white American world, hoping desperately to be absorbed by it” (131). Exposed to racial discrimination from a young age, she prays for anonymity within white American society, highlighting the way assimilation can flatten different cultural identities rather than letting them coexist in a new country. Despite their own attempts at becoming American, Mary’s desire to assimilate creates a divide between her and her parents, shown most clearly in the language barrier that develops between Mary and Hana; Hana stops taking English classes and doesn’t enforce Mary’s Japanese education. In Chapter 20, Hana fleetingly considers moving back to Japan while Mary is still young. This possibility—a future in which Mary grows into adulthood in Japan—contrasts with the subsequent chapter when Mary has grown into a fully assimilated young adult.
The Takedas’ vacation to the Todas’ farm highlights the divide between city and country life. Mary, who only knows city life, is shocked by Kenny and Jimmy’s lack of embarrassment in getting dirty and running around the farm. The disconnect between Mary and the Toda boys demonstrates the different lifestyles of urban and rural living. Kiku admits that, while farm work is harsh, rural life is mentally freeing: “I work like an old army horse [...] but when I go to sleep it’s with a weariness in my bones and not in my head” (115). This mindset contrasts with Hana and Taro’s, who are regularly plagued with the anxieties of city life. The Burden of Assimilation, racism, and financial difficulty are inescapable for a Japanese American in the city. Therefore, the country is a restorative getaway for the Takedas.
The trip opens up Mary’s world. She loves wandering around the farm and interacting with animals. During her country vacation, Mary learns to love independence and discovery, and as she grows older, her desire for independence will only increase. Taro, burdened by the stress of running his shop, finds a reprieve in the country. The trip bolsters both him and Hana, leaving them “totally at peace from having come to terms with the earth and the elements” (119). The trip has a profound impact on Hana, who is reminded of home and family in Japan. The allure of farm life makes Hana consider her isolation within the predominantly white Oakland. She contemplates what her life would have been like if she had stayed in Japan. Even as she works hard to obtain success in America, she expresses nostalgia for Japan throughout the book. This suggests her persistent dissatisfaction with American life and the elusiveness of the American dream.
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