"Re-entry" Chapter Overview
From Farewell to Manzanar
Plot
The Wakatsuki's, along with all the other Japanese families that have been interned, are permitted to leave Manzanar Camp in 1945. Papa Wakatsuki felt the need to go out in style so he went against his wife's wishes and bought a car. This chapter details their trip back into civilization and their expectations for how the Caucasians would treat them. The had expected hostility and violence, but they were met with indifference.
Characterization
-Character: Ko Wakatsuki (Papa)
-Evidence: "Before the war he always preferred offbeat, unpredictable cars that no one else of his acquaintance would be likely to own." (Houston 149)
-Inference: Papa likes to set himself apart from his peers. He takes pride in being different and unique.
-Character: Papa and Mama
-Evidence: "Papa would never accept anything like a cannery job. And if he did Mama's shame would be greater than his..." (Houston 155)
-Inference: Both Papa and Mama are too proud to accept Papa taking a cannery job when he used to work on his own boat. It would be a major blow to their pride if he had to stoop that low.
AP Literary Terms
Foreshadowing
-Evidence: "those premonitions proved correct, in a way I hadn't at all been prepared for, on the first day back in public school" (Houston 156)
-Reasoning: prelude to events in chapter 29
Tone
-Excerpt: "he suddenly sobered up, and his mood began to match what mine had been since we drove out the main gate, as if what we had all been dreading so longways finally to appear, at any moment, without warning--a burst of machine-gun fire, or a row of Burma-Shave signs saying 'JAPS GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM'". (Houston 151)
-Tone: suspense, worry
Group Members
Tridib Basu, Daija Dewberry, Brittney Youngblood