Picture Bride

“[Hana’s] body seemed leaden and lifeless, as though it were simply the vehicle transporting her soul to a strange new life, and she longed with childlike intensity to be home again in Oka Village.”

As she travels from Japan to America, Hana is stricken with homesickness. Despite the assuredness with which she volunteers to marry Taro and move to California, she immediately misses her childhood home. The tinges of regret described in this early passage permeate the rest of the novel. Hana will look back on Japan with nostalgia, remembering it as an innocent and familiar place. Early in the novel, Hana is “lifeless”; the sheer scale of her commitment to Taro weighs heavy on her, and she will be plagued by doubts for many of her early days in America.

“Hana knew she wanted more for herself than her sisters had in their proper, arranged and loveless marriages. She wanted to escape the smothering strictures of life in her village.”

This quotation explains Hana’s decision to move to America: She wants more than life in her rural village can offer. Her older sisters seem to lead empty lives, and Hana has been conditioned through education to seek discovery and self-development. Ironically, Hana’s marriage will be, essentially, arranged. While Hana avoids the strict traditions of her village, she will encounter a myriad of obstacles while immigrating. Hana’s life in America is riddled with hardship; therefore, it is important to understand why Hana travels to America in the first place. Her desire for independence led her there.