Heart of a Samurai Themes

Family is what you make of it in Heart of a Samurai. There's blood family, yes, but then there are also all the people Manjiro meets along the way as he travels from Japan to America and back again...

You might think that a book about a Japanese teenager living in America might be all about miscommunications—and sure, there's some of that in Heart of a Samurai—but what's surprising is how mu...

Principles are the bedrock of all the good characters in Heart of a Samurai. Captain Whitfield and his wife never waiver in their belief in equality for all people, and Manjiro never loses track of...

For this book, it might not be a bad idea to substitute nature for culture. This is because art and aesthetic pleasure in Heart of a Samurai come from a deep appreciation and bond with nature and i...

Identity is usually something that's in flux in coming-of-age novels, but in Heart of a Samurai, the protagonist's core identity is actually pretty constant. Identity for Manjiro is closely linked...

Heart of a Samurai may be all about how a young Japanese guy changes the fate of Japan (and America) in the 19th century, but the book also shows how huge transformations (in society and in the pro...

In Heart of a Samurai, everything is about class. Even though Japan and America are totally different, the one thing they share is a hierarchical society (even if America is supposed to be class-le...

Heart of a Samurai is all about comparing the 19th-century traditions and customs of Japan to those of America. But there's a larger question that underlies all these comparisons: Is there any kind...

There's definitely a lot of "othering" in Heart of a Samurai, and not just from the white characters. Being anti-foreigner is a thing that both the Japanese characters and the American characters a...

How different can Japan and America be from each other in the 19th century? Good question. And this is a big part of what Heart of a Samurai explores. From geography to people to culture, the novel...