Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity
Silence vs. Communication
Family Dynamics and Inheritance
Memory
Love and Self-Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Henry writes to Keiko and tells her about his father’s desire to send him to China. Surprising Henry, Keiko advises him to go, since they are apart for now regardless. Henry decides to stay at Rainier. He writes to Keiko every week, and she sends back letters and sketches. After a while, Keiko stops writing; Henry goes three weeks without receiving a letter. At the post office one day, he surprises the skinny girl working the front counter by paying extra postage to have his latest letter to Keiko expedited.
Henry is crushed and confused by Keiko’s lack of response. This is understandable, given how tortured Henry has been by his father’s (and mother’s) silence throughout his childhood. Still, Henry remains devoted to Keiko, and to keeping his promise of writing to and waiting for her. The fact that he even pays extra postage to ensure his letters reach Keiko affirms yet again how deeply Henry has fallen in love with his friend.
Themes
On the way home from the post office, Henry stops to talk to Sheldon, who notes that Henry is walking home empty-handed. “I just didn’t think she’d forget about me so quickly,” Henry says. Sheldon encourages Henry to keep his faith in Keiko; “hope gets you through the night,” he says.
Though Henry struggles to accept Sheldon’s advice, Sheldon’s wise words nevertheless underscore the importance of maintaining one’s faith in the goodness of others, despite adversity. Love, Sheldon suggests, cannot grow without hope.
Themes
Three weeks since Henry last heard from Keiko, he receives a letter from her, dated a week earlier. Henry writes back right away, but waits months for a reply. When he does get one, he thinks Keiko seems “more confused and busy than ever.” Henry wonders if the letters he’s been writing her have been getting lost. Henry begins to despair that “time apart” is distancing him more from Keiko “than the mountains and time zone separating them.”
Several details of this passage are important on a plot level—particularly Keiko’s sense of confusion in her replies, as well as the fact that Henry has begun to receive Keiko’s responses out of order. Additionally, Henry’s concern about “time apart” distancing him and Keiko is noteworthy, as the reader has already seen that not even an entire lifetime apart has been able to permanently sever their bond.
Themes
