He gives us the impression that the island has a close knit community; the courtroom was “cramped”, the citizens also seemed to have attended the trial as an act of respect towards all those that have been affected by the whole event. He also uses the introduction to introduce the type of people that inherit the island, “two truck farmers, a retired crabber, a bookkeeper, a carpenter…”etc.
Gutterson also takes the opportunity to add extra details, such as their religious nature and the different cultures of the people that live on San Piedro.
As he is describing the courtroom, he is introducing the main/important characters. These are ‘Kabuo Miyamoto’, the accused man of the murder of ‘Carl Heine’; ‘Ishmael Chambers’, the local reporter; and ‘Hatsue Miyamoto’, the accused mans wife. Gutterson chooses carefully what sort of detail he goes into about these characters, e.g. with ‘Kabuo’ he talks about his appearance during his trial, hinting that he may be innocent, or he may not be,
“Some in the gallery would later say that his stillness suggested a disdain for the proceedings; others felt certain it veiled a fear of the verdict that was to come.”
Effectively this immediately makes the story more interesting, encouraging the readers to want to find out more, For ‘Carl Heine’, Gutterson doesn’t go into much detail about who he is, he just explains that he is “a salmon gill-netter with a wife and three children”, and is now buried; this may make it more excitingly mysterious, for readers will now be wanting to find out more, so they can make a judgment for themselves about the truth of the murder of ‘Carl Heine’.
He moves on from the courtroom scene to help his readers visualise the actual island. He is very good at this; he doesn’t leave too much to the imagination, by using elaborate words to conjure up the right picture. He starts off with some of ‘San Piedro’s’ history, then makes a point about the islands low-crime rate,
“The most distressing news story of the proceeding ten years had been the wounding of an island resident by a drunken Seattle yachtsman with a shotgun on the fourth of July, 1951”
This just emphasises, the seriousness of the murder trial, and therefore excites the readers.
Gutterson tells the readers that the island is weathered, simple and beautiful/picturesque. We feel the island is ‘weathered’ when he describes its only town;
“It was an eccentric, rainy, wind-beaten sea village…”
We sense it is also ‘simple’ when he is able to list the shops/buildings that are in the town. There are no extra shops/buildings in the town such as more than one estate agents etc. They are all what the citizens need rather than them being there for the sake of the town having a variety. There is also a sense of the island being very picturesque,
“San Piedro had too a brand of verdant beauty that inclined its residents toward the poetical”
He goes into more detail of what the island looks like; this makes the island seem interesting for the readers to read about.
The introduction is very effective to the novel, if David Gutterson didn’t make good use of Chapter one,; to introduce the main/important characters, set the main scene, and describe the environment/island, readers wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to indulge themselves into the story, it would be likely that the readers wouldn’t bother to carry on readeing the whole book.
