Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet Character Analysis

The main character in the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, written by Jamie Ford, is Henry Lee. Henry is a Chinese man who has experienced many relationships from the time he was a young boy, to the time he was an adult with a son. Throughout his entire life, all of his relationships have encountered moments of bitterness and sweetness, and it is these moments that have given Henry the lifestyle choices and morals he has today. His relationships with his father, his son, and childhood friend Keiko have molded him into the man he has become. Henry Lee has never had the best relationship with his father. Through flashbacks of Henry 's life as a young boy, one realizes Henry stopped talking to his parents at a very young age, so that he would be able to learn English better, instead of falling back into the Cantonese language. This arrangement resulted in Henry and his father having extremely poor communication. Communication is a key factor in important relationships, and Henry had the feeling that his father …show more content…
Keiko was the Japanese friend that Henry 's father had strongly disapproved of. Keiko was Henry 's first love, and his best friend. The relationship between them was an important one, it contained many moments of sweetness, but it also had its moments of bitterness. Keiko gave Henry hope, and inspiration, which were qualities Henry needed for when he grew up. At the beginning, Henry doesn 't realize how important Keiko really is. It is not until she is in a Japanese camp when he realizes that he needs her, he tell her "We 're more than friends. We 're the same people" (193). Henry feels so much sadness as he slowly stops talking to Keiko, the pain is unbearable for him. The connection that Henry and Keiko had was special, it made Henry the man that he was. When he was older, even though he was married, he constantly thought about Keiko and what she might be