Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Rebirth
Falling Stage
Although the story is pretty ensemble-oriented and focused primarily on the Miyamoto trial, it's fair to say that the protagonist is the reporter Ishmael Chambers. Despite the fact that he's not the one on trial for his life, he begins the tale feeling pretty sorry for himself. You see, he's in love with the defendant's wife, Hatsue, and has been since he was a teenager. Unfortunately, World War II intervened in their teen romance, and Hatsue was sent off to an internment camp.
Soon after Hatsue left, Ishmael headed off to war and experienced a lot of truly horrific things, including the loss of an arm. Like the other veterans in the novel (for example, Kabuo Miyamoto and the man he supposedly murdered, Carl Heine, Jr.) he's never really recovered from the war. In addition, he still seems fixated on Hatsue—even though she's been married with children for some time (and, in related news, doesn't want to have a thing to do with him).
In short, Ishmael is really suffering when the novel begins, with all the memories from his teen and war years flooding back on account of the trial.
Recession Stage
Despite an early desperate attempt to get Hatsue to lean on him (which is our first clue that Ishmael and Hatsue have a past), Ishmael mostly behaves himself and plays it cool in the courtroom. While watching the trial, he sorts through his past memories of his teen romance with Hatsue—but, again, he's behaving himself and keeping it together.
Imprisonment Stage
However, as the trial wears on, we find that Ishmael is pretty paralyzed by his enduring feelings for Hatsue. For example, when Ishmael comes across Hatsue and her father stranded on the side of the road and offers them a ride, Ishmael starts spiraling into some pretty (self-) destructive behavior.
During the car ride, Hatsue is cold and distant—although she does speak to Ishmael long enough to suggest that he write about how unfair the trial is in his paper. The exchange gets heated when Ishmael basically suggests that unfairness isn't news, since that's kind of the default state of things. Hatsue fumes, but Ishmael is so twisted that he feels pleased about just having gotten to talk to her and gotten a reaction. So, yeah, he really isn't able to see past his own obsession to glimpse the bigger picture: that Hatsue is A) married and B) not interested in being buddies and-or lovers.
Nightmare Stage
Upon leaving Hatsue and her father, Ishmael heads to the local coast guard office, where he finds evidence that would exonerate Kabuo. However, he decides to sit on it and focus instead on writing that news story that Hatsue wanted so she will see that he's on her side. He never says so outright, but it seems that he's hoping the trial will remove Kabuo as a barrier to his happiness (real nice, Ishmael). It's not looking so good for Kabuo, in that case, since the jury seems inclined to convict, when they start deliberating the next day...
But back to Ishmael's evening with his mom: mother and son have a heart-to-heart, and Helen calls out her son for being so down in the dumps and refusing to move on with his life after the war. Um, yes—that advice is well-timed.
Alongside all this action, we get Ishmael's devastating memories of when he and Hatsue returned after the war, which was perhaps Ishmael's lowest point, psychologically.
Rebirth Stage
Ishmael eventually gets it together and realizes that he needs to let Hatsue go (perhaps it occurs to him that Kabuo doesn't deserve to get executed because Ishmael is hot for his wife). So, he brings the new evidence he found to light, which ultimately leads to the charges against Kabuo getting dropped. Kabuo gets to go home to his wife and kids, and Ishmael decides to break free from his past and move forward