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Chapter 23
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puberty
Friendship, Fitting In, and Social Pressure
Religion
Family Conflict
Summary
Analysis
In school on Monday, Mr. Benedict announces that the students’ reports on their projects will be due on Friday. He’s not going to grade them, so the students don’t need to worry about giving him what they think he wants—they should be completely honest.
Mr. Benedict seems like he’s trying to do his students a favor by letting them totally control their projects and not evaluating them on a grading scale. He wants them to have done something that’s meaningful to them—which is exactly what Margaret did.
Themes
Margaret writes Mr. Benedict a letter to conclude her project. She tells him that she’s spent the year trying to figure out what religion she wants to be (or if she wants to affiliate with a religion at all) and she hasn’t come to any conclusions. She lists the books she read on Judaism, Christianity, and Catholicism, and tells him about the services she attended. Margaret admits that she hasn’t tried Buddhism or Islam, since she doesn’t know any Buddhists or Muslims.
At first, it seems like Margaret ends the school year right where she started in terms of religion. But as she tells Mr. Benedict about the books she’s read and the services she’s attended, it’s clear that Margaret has taken the project seriously and done some major soul-searching over the last year. And not coming to a final conclusion is a valid conclusion—this isn’t something Margaret needs to decide now, or ever.
Themes
Margaret writes that she hasn’t enjoyed the project and doesn’t think she’s going to make up her mind soon, if ever. Now, she doesn’t think people can decide what religion they are—that feels like being asked to choose one’s name, in that you keep thinking about it and changing your mind. She’s decided that if she has kids, she’ll assign them a religion so they can start learning early—12 is late to learn about a religion.
Again, Margaret’s conclusions are all very valid and for her, it’s true that she can’t make a decision right now. However, when she talks about assigning her own kids a religion, it shows that she still values conformity over all else. Just as Mom and Dad thought they were doing the best thing by raising Margaret without religion, she believes she can help her kids by sparing them the same struggles she went through—and that way, they’ll hopefully fit in better.
Themes
On Friday, all of Margaret’s classmates hand in booklets. Margaret is too embarrassed to hand in her letter with the booklets, since it looks like she hasn’t done anything. So she waits until everyone leaves after school, explains the situation to Mr. Benedict, and offers him her letter. He reads it while she waits, and Margaret assures him that she tried. Ready to cry, Margaret races for the bathroom and ignores Mr. Benedict calling for her. After splashing water on her face, she walks home. Margaret figures something must be wrong with her, since she never used to cry when she was 11. Now she cries at everything. She wants to talk to God, but she’s not willing to let God know—even if she misses him.
Even though Mr. Benedict was very clear that the students’ reports can look many different ways, Margaret still wants to look like everyone else. She may be even more self-conscious about her letter, though, because her project was so personal for her and because she’s still not on speaking terms with God. Her admission that she misses God, leaves the door open for Margaret to realize that her approach to God isn’t less valuable than going to church. Most importantly, it gives her the support she needs.
Themes
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