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Part 1: Martin, April 1998
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I Will Always Write Back, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Kindness and Generosity
Friendship
Family
Education
Summary
Analysis
In Pennsylvania, Caitlin is having a busy spring. She is fighting with her former best friend Lauren, and now her new best friend is Christa. But Christa likes Caitlin’s current boyfriend, so Christa and Caitlin fight too. By Caitlin’s 13th birthday, she’s back with Lauren as her best friend. The only constant in Caitlin’s life is her letters from Martin.
The chaos in Caitlin’s personal life helps to highlight why her more stable relationship with Martin might be so appealing to her. Martin is removed from the daily dramas of her life, and so he helps her to keep things in perspective and realize that some of these problems are not a big deal in the long run.
Themes
Most pen pals stopped after two or three letters, but Caitlin has already received six or seven from Martin. The two are surprised to learn about how their countries are different. Caitlin is happy to learn that there are monkeys near where Martin lives but sad to learn that they aren’t friendly. Meanwhile, Martin finds it funny that Caitlin keeps a pet rabbit, because in Zimbabwe they eat rabbits.
When Caitlin first chose Zimbabwe for the pen pal project, she was afraid that other people would consider her strange, but now she is beginning to see the benefits of making unusual choices, as her relationship with Martin continues. Meat continues to be one of the big differences between Zimbabwe and the United States, with Caitlin and Martin’s different ideas about rabbits showing how their two cultures differ.
Themes
Caitlin takes a little while to respond after receiving Martin’s letter about eating rabbits because of the drama in her own life. Eventually, she remembers that she missed Martin’s birthday and decides to buy him a Reebok shirt as a gift. She sends it to him with a letter, saying that the shirt is what all the cool kids in her town wear.
Because Caitlin still doesn’t know many things about Martin’s life, she sends him something that people in her life like: Reebok T-shirts. As it turns out, the T-shirt will be even more valuable to Martin than it ever would’ve been to anyone Caitlin knows in the United States.
Themes
