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How He Lived
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Patron Saints of Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Adolescence, and Justice
Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame
Culture and Belonging
Death and Meaning
Summary
Analysis
Jay wakes up the next morning at 5 a.m. and hears his mother downstairs—she’s returned from her shift at the hospital where she works. He goes to talk with her to see what she knows about Jun’s death. Jay finds her in the kitchen, with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and still dressed in her scrubs—she’s an oncologist and Jay’s dad is an NICU nurse. When Jay was a kid, his parents worked opposite shifts, but now they work together and are closer as a result. Jay’s mom sees Jay and hugs him, sorry that she couldn’t be home earlier. Jay had wanted to be held, but he doesn’t feel any better now.
Jay’s parents’ work schedule explains a lot about the family’s dynamics and lack of connection. Further, that they have shifted their schedules as Jay got older makes clear that they think that, now that Jay is an adolescent and not a child, he doesn’t need as much care. When the puppy died, Jay’s mom was able to comfort him by telling a simple story to give the dog’s death meaning. But even though he craves such comfort now, she can’t deliver it, implying that such comfort isn’t as easy to come by now that he is older. Finally, the reference to Jay’s mom’s blond hair suggests that she is white, which may be another reason for Jay’s sense of feeling in-between and disconnected from both American and Filipino culture.
Themes
Jay immediately asks why Jun won’t have a funeral, and Jay’s mom hesitates. Finally, she says that Tito Maning doesn’t want to discuss the manner of Jun’s death and that they should respect his wishes. Jay needs to know the truth, though, if only to confirm that it wasn’t Jay’s fault; that Jun’s death wasn’t the result of Jay’s failure to write. Jay thinks about Jun’s letter and realizes that this is what Jun was saying: everyone ignores others’ suffering. Jay asks if his mom lies to her patients, and she says she’ll lie to their families at the patient’s request—if the patient will die painfully, is she supposed to say that? Jay thinks the family would deserve to know the truth, but she thinks they’d want peace instead.
Here Jay confirms that his determination to find out the truth about how Jun died stems at least partly from guilt about whether he deserves some blame. Meanwhile, Jun’s death is starting to prompt changes in Jay, who realizes that both his own and his mother’s behavior involve the sorts of negligence toward others that Jun was criticizing. Whether Jay’s interpretation here is entirely fair (especially to his mother) is a bit beside the point; the point, rather, is that Jay is starting to change, to care. Jay and his mom’s disagreement about how to handle the truth is a significant one. She’s saying that the truth can sometimes hurt more than it can help, while Jay argues that the pain would be worth it to know the truth. The novel will continue to explore these ideas, not necessarily to prove one correct, but rather to see the interplay of these tensions about the truth and the healing and pain that truth can cause.
Themes
Jay continues to insist that he needs to know how Jun died, and Jay’s mom realizes that Jay won’t drop the subject, the same way his dad wouldn’t. This confuses Jay, because his dad always drops things. She makes Jay a cup of tea, warning him the truth will hurt, then asks if Jay knows what shabu is. Apparently, it’s the name for meth in the Philippines. She reveals that Jay’s dad doesn’t know the whole story—he probably doesn’t want to—but he told her that Jun started using shabu after he ran away. A few days ago, Jun was shot by the police.
Jay’s mom’s description of his dad is significant in a variety of ways. First, it reaffirms how distant Jay is from his dad, since he doesn’t see his dad as his mother does at all. Second, it simultaneously suggests that Jay and his dad are actually similar in many ways—they both don’t drop things—which in turn implies that there is the potential for Jay and his dad to forge a stronger connection. Third, it suggests that there is much going on in his broader family that the adolescent Jay doesn’t understand, and that Jay’s dad did insist that Tito Maning tell him to at least some degree what happened to Jun. Meanwhile the novel’s portrayal of Jun becomes more complicated. Jay saw him as wise beyond his years and remarkably empathetic, and he now must also process that Jun was a drug user.
Themes
Jay is confused: why would the police shoot Jun for using drugs? Jay’s mom is shocked that Jay doesn’t know about Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war. She explains that Duterte was elected in 2016 (three years ago) after he claimed to be able to eliminate crime by getting rid of drugs. Once he was president, he demanded that addicts surrender themselves and said that if they didn’t, both police and citizens could shoot them without a trial. No one knows how many people have died so far. It’s probably over 20,000 people, but the government says just a few thousand.
Jay’s ignorance of the drug war in the Philippines is a further example of both his own and his parents’ separation from Filipino culture, and of his own lack of connection with his dad. (It’s also, it should be admitted, a way for the author to sneak in some exposition about the drug war.) Jay’s ignorance might also be taken as an indication of Jay being a typical American teenager, fixated on his own problems and ignorant about the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the novel now has made clear that the truth about Jun isn’t as simple as Jay thought it would be—there’s a whole host of not just personal but also political factors involved.
Themes
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Jay is horrified that everyone in the Philippines is okay with Duterte. But his mom says that she and Jay can’t understand what’s going on because they no longer live in the Philippines. Most Filipinos think the policies are a necessary evil. Jay is annoyed that he’s not allowed to condemn the policies, but Jay’s mom insists that Jay’s opinion should be informed. For her part, she can’t judge what happens in a country that isn’t hers. Jay argues that she lived in the Philippines, is married to a Filipino, and has Filipino children, but she argues back that her children are Filipino American. Jay asks his mom what his dad thinks, and she says he’s just glad his kids are in the U.S.
Jay’s mother is arguing that only someone who belongs to a culture can truly understand it and therefore judge it. Jay disagrees, as he believes that he can see what’s right and wrong about the Filipino policies without understanding everything that is going on in the Philippines. The novel doesn’t resolve this argument about culture, belonging, and responsibility here—but it is a tension worth keeping track of as the story develops. Meanwhile, this exchange gives a further glimpse of the cause of his father’s separation from his own Filipino family and culture: he came to the US to give his children a better life, and he has cut himself off from the Philippines to make that hope a reality.
Themes
Jay remembers reading Elie Wiesel’s Night as a sophomore and listening to Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize speech. In the speech, Wiesel said that people should speak out against wrongdoing; if they don’t, they’re enabling it. Jay’s English class almost unanimously agreed with Wiesel, even though none of them ever spoke up when they saw bullying at school. Now, Jay wonders whether he should’ve spoken up for Jun and whether there was something he and his family could’ve done to prevent Jun’s death. He’s horrified that everyone thinks of Jun as just an addict. Maybe Jun wouldn’t have turned to drugs if Jay had written more often, and maybe he wouldn’t have died.
Elie Wiesel’s argument refutes Jay’s mother, as her logic would dictate that nobody who wasn’t German should have judged or fought against the Holocaust. Jay takes Wiesel’s directive more personally though, and he has come to agree with Jun’s criticism of other students—and people—who don’t seem to see or care about other’s suffering. He realizes how his own laziness and unwillingness to connect has made him at least partly to blame for Jun’s suffering, and his dismay at others seeing Jun as just an addict suggests that he has begun to harbor the notion of finding and revealing the “truth” of Jun’s character. Jay is changing and growing, though it’s also worthwhile to note that one might argue that Jay’s ideas here are perhaps a bit too simple, a bit immature and adolescent.
Themes
