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Every Single Surviving Word
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
The following morning at sunrise, Jay is still awake. He realizes that María must have taken Jun’s letters, since she was the only one who wasn’t at dinner. María doesn’t speak English, so Jay will have to question someone else, but he’s worried it’ll sound like he’s accusing the maid of stealing.
Jay continues to be forced to confront the fact that getting the truth will be harder than he originally anticipated, especially because of his cultural distance in the Philippines. It’s also worth noting that he continues to think that the “truth” itself is relatively straightforward.
Themes
As he listens for the sounds of anyone else who might be awake, Jay remembers hanging out with Jun on his last visit to the Philippines. The first night, they didn’t play video games like Jay used to do at other sleepovers. Instead, Jun asked Jay questions about his life. Jay knows that even though families are bound together, they still might not be close. But Jay thinks that even if he and Jun weren’t cousins, they would have been friends. Jun’s questions were deep: do you like your family? Do you feel lonely? Jay answered the questions truthfully, because Jun seemed like he really wanted to know. Later, Jun would sometimes bring up Jay’s answers in his letters.
Again, readers already know that Jun didn’t dislike video games or find them unnecessarily shallow; he even had a Wii in his room. It’s just that he and Jay could also discuss deeper topics, the kind of things that Jay would never have discussed with Seth. In fact, the relationship Jay had with Jun seems to be a model for the kind of open, honest communication neither boy had with their families (and with their fathers in particular).
Themes
Jay hears someone moving, so he heads downstairs and encounters María. He tries to tell her that he can’t find the letters that were in his backpack, but María just nods and smiles, probably not understanding Jay’s words. Jay is frustrated: why would María even take the letters? They’re in English, so she can’t read them. Jay is upset, since he’s lost his last connection to Jun.
Jay’s isolation continues to thwart his detective attempts, but here he also realizes that his simple “logic” about Maria taking the letters doesn’t in fact make sense. Jay’s devastation about the letters makes sense: Jun’s memory currently lives on in those letters. Now Jay has to feel guilty for two things: not responding to Jun and losing the letters.
Themes
Suddenly, Jay remembers that María works for Tito Maning, so Tito Maning could have asked her to search Jay’s stuff. Jay rushes into Tito Maning’s home office to look for the letters, happy that no one else is awake yet. He turns on his phone flashlight to avoid alerting anyone in the hall to his presence. Inside the office, there are shelves of books and many knives. Jay checks the desk drawers and finds only chocolate. There’s a locked drawer, so Jay starts poking at it for a release, the way they do in movies.
Jay is basically play-acting at being a movie detective here. He has a hunch and immediately acts on it, breaking into his uncle’s office and attempting stealth by not turning on the lights. Jay’s actions suggest again that Jay thinks that the truth about Jun will be as simple as the solution in a whodunnit, and that if he finds the right clues, he’ll solve the mystery. Meanwhile, Tito Maning’s knife collection, while likely decorative, nonetheless hints further at Maning’s reverence for strength and violence.
Themes
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Angel enters the office, asking Jay if he’s trying to break into Tito Maning’s desk. If so, Jay will need the key. She laughs and shows him the key’s hiding place on the bookshelf, though she says Jay won’t find anything of interest. Jay is surprised by his cousin’s rebelliousness. He pulls out some files from the locked drawer, telling Angel that he’s trying to research Duterte and that Tito Maning might have taken his research papers. She accepts the lie and leaves, warning Jay that Tito Maning will wake up soon. Jay needs to return the key first, or else.
This moment, first, punctures Jay’s idea of himself as a movie detective—a young girl lightheartedly solves what he can’t. At the same time, this moment provides a new sense of Tito Maning’s family—in Maning’s presence everyone is obedient, but if Angel both knows his secrets and thinks nothing of betraying them, then there must be a lot of rebellion beneath the surface. Angel’s reference to Tito Maning’s anger explains the surface obedience in the family, hints at the weakness of such efforts at family discipline, and continues to establish Maning as a potential “villain.”
Themes
The files are all police reports, which Jay finds weird for a home office. At the back of the stack, there’s a folded white paper with names and addresses. Jun’s name is on there with an “UNKNOWN” address designation. There are a few handwritten sentences on the back in Tagalog—one is a question—so Jay tries to translate them on his phone.
It's really not that strange that Tito Maning would keep some police files at home. That Jay finds it abnormal suggests that Jay might be seeing suspicious activity about Jun’s murder where there isn’t any. Still, it is a clue that Jun’s name is on this list in Tito Maning’s desk and that Maning seemed interested in his whereabouts. Once again, Jay’s lack of knowledge about the Philippines—in this case, his inability to speak Tagalog—prevents him from discovering the truth.
Themes
But Jay hears a toilet flush before he can finish translating and takes a photo of the note instead. He can’t remember which book the key was under, so he places it in the bookshelf at random and runs into the bathroom to hide. Tito Maning knocks on the door, wondering why the bathroom lights are off. Jay claims it’s peaceful this way and wonders if Tito Maning knows that he’s lying. He checks the photo he took, but it’s horribly blurred.
Jay continues to bumble as a “detective.” The reason Jay was late to leave the office was because he was trying to translate the note he found, so his inability to speak Tagalog will likely be the reason if Tito Maning realizes someone was in his office.
Themes
At breakfast, Jay brings up his missing “research” papers and asks if anyone has seen them. Angel and Grace say no. Tita Ami says that she’ll ask María to search for the papers today. Tito Maning tells Jay that he should have kept his papers somewhere safe if they were important. Jay thinks that something is up with Tito Maning: his uncle never answered Jay’s question.
Jay keeps trying to find clues for simple guilt: he finds Tito Maning’s response damning and believes it proves that Tito Maning was involved in the letter theft. But it seems just as likely that Maning may once again have been trying to make Jay look bad—that Maning’s behavior is defined by family dynamics Jay doesn’t understand rather than movie-style villainy.
Themes
