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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
On the plane, Jay wakes up afraid for his own life because he hears an alarm. He then realizes it’s coming from his headphones. Now fully awake, Jay observes an old Filipino man sitting absolutely still with a rosary, which is puzzling. Jay then notices that the seat right beside his own is empty; the woman who was sitting there is gone. Jay starts to watch a movie he’s already seen: Will Smith’s Hitch.
Jay is clearly preoccupied with thoughts of death, since that’s what his mind jumps to immediately when he hears the alarm. Meanwhile, his experience on the plane upon waking up attests to the different culture he is traveling into: he doesn’t understand that the man with the rosary might be scared of flying. Jay then immerses himself in the familiar: an American movie.
Themes
The movie gets boring, so Jay reads one of Jun’s letters. In it, Jun tells Jay about a distressing recent incident. His family was at the mall when a dirty woman approached them, holding out a thin, pale baby and saying “please.” Jun tried to take the baby before Tito Maning dragged him away. Jun then says he remembers a recent sermon at church about the Good Samaritan. The moral of the sermon was that you should help people in need, but Jun didn’t help that woman, which he now regrets. He adds that Grace says he couldn’t have helped, and that makes him feel worse. If everyone helped each other, no one would be hurt. He then wonders if Jay beat his video game yet.
Jun’s letter demonstrates his own deep empathy for others, and his distress at the general lack of generosity in the world. This is the Jun whom Jay admires, and why Jay feels so much guilt at his own failure to respond to Jun when Jun was in need. At the same time, Jun’s closing question implies that he wouldn’t have found Jay shallow, and that there is room in the world to both care about others and to enjoy “frivolous” things like video games.
Themes
On the plane, Jay’s seatmate returns and touches Jay’s arm; apparently, Jay has been crying. Jay claims it was the sad movie he’s watching, even though Hitch is still playing. Later, Jay waits for his connecting flight in Seoul, South Korea. Jay is impressed by how technologically advanced the airport is; it has electrical outlets everywhere and sliding bathroom doors. Jay was always told that the U.S. is the best country, but now he thinks that’s obviously a lie. Adults always lie, sometimes for good reasons—like to make kids feel better or to motivate them by telling them they played great in a game when they didn’t. Jay thinks growing up means learning to separate truth from lies.
Jay’s crying again indicates how upset he is about Jun’s death; his lie about his reason for crying again demonstrate how he hides his true feelings. Jay’s ruminations about lies further establish his position that all lies are bad, and that the truth is a fundamentally good thing, even when it’s hurtful. These black-and-white ideas might be taken as a sign of his immaturity, but also might be taken as strong ideals. Jay’s youth gives him conviction, even as it causes him to see the world in ways that are perhaps too simple. Meanwhile, this trip is already causing Jay to see the world in a new way, so that he can see beyond what might be described as “American-tinted glasses.”
Themes
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Jay knows that he needs to figure out the truth about Jun. Tito Maning is a police officer, and if Jun was murdered as part of the drug war, maybe that’s why Tito Maning is refusing to hold a funeral for his son. When Tito Maning picks him up from the airport, Jay vows that he will immediately ask him what happened to Jun. If Tito Maning tries to lie, Jay will demand that he tell the truth instead, and eventually Tito Maning will cave.
Jay’s conviction to figure out the truth of Jun’s death is once more on display here. But so is his simplistic view that the truth will be simple to figure out.
Themes
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