A walk to remember door Nicholas Sparks

A Walk to Remember by Nicolas Sparks [American Literature]

Hachette Book Group. –2000 USA

Summary

A tragic love story with a gripping tale, gluing the reader’s eyes to the words that explain how Landon Carter found true love and how he learned to truly love in return. It tells the story of the mortally ill Jamie Sullivan, the misunderstood and often ridiculed, but contradictory loved-by-adults daughter of the town’s minister.

Jamie, a faithful believer in God, was always ready to help, so she did not hesitate to help Landon when he, quite selfishly, needed a date for the homecoming dance. She asked only one favor in return, but the result was unexpectedly far-reaching: Landon was swept off his feet, and although he at first fought it, he eventually had to admit that this girl was special, at least special to him too. When he learnt of her advancing death, he made it his life’s goal to make her happy in her final days and at the same time enjoying the happiness she gave him.

Her death might have been a loss to the town of Beaufort, where everybody had come to understand the true value of Jamie Sullivan, but to Landon Carter it proved that the girl he loved and married had had an enriching life and at the same time enriched the lives of countless others.

Explanation of the title

A Walk to Remember refers to Jamie’s heart desire to walk down the aisle in a packed church to be given away in marriage. Her final walk was amplified by the fact that it was quite an exhausting exercise for Jamie, who suffered from a rare form of leukemia. Yet she determinedly walked down the aisle with an inner strength that was fueled by her faith in God.

Characterization

Jamie Sullivan, the somewhat strange young girl, who did not seem to fit among the town’s youth. As a minister’s daughter she always studied the scriptures and linked every event in her life to God’s plan for her. Even when she was terminally ill, she was still cheerful and enjoyed her life without an apparent care. It hurt her to see her father suffer, because having lost his wife and being the lonely minister, he was about to become lonelier. Jamie was determined to make her father happy by giving a swell performance of his play and so to leave him with a good memory of her. In her determination she swept Landon off his feet, slowly taking down his defensive guard against her and having him commit to God.

Jamie is flat.

Landon Carter, a teenage boy and mischievous as any ordinary teenager. He had often taken aim at Reverend Sullivan because he seemed to always preach against him. Landon was in fact as lonely as Jamie, because his father, a politician, was never around. However, he answered to the calls of teenage behavior by doing exactly those things that teenagers do. He ridiculed Jamie just as hard as the other teenagers in town, but he was forced to ask her on a date when no other girl was available. She behaved so perfectly that she actually put to shame all his mischief. He slowly started to fall in love with her. The realization almost tore him apart for he was guilt ridden for all the bad behavior towards the Sullivan family. His connection to the girl became stronger when she confided in him about her disease. He then made it his life’s goal to make her happy. Landon is round.

Reverend Hegbert Sullivan, town minister in Beaufort, North Carolina, was a queer and lonely man, especially after the death of his wife. After being used by grandpa Carter, Landon’s grandfather, Hegbert went into the Ministry and started preaching his fire-and-brimstone sermons by focusing on the evils of the greedy. His wife had had six miscarriages before she borne him a daughter. His pride was a perfected version of A Christmas Carol, which he had written himself and very much desired to be performed by young people before Christmas. Hegbert is flat.

Themes

Love and devotion, determination

Love is the most powerful (dominating) theme in this story. It binds all, connects everything and everybody and it defeats the walls of ignorance and ridicule. To the town’s folk Jamie was a controversial figure: she always loved to help everyone and everything. No person or animal would be neglected by her. The grown-up loved her and always had a good word for her. However, to the youth in Beaufort Jamie was as distant and queer as she could be predicted. Although she was a teenager, she never behaved according to the traditional teenagers rules: she did not drink, swear or hang out, but instead visited the orphanage or pick up a wounded stray from the street. She always carried her bible with her, a sign of her devotion to God and to her late mother, whom she had never met.

Jamie loved her father, the also controversial town’s minister, who forever seemed to preach about fornication and adultery. The girl never lacked determination and possessed with that quality, she got Landon to commit himself to a task he would rather run away from. She made him into a determined man as well and once he found true love he never strayed from his goal, namely making Jamie happy.

Setting

The story is set in Beaufort, North Carolina in 1958 and is told 40 years later by a lot wiser Landon Carter.