Dear John

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 and Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Coins

Coins are literally the currency between John and his father—a symbol of their relationship. With no interest in or ability to discuss anything else, the only way John’s father can connect with his son is through coins. Their discussion of coins directly relates to the state of their relationship. When John was young, searching and acquiring coins was something they did together. However, when John became a difficult teenager, he stopped collecting coins and even told his father that he didn’t want to discuss them anymore. After that, John and his father have a strained relationship, unable to connect over anything else. Once John realizes that this is all his father can discuss due to his Asperger’s, he opens up the conversation again, and for the first time in a long time, John feels close to his father again.

Coins are also how Savannah connects with Mr. Tyree, and she discusses them with him when she first meets him. She understands him before John does and knows this is how to connect with him. Her insights lead John to reevaluate his father and their relationship.

Even though John sells the collection, he keeps the buffalo head nickel that he and his father found together, the finding of which is commemorated in the only photo of father and son, which John also keeps. After his father passes, John explains the coin as a “talisman of sorts, one that carries with it all my memories of my dad; […] I find that it makes me smile, and for a moment, I feel that I’m no longer alone” (272).

Full Moon

In Savannah’s first letter to John, she writes,

Wherever you are and no matter what’s going on in your life, when it’s the first night of the full moon—like it was the first time we met—I want you to think about me and the week we shared because wherever I am and no matter what’s going on in my life, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing (138).

For both of them, the moon is a reminder of their love and that even if they are apart, they both can share the full moon. After they break up, John still looks at the moon. In the closing scene, Savannah walks out of her house alone to look up at the full moon. It is like they were together again for a moment under the full moon, even though they still cannot be.

For John and Savannah, the moon symbolizes their relationship and that it was real. For John, it is one of the only ways to feel close to Savannah. Like the relationship itself, each turns to the moon for comfort when they can’t turn to each other.

Love

The novel is bookended in the Prologue and Epilogue by John’s question, “What does it mean to truly love another?” (1, 272). The recurring motif of love questions what it means to love someone, especially when you can’t be together. John and Savannah love each other but cannot be together, first because of John’s military commitment and then because of Savannah’s marriage. This story does not end with John and Savannah together. Instead, John realizes that to love Savannah, he must first be willing to see her happy, even if she isn’t with him. Therefore, he sells his father’s coin collection to make Savannah happy by giving more time to Tim. For John, this doesn’t take away from their love, and he even questions his choice. Their love was real, and they sincerely cared about each other. True love, he ultimately decides, is seeing others happy, at whatever cost.

John also faces this question with his father. For a long time, John wanted his father to be something he couldn’t be. Although he knows his father cared for him, he resented him for not being “normal”; John’s attitude about his father impedes their relationship. Once he understands his father and why he is the way he is, he can then accept his father and love him for who he is. John learns that loving his father means seeing him happy, even if what makes his father happy would not make John happy. The coin collection best exemplifies this. John wants nothing to do with coins but finds that talking about coins is the only way to rebuild a relationship with his father, so he discusses and researches coins for his father. Again, true love is seeing the other happy.