Dear John

The protagonist in this story is John Tyree. In the beginning John starts out as a child growing up with no mother. He is raised by his father who barley says more then a few words and when he does it usually has to do with coins. As John gets older he starts to hate the fact that his father likes coins. John becomes an unruly teenager who hates his father and his coins. John enlists in the army and becomes a better person. While on leave from the army at age 23 he meets Savannah Curtis.

The antagonist is Savannah Curtis. Savannah is a young 21 year old girl when she meets John. They quickly fall in love but they both realize that he has to leave and go back to the army in two weeks. They spend the two weeks falling more in love everyday. When it’s time for john to go back, they promise to write to each other and when he returns from the army they promise to get married. For the first few months the letters come every couple weeks but soon they start coming later and later until one day Savannah sends John a letter that will change their lives forever. Savannah tells John that she has met someone new.

The conflict is person vs. person because John and Savannah are in love until Savannah falls in love with someone else and ends things with John and marries another guy. So the conflict is between Savannah and John.

The setting is in North Carolina and it is important because the book kind of takes place in the city and more rural areas. The time period is 2001 because it is 9/11 that makes John decide to reenlist into the army.

The plot starts out with John growing up with no mother and a father that barley talks and when he does it is usually about coins because his father loves coins. John grows tired of his father never talking and so he becomes an unruly teenager and enlists in the army to become a better person. While on leave from the army he meets Savannah Curtis while she is in town building a house for a needy family and they soon fall in love. John has to go back to Germany in two weeks because of the army so they make a promise to write letters and when he gets back they promise to get married.

So John leaves and gets letters from Savannah every couple of weeks. When he finally gets to leave the army it is 2001 and 9/11 happens so he decides to reenlist into the army. The letters from Savannah start coming later and later until finally she writes a letter saying that she couldn’t handle waiting for him any longer and that she has met someone new.

When John gets let out from the army in 2003 he goes home and finds out his dad is dying. A few days later his dad dies. So John decides to go see Savannah and finds out she is married and her husband was an old friend of Johns and his name is Tim. Tim has skin cancer and is in the hospital and a lot of people think he is going to die. John and Savannah hang out again but John decides it’s to hard because he is still in love with her and he can tell she is still in love him. So John leaves because he knows how hard it is for Savannah and he goes to the hospital and says good-bye to Tim. John goes to a place where they are raising money for Tim and he sells his dads coin collection and gives all the money to help Tim get better medical attention. He does it anonymously and when Savannah finds out how much money it was she gets Tim to a better hospital and he goes into recovery. 

The climax in the story is when John and Savannah meet and they fall in love because they both know that John has to go back to fight in the war.

The denouement for John is that even though he doesn’t Savannah in the end he knows that he will always have a special place in his heart and that she will always have a special place in his. The denouement for Savannah is that she marries Tim and he recovers from his cancer and that she got to see John again.

The theme is that if you really love somebody then you will do whatever makes then happy no matter how much it hurts you. 

“ Love means that you care for another person’s happiness more then your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”