Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puberty
Friendship, Fitting In, and Social Pressure
Religion
Family Conflict
Summary
Analysis
Margaret joins Nancy’s family for the Christmas Eve service at the Methodist church. She relaxes and enjoys herself after Nancy says Margaret doesn’t have to meet the minister. There isn’t a sermon; the choir just sings. Margaret gets home near midnight, falls into bed, and tells God she loved the beautiful choir songs. But still, she didn’t really feel God in the church and now she’s really confused. She asks for a hint. She wishes she’d been born into a religion.
Margaret’s journey to find a religion isn’t going well. She implies here that she expected to feel an “aha” moment at some point—and so far, that hasn’t happened. She also suggests that her relationship with God is more complicated these days because she doesn’t understand which religion she belongs to.
Themes
Grandma gets home from her cruise and immediately packs up for Florida, insisting that New York is no fun without Margaret. She sends Margaret two postcards every week and calls regularly. Their phone conversations always go exactly the same.
Grandma shows Margaret how much she cares for her with the regular postcards and phone calls. The predictability gives Margaret something to rely on and look forward to.
Themes
In January, Mr. Benedict tells the class that on Friday, the girls are going to see a movie while the boys are going to talk to a gym teacher from the junior high. Nancy passes Margaret a note noting that this is “the big deal sex movie.” Later, Nancy shares that the PTA sponsors this movie, which is called What Every Girl Should Know. After school, Margaret tells Mom. Mom already knows and says the movie is about menstruation. Margaret already knows about menstruation, but Mom explains that some girls’ mothers don’t talk to them, and they need to know the facts, too.
Again, Margaret makes it clear that she and Mom have a pretty open and trusting relationship, especially when it comes to talking about puberty. Mom implies that she was the one to teach Margaret about menstruation, and Margaret doesn’t seem at all embarrassed about that. But Mom also points out that not all families discuss these things—there are girls who still need to know what’s going to happen to their bodies, even if their parents didn’t prepare them.
Themes
On Friday afternoon, the girls file into the auditorium. A lady in a gray suit greets the girls and introduces the movie, which she says is a courtesy of the Private Lady Company. She dims the lights and the movie plays. The narrator pronounces menstruation “menstroo-ation,” which makes Margaret, Gretchen, Nancy, and Janie giggle. It explains why girls menstruate, but it doesn’t say how it feels (except that it’s not painful). It insists that nature is wonderful and the girls are becoming women. After it’s over, Nancy asks the lady about Tampax. The lady says she can’t “advise internal protection” until the girls are older. She then passes out booklets recommending the girls use Private Lady products. It feels like a commercial, and Margaret vows to never use Private Lady products.
Margaret’s description of the film suggests that at least for her, it wasn’t helpful—it didn’t answer any of her actual questions, like what menstruating feels like. And Nancy’s question about Tampax (tampons) seems to bring the questioning to an end, so Margaret and her classmates don’t even have the opportunity to get their questions answered. It’s very common for companies that make period products to produce such films—so Margaret isn’t far off when she insists this feels like a commercial. But she also seems to resent that the film’s producers are treating viewers like consumers, not people in need of information.
Themes
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A week later, Gretchen has her first period. They have a special PTS meeting and Gretchen asks if the others can tell. Margaret asks how it happened. Gretchen says she was at dinner when she felt something dripping. She ran to the bathroom and called for her mother. Her mother came, and since she didn’t have anything but Tampax, she had to call the drugstore to order pads. Gretchen kept a washcloth in her pants until the pads arrived, and then her mother showed her how to use them.
As the first PTS to start her period, Gretchen is in a unique and powerful position: she’s the first to get to tell her friends exactly what having her period is like. And though Gretchen’s tone suggests it was somewhat emotional and anxiety-inducing, it also seems a bit anticlimactic. It’s possible the girls have idealized something that, while a mark of growing older, isn’t such a big deal after all.
Themes
Nancy is mad and keeps pressing for more details. Finally, she asks how it feels. Gretchen says she doesn’t feel much, though she had some cramps. She says it does make her feel older—and her mother says that Gretchen will now have to watch what she eats so she doesn’t gain weight, and she’ll have to wash her face with soap from now on. Nancy asks if that’s it. The only other thing Gretchen has to share is that, according to her mother, it may take a while for her period to become regular. Margaret asks if she’s using the Private Lady supplies, but Gretchen says she’s using Teenage Softies. Nancy sighs that she’ll be next. Privately, Janie and Margaret agree.
Nancy seems to expect starting one’s period to be a dramatic turning point. For Gretchen, this is kind of true: her mom frames Gretchen’s first period as the real start of puberty, which means that Gretchen will have to pay more attention to things like skincare and weight. Still, Nancy expects more, which shows how Nancy idealizes starting one’s period. She believes it’s something far more transformative than Gretchen finds it to be.
Themes
Margaret tells Mom about Gretchen when she gets home. Mom says that she was 14 when she had her first period, which Margaret deems “crazy”—she refuses to wait that long. Mom points out that Margaret can’t control when she starts and promises to take Margaret to the doctor if she hasn’t started by the time she’s 14. Margaret asks how she’ll know if she’s going to be normal, and Mom promises that Margaret will be normal. Later, Margaret tells God that Gretchen got her period, and she’s jealous. She’s not sure what she’ll do if she’s the last of her friends, and she wants nothing more than to be normal.
Mom is right; people can’t control when they start their periods. This, more than anything, is what upsets Margaret. Technically speaking, starting one’s period at 14 isn’t all that late—but for Margaret, when her friends are already starting at 11 or 12 years old, having to wait another two years seems like proof that she’ll never fit in. Especially combined with her struggles to find a religion, this deepens Margaret’s feeling of being abnormal.
Themes
Nancy’s family goes to Washington in February. Margaret gets a postcard from Nancy, obviously sent the moment Nancy got there, reading “I GOT IT!!!” Margaret rips it up. She’s certain there’s something wrong with her and she cries. She doesn’t want to listen to Nancy tell her all about her period next week. She tells God that life keeps getting worse. She’s soon going to be the only one without a period, just like she’s the only one without religion. She asks him to help her be like everyone else.
Gretchen starting her period was one thing, but Nancy likes to lord her power and maturity over her friends—making her good news even harder for Margaret to bear. Again, Margaret shows that in every aspect of her life right now, her chief concern is fitting in. In her mind, her lack of a religion or a period means she’s failing.
Themes
