Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alibrandi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family
Identity, Freedom, and Coming of Age
The Immigrant Experience
Gossip and Appearances
Social Status and Wealth
Love and Relationships
Summary
Analysis
The next day, as Josie heads for her homeroom class, she finds Ivy crying. Josie thinks it makes sense that Poison Ivy is so upset over the first HSC exam—but instead, Ivy says that John is dead. Josie whispers that it’s not true; she saw John yesterday—and people she knows don’t die. Ivy says that John killed himself. Josie shouts that it’s not true, but Ivy shouts back that her father wrote the autopsy report. Josie feels like she’s in a trance as Anna steps up and tries to comfort Josie. Josie runs for the bathroom and vomits. She can’t cry. She’s terrified; she doesn’t remember what John looks like. All she can think of is saying that they’d go out for dinner if they survived the HSC.
Ivy reveals why John was so oddly lighthearted yesterday: he decided to escape the pressures his father put on him by killing himself. John, then, shows a possible consequence of growing up in an unsupportive family—it can feel impossible to make one’s own life choices. For Josie, hearing that John is dead is traumatic. This is in part because she saw him yesterday and thought nothing of his behavior, but it also has to do with losing a person who made her feel secure. Her own social safety net is crumbling.
Themes
Josie takes her economics HSC and then calls Michael to pick her up. When she slides into his car a bit later, he assures her it’s just an exam. Josie realizes that she’s angry as she says that John killed himself. Michael is at a loss and seems desperate to get Josie home. When they get to Mama’s house, Michael waits for Josie to get out. But instead, Josie says that John is a “bastard.”
Handling the news that someone died is difficult for all sorts of people, but it’s especially difficult for Michael in this situation because he’s never had to parent Josie through a traumatizing event like this. They may be family, but they haven’t been through thick and thin together yet.
Themes
Josie says she used to hate being illegitimate. Kids used to tease her and she sometimes wanted to kill herself. Her friends’ mothers wouldn’t let their kids play at Josie’s house. Australian girls would taunt Josie, telling her one day that she was Italian and the next day that she was Australian. Josie wanted to kill herself because she was so confused. In high school, kids would say that illegitimate students who can’t afford school fees shouldn’t be allowed in—and again, Josie wanted to kill herself. But John killed himself, and he didn’t have any worries. He was rich and John’s father is famous. How could he have done that?
Josie essentially makes the case that because of the racism, prejudice, and bigotry she’s experienced, she’d have every right to fold under the pressure. Her life has been difficult, and she thinks it’d make sense to want to stop living it because of all she’s suffered. John, on the other hand, couldn’t have had any good reason to kill himself because he has everything Josie has ever wanted: wealth, prestige, and a father. This is Josie’s first real indicator that wealth doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Themes
Michael points out that wealth and social standing can’t always make someone happy and then walks her to the door. When they’re both inside, Michael calls for Mama and Josie falls into Mama’s arms, sobbing. Michael tells Mama about John and Mama helps Josie to bed. Josie sobs that she should’ve seen how much John was struggling. Michael comes into the bedroom and tells Josie that John had to help himself, but Josie won’t be consoled. She says she wants to know John in 10 years—not go to his funeral. Michael says all they can do is keep living. Josie asks Michael to stay and drifts off to sleep. Her dreams are horrible.
John’s suicide wasn’t Josie’s fault, but it’s hard for Josie to accept that right now. Because he’d expressed suicidal thoughts to her before, she feels a sense of responsibility to him—and now feels like she failed him. But for as lost and upset as Josie is, she nevertheless has both Mama and Michael with her to help get her through this. They might not be able to make her feel better right now, but they can show her through their actions that they care for her.
Themes
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Josie wakes up in the middle of the night with a start. Then, she leaps out of bed and finds the paper that John wrote for her months ago. She tears it open and reads a poem he wrote. The poem is about nothingness, and the narrator says that he’s “somewhere else now," "surrounded by people and the sky." Josie tries to think of what she wrote to John, but she can’t remember—it must’ve been unimportant. She tears up John’s poem and throws it out the window.
John’s poem is especially disturbing now that he’s committed suicide—it seems possible that he’s been seriously considering killing himself for months now. This shows Josie just how alone and lost John felt. As Josie thinks about what she wrote to John, she realizes that in comparison, her worries are unimportant. Josie essentially realizes that perhaps she’s been worrying about the wrong things.
Themes
Jacob takes John’s death very hard. One afternoon, as Josie and Jacob sit at the park, Jacob wonders why John killed himself. Josie has been having nightmares that Jacob died instead of John, so she clings to Jacob. She says she’d hate to be as smart as John was—it seemed like John knew everything, so he couldn’t dream. Jacob says people need to have dreams and goals; maybe John died because he didn’t have any goals anymore. Jacob says he wants to own a garage, and Josie wants to be a barrister. He asks Josie to promise to never stop dreaming.
Even though Jacob resented John for his relationship with Josie, it nevertheless seems like Jacob thought John had it made and didn’t have any reason to kill himself. In this way, he’s much like Josie. When they decide that it’s essential to have goals to keep living, by extension they decide that Michael was right: a person doesn’t need wealth to be happy. Instead, they need hope.
Themes
At the funeral a few days later, Josie wants to scream at John—the church is packed with people who loved him. In the days after, Josie finds herself going several hours at a time without thinking of John. She knows that his mother, though, will never not think of him. Josie’s teachers are beside themselves, since they think the pressure of the HSC killed John. But Josie thinks that John had known for years that he was going to die. It would make sense that he didn’t choose to date either Josie or Ivy, out of fear of bringing them down with him.
As Josie thinks about John over the next few days, she realizes just how much pressure John was under at home. Again, while it’s impossible to blame any one person for John’s suicide, Josie sees that a major contributing factor to John’s choice was the fact that he lacked support at home, and his wider community wasn’t enough to fill in where his family fell short.
Themes
As these thoughts swirl through Josie’s head, she feels like she’s flying one moment and then slamming into the ground the next. She remembers talking with John about their “emancipation.” It’s horrific that John had to die to become emancipated—but Josie thinks it’s beautiful that she’s living to be emancipated.
Saying that it’s beautiful that she’s living to become emancipated shows that Josie is rethinking her priorities. Now, staying alive and enjoying her life is her biggest goal—not becoming wealthy and influential.
Themes
