Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Patron Saints of Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Adolescence, and Justice
Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame
Culture and Belonging
Death and Meaning
Summary
Analysis
That night, Jay lies awake thinking about Jun. He still doesn’t know why Jun left Reyna, where he went, or how he ended up on Tito Maning’s list. Jay also doesn’t know who took Jun’s letters. Jay knows it doesn’t matter if he never learns the truth, since he confirmed that Jun was a good person. But the mystery still bothers him, and time is running short, since he’s about to go to his grandparents’ in a more rural part of the Philippines and they don’t have Internet access.
While Jay has learned a lot about Jun—and believes that Jun didn’t deal drugs was therefore “good”—the need to know the truth still gnaws at him.
Themes
Jay pulls up Instagram and discovers that Jun’s friend deleted their account. Jay browses the account called “GISING NA PHI!” instead, hoping to find a post about Jun but knowing there won’t be any. Jay tries to sleep, still upset that the mystery of how Jun died is unsolved.
Jay himself has found a measure of connectedness and belonging, but the trail into what he considers the heart of the mystery of Jun’s death seems to have gone cold.
Themes
