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
One sunny day, Jay Reguero sat on the floor of his dad and uncle’s childhood bedroom, holding a dead puppy and crying while his own mother held him. At the time, Jay was 10 years old and on his first trip to the Philippines—he was born there, but he and his immediate family had soon moved away. After arriving at his grandparents’ home in the rural Bicol region, Jay had discovered that his grandparents’ unnamed dog recently gave birth and a single puppy survived. The puppy’s mother was ignoring it, so Jay had tried to care for it himself, feeding it milk.
This anecdote, which seems to be a memory of Jay’s, establishes the themes and stakes of the book, as the rest of the novel portrays Jay processing another, more personal death. This passage also introduces Jay as a Filipino American who’s spent minimal time in the Philippines (this is the first time in about 10 years that he’s been there). Much of the book centers around Jay trying to make sense of this identity—he feels neither fully American nor fully Filipino, and he doesn’t feel that he belongs in either place. It’s possible to read the mother dog’s rejection of its puppy as a metaphor for Jay’s sense of unbelonging in the country where he was born—his separation from his “mother country.”
Themes
However, the puppy had refused to drink, probably because it was sad about its siblings and its neglectful mother, and it slowly died. Back then, Jay had only read about death or heard about other people’s dead relatives. This was his first experience witnessing death. As Jay’s mom comforted him in the bedroom, she told him to listen to the baby birds outside and said that when “one thing dies […] another is born.”
Here, Jay’s mother introduces—both to the novel and to Jay himself—the idea that death has an underlying meaning or purpose rather than being arbitrary. To comfort her distraught son, she suggested that the puppy’s death was part of the broader circle of life. As the novel unfolds, Jay will likewise strain to find some sort of comforting meaning or purpose in the death of a loved one, but he will also find that death, loss, and grief are not as simple as his mother describes.
Themes
When Jay went back outside, his Filipino uncles and aunts laughed at him. They weren’t trying to be mean, but they found it funny that a dog’s death made Jay sad. Dogs die all the time—Jay’s cousins wouldn’t have needed their mom’s comfort. Jay’s Tito Danilo (Tito means “uncle”) said to take comfort in God, and his Tito Maning said to stop crying. Tito Maning took the puppy’s body away and returned empty-handed. He then tried to pet the puppy’s mother, but she wouldn’t let him.
Tito Danilo tries to help Jay by urging him to seek spiritual comfort. Like Jay’s mom, he wants to help Jay find meaning in the dog’s death (using it to strengthen his connection with God or perhaps believing that all things, including the dog’s death, are part of God’s plan). Meanwhile, Tito Maning’s callous attitude towards the dog’s death and Jay’s grief foreshadows his behavior after his own estranged son, Jun, dies years later. This passage also further highlights Jay’s separation from Filipino society by suggesting that if Jay had grown up in the Philippines, he would have been exposed to death by now. While Jay’s Filipino family members are clearly referencing dogs when they talk about death happening all the time, such language foreshadows the later war on drugs in the Philippines that makes human death commonplace and unremarkable. That the mother dog doesn’t allow Tito Maning to pet it suggests that the novel isn’t merely saying that Tito Maning’s attitude toward death is different from Jay’s American view, but rather implies that Maning’s actions truly are cruel and unnatural.
Themes
Jay’s cousin Jun hugged him, telling Jay that he was sad, too. Jun was born days after Jay, but he acted wiser than his years. Jay wanted to ask what Tito Maning did to the puppy and its siblings, but he didn’t think he could deal with the answer, so he said nothing. A few days later, Jay returned home to Michigan. Wrapped up in his life, he forgot about the Philippines.
Not only is Jun mature for a 10-year-old, but he’s also empathetic, and he offers Jay a human connection that the other Filipino family members don’t. Meanwhile, the fact that Jay doesn’t ask what Tito Maning did to the puppies is noteworthy. He wants to know the truth, but he feels that the truth (and the responsibility that knowing the truth may force upon him) would be too painful for him to handle—an idea that will reappear for Jay throughout the novel. The fact that Jay forgets about his trip so quickly and becomes wrapped up in his normal life in America further emphasizes his separation from his Filipino heritage and family. This quick forgetfulness combined with the fact that Jay hasn’t visited the Philippines before age 10 also implies that his parents are similarly disconnected from the Philippines.
Themes
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