69 pages • 2 hours read
Nicholas SparksA Walk to Remember
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
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BetaChapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Jamie persuades Landon to visit Mr. Jenkins, the orphanage director, and ask whether they can put on the play. As Landon does not feel smartly dressed enough, he tells Jamie he needs to go home and change. She walks with him to his house and marvels at the lavishness which he takes for granted. Landon’s mother, who is also home, is amazed when Jamie tells her that the idea of putting on the play for the orphans is Landon’s.
On the way to the orphanage, when Jamie asks Landon what he wants to do with his life, but he does not know. She suggests that he become a minister, a situation which he refutes, politely. Jamie then admits that her sole wish is to get married in a packed church and have her father walk her down the aisle.
At the orphanage, Mr. Jenkins decides that the topic of the play is unsuitable for the orphans because it will remind them of the parental love they are missing. Jamie is saddened, and Landon realizes for the first time that “she had lots of different emotions […] she was just like the rest of us” (74).
Landon agrees to stay and play with the orphans for an hour. The scarcity of their surroundings depressed him; however, he knows that Jamie is already thinking about what to do for them at Christmas.
Chapter 7 Summary
As the time of the play nears, the cast stays late at rehearsals and Jamie asks Landon to walk her home. Though he doesn’t like being teased by his friends or spending time with Jamie, he concedes that “the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was doing the ‘right thing’” (79).
On one walk home, Jamie reveals that she misses her mother and that the Bible she carries belonged to her. As Jamie explains that carrying the Bible “gives me a way to … to be a part of her” (85), Eric and his girlfriend, Margaret, pass by and tease Jamie and Landon about taking a romantic walk. Landon resents becoming ridiculed, in addition to the rumors that are spreading about the pair at school.
The next day, the rehearsal at the Playhouse theatre is a series of disasters for Landon. While walking Jamie home, he has an outburst. He tells Jamie that he never wanted to do the play or spend time with her: “You keep acting like we’re friends, but we’re not. We’re not anything. I just want the whole thing to be over so I can go back to my normal life” (90). While Jamie is visibly hurt by Landon’s outburst, she thanks him for walking her home, as usual. Landon is unsure of whether he loathes Jamie or himself more.
Chapter 8 Summary
On the night of the play, Landon apologizes to Jamie for his outburst and, taking her hand, says he will make it up to her. In the men’s dressing room, Eric catches up with Landon and asks him whether he will pull any tricks to ruin the show. When Landon replies that he is going to act “straight up” (93), Eric concludes that his friend is growing up.
Heading on stage, Landon is nervous about delivering the line where his character Tom Thornton tells the Angel “You’re beautiful” because he doesn’t think he feels this way about Jamie. However, when he sees Jamie’s loose hair and shimmering white robes, the line feels sincere, and he knows that the whole auditorium believes him.
Chapter 9 Summary
The play goes over well. Jamie’s father drives her home for the first time. Landon wishes he could walk her home.
On Monday, everything seems back to normal, but Jamie asks Landon to walk her home again. She then requests that he gather the pickle jars and coffee cans she left all over town in order to collect money for the orphanage. Landon agrees, but is devastated when the total amounts to $55.73. He supplements the funds with his own allowance, bringing the total to $247.
Jamie insists that Landon should go with her to the orphanage on Christmas Eve to watch the children open their presents. Landon spends his remaining money on a sweater for Jamie. Held up by traffic, Landon arrives at the orphanage late and sees Jamie reading the kids a story. She looks beautiful, with her hair loose and a red V-neck sweater. When Jamie and Landon exchange their own gifts, Landon sees that Jamie has given him her Bible. They smile at each other, and Landon wonders “how I’d ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan” (109).
Chapter 10 Summary
As Landon and Jamie driving home from the orphanage, Jamie asks if he ever thinks about God. She says that “‘I know the Lord has a plan for us all, but sometimes, I just don’t understand what the message can be” (112). Landon, who is hoping to kiss her, invites her to his parents’ house for Christmas dinner.
He picks Jamie up the next day. After Christmas dinner, Jamie asks whether the rumors are true about Landon’s bootlegger grandfather. When he replies that they are, Jamie asks if he would give the fortune back. Landon lashes out that she is making him feel “‘guilty” and that he cannot help the family he was born into. Jamie says that he might be able to undo the past wrongs one day. When she reveals that her father worries about them both, Landon “knew right then she was holding something back, something she couldn’t tell me” (119).
Still, Landon is more concerned with whether Jamie likes him, and the next night on her porch, when she tilts her head towards his, he kisses her.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
Chapters 6-10 preside over Landon’s transition from a popular, aloof rich kid who lives to have a good time, to a conscious philanthropic soul who is motivated by “doing the ‘right thing’” (79). Up until the night of the play’s performance, Landon continues to resent that his afternoons are taken up with rehearsals and walking Jamie home, but he is increasingly clear that devoting his time to the service of others is a good thing to do. Following a difficult rehearsal the night before the performance, an exhausted Landon protests that he wants to “go back to my normal life” (90). However, while it “felt kind of good” (89) to voice his doubt aloud to Jamie, his overall character transformation is such that he instantly regrets backtracking on his earlier promise to Jamie, thereby highlighting his growth thus far.
Landon’s remorse, paired with his romantic attraction to Jamie, cements him on the path of charity. When Jamie asks whether he will give back the money his grandfather amassed during the Depression, although he falters in reply, his act of contributing his own money to orphanage funds indicates that he is capable of goodwill and charity, and that perhaps he might return the money at a later date. Jamie’s insistence on talking about God and Christian virtue, when Landon is eager to focus on the romantic aspects of their relationship, creates suspense around what she might be hiding from him. When Landon senses that Jamie’s secret is “something that made her sad as well” (119), he intuits that their connection won’t take a predictable route. This foreshadowing on Landon’s part hints at a foreboding future for the pair.
These chapters also highlight Jamie as an extremely nuanced character. Whereas in the earlier chapters, she surprises Landon with her sense of humor, in these chapters, he learns that she has “lots of different emotions” (74), including sensitivity and a desire to have a romantic relationship. Though her attraction to Landon is evident, she keeps God, and a larger sense of destiny, firmly in the picture by continually referring to the Lord’s plan for the two of them. While Landon accepts this practice as part of her devoutness, he also believes she uses the distance it creates to keep a secret from him.
The reader, too, is left to wonder why this able, industrious girl’s sole wish for the future is to get married and why she hands over to Landon her prized possession (the Bible left to her by her dead mother) as though she herself will not need it. Equipped with these clues, as well as with the common plot tropes used by Sparks, Jamie’s actions hint that she may in fact no longer need the Bible, and that her secret is big enough to overwhelm them both.
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