A Walk to Remember

“The angel who saved us all” (166), Jamie, the daughter of a widowed Baptist minister named Hegbert Sullivan, is viewed as eccentric and intimidatingly virtuous by her peers. Although she’s a good-looking girl, being “thin, with honey blond hair and soft blue eyes” (16), she appears “plain” and puritanical because she styles her hair in a bun, wears no makeup, brown cardigans, and is always carrying around her dead mother’s Bible. During the course of the novel, the stereotypes surrounding Jamie’s personality come undone as Landon learns the complexity of her character. Although Jamie initially appears permanently cheerful, she is also sensitive, humorous, and can throw “curveballs” that “could smack you right between the eyeballs” (82) every time Landon makes assumptions about her. Her peers’ former assumptions are greatly put to the test when they learn that Jamie is dying, understand how valuable her contribution was, and strive to follow her example.

Jamie, who continually references a divine plan, has specific wishes for her life, such as getting married in a packed church, even though she knows that she has an incurable form of leukemia. However, she still enjoys attracting Landon’s attention - she gives him significant smiles, requests that he play the lead in her father’s play, and asks him to walk her home every night after rehearsals ‘“when we both know you don’t even need me to do it” (89). She also figures out that she looks attractive with her long blonde hair loose, and in adopting this style, she looks “exactly like an angel” (96) and embraces her sexuality at the same time. In Jamie, the spiritual and the sexual are entwined, as her relationship and marriage with Landon incorporate Bible reading amongst the kissing. Her permanent mark on Landon’s life is shown in the couple’s wedding being the last narrative detail of the 1959 story, rather than her death and the fact that he has never felt the “desire” to remove his wedding ring—an implication that he has never desired another woman.

Hegbert Sullivan is the town’s Baptist minister, and Jaime’s father. He has eyes that narrow into “slits” when he gets angry, and pale “fishy skin.” Hegbert represents the Biblical influence in Beaufort, an influence that counters the Carters’s amoral capitalistic influence. He also gives passionate sermons that damn fornicators, and has written The Christmas Angel, a play that corrects the moral ambiguity of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Hegbert has suffered hardship in his life, both working for Landon’s corrupt bootlegger grandfather prior to his entry into the ministry and losing his wife, who underwent six miscarriages at the moment she gave birth to Jamie. Prior to Jamie’s romantic involvement with Landon, Hegbert is the main man in Jamie’s life and she sees aspects of him unknown to others, such as his sense of humor. The bond between father and daughter is so strong that when Hegbert gives her away, he says that he “‘can no more give Jamie away than I can give my heart,” although he can “let another share in the joy that she has always given me” (169)

While Landon initially views Hegbert as a ridiculous figure with “a hot spot” for damning fornicators to hell, during the course of the novel, he sees that Hegbert is kindhearted and selfless in permitting Landon’s courtship of his daughter, especially when Hegbert understands that the relationship is important to her. Hegbert later becomes a revered figure to Landon, and his feud with Landon’s family ends when all sides come together after Jamie’s death to honor her life.

Landon’s father, Worth Carter, is a congressman who spends most of his time in Washington DC, although he rallies his wife and son on trips “to show the people he was a true family man” (8). As an amoral Carter, Worth is the object of Hegbert’s disapproval in his sermons. Landon experiences “growing disillusionment” with his father, a largely absent figure who “always wore a suit” (22) and provides him with little guidance on his entry into manhood. Nevertheless, Worth’s insistence that Landon play a more public role in school and run for student body president is instrumental to the plot as it triggers Landon inviting Jamie to the dance. In turn, Jamie’s presence in Landon’s life is crucial to healing the faltering bond between father and son, as her terminal sickness enables Worth to intervene by funding Jamie’s care so that she might die comfortably at home. In making this contribution, Worth also heals the historic animosity between the Carters and Sullivans.

Landon’s mother is a “sweet,” Southern lady who prefers to spend her time reading and drinking mint juleps rather than being a homemaker. Initially, Mrs. Carter plays a passive role, allowing her husband to take the initiative when he is around. However, when Jamie is dying, it is Mrs. Carter who insists that Worth come home and “find a way to help” (156) Jamie spends her last days at home. She is also warm in welcoming Jamie into her home, regardless of their families’ animosity: “Even though Hegbert was always giving the kinds of sermons that had our family’s name written all over them, my mom never held it against Jamie, because of how sweet she was” (68). A minor character in the novel, Mrs. Carter nevertheless undergoes a transformation as she uses her influence over her husband to help him heal the Carter-Sullivan feud.

The most popular kid in school, Eric Hunter is Landon’s best friend, a sports star, and “a stud” who dates Margaret, the head cheerleader. Eric initially teases Landon about his increasing intimacy with uncool Jamie. He is the first to suggest that Landon is “smitten with Jamie Sullivan” (48) and, later, when he sees the pair walking home from rehearsals, he teases Landon that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Eric, who buys beer underage and drives around with his popular girlfriend, represents the kind of teenage rebellion that Landon moves away from when he begins collaborating on theater and charity work with Jamie. Eric, who knows that Jamie is religious, and who has been evading church, “could make (him) feel guilty if she was close enough to him” (62). Up until the night of the performance, Eric still judges Landon.

The turning point in Eric’s character comes when he sees Landon “finally growing up.” Eric praises him for his good performance in the play instead of teasing him. Later, a dramatic transformation comes when Eric presents a dying Jamie with over $400 for the orphanage and tearfully apologizes for his constant teasing. The transformation of the most popular kid in the school underscores Eric’s shift from amoral to moral.

Angela Clark is Landon’s first real girlfriend. She dumps him at the end of his junior year for an older man, and is the opposite of angelic Jamie. Angela drinks, chews gum, and wears a “really flashy” fashionable dress to the homecoming dance, which contrasts with Jamie’s neat, conservative blouse and skirt. By patriarchal 1950s stereotypes, Angela is the fast girl to Jamie’s good girl persona. Nevertheless, even though Angela had “been sick all over the place” (49) and Landon had to clean it up, he initially still prefers her to Jamie. Angela’s place in Landon’s life is sidelined when he views his attraction to her as based on teenage hormones rather than true love. Angels represents the physical, or sensual, which is a plot foil to the spiritual character of Jamie.

Miss Garber is a stereotype of the unmarried drama teacher who is dedicated to her job. Larger than life, Miss Garber is overweight, “at least six feet two, with flaming red hair and pale skin” and wears “flower-patterned muummuus” (long, flowing, Hawaiian dresses) (14). An eccentric in conformist Beaufort, enthusiastic Miss Garber, who cares about the students’ personal development, is “ahead of the curve as far as psychotherapy is concerned” (15). She presides over the space where Jamie and Landon work together: Arguably, the non-conformist theatrical setting of Miss Garber’s rehearsal room is the context that their non-conformist romance needs to get underway.