Dear John- Conflict/Resolution

Author's Note: This is my conflict/resolution piece I wrote on Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. What I wrote explains the struggles John was going through, or the conflict, and in the end shows how that conflict was resolved while showing how it relates to another piece Nicholas Sparks wrote called A Walk To Remember.

Dear John is a classic Nicholas Sparks story about a boy and a girl. From the boy, John's perspective, he had recently graduated from High School and was not planning on going to college, but enlisting in the army instead. On a summer's day, when John was out surfing, he collides with this girl, Savannah, and fell in love. Their summer love conflicts with his time in war that he has to contribute. While John was away, they continued to share their love through notes. Although they only grow farther apart the longer John is away. John is going through a person vs. society conflict which leads into a person vs. person conflict. For instance John, the person, is at war and is forced to serve his time, which would be society. Him being at war leaves Savannah lonely. Eventually, Savannah fell in love with another man. Indicating that John would be against the other man she has fallen in love with, person vs. person. 

From one novel to another, Nicholas Sparks wrote another beautifully crafted book that drips themes very similar to what Dear John has. He named this one, A Walk To Remember. Each of these two books start out with the person vs. society conflict. With A Walk To Remember, the main character, Landon Carter, was faced against the world because of his past. Landon did not have the best background and it was difficult to prove to the world, and especially his family, what a loyal person he really is at heart. Progressing farther into the book, he runs into a girl, Jamie Sullivan, that has been left in the background for many years. Although, once Landon gets to know Jamie better through a school play, he falls in love. Conflicting with his feelings, though, is Jamie's father who is a strict Reverend and disagrees with how Landon used to act. This situation would be the person vs. person, Landon vs. Jamie's father.

Although the two novels are similar in conflicts, their solutions are quite diverse. Resolving A Walk To Remember involved Landon changing his lifestyle in order to prove to not only Jamie's father, but his family members as well that he is a trustworthy and has loving at heart. He changed so dramatically that Jamie's rule-enforcing father came to believe in Landon. He put his trust in him so much that he  allowed Landon to marry Jamie when the story came to an end. Despite the fact that Jamie died in the end of the book, she continued to live in Landon's heart as if she never left.

From the similar situation of A Walk To Remember, return to the solution of Dear John. Mail day comes and John receives a letter from Savannah explaining how she is in love with another man. Though this is extremely difficult for John to soak in, after war he returns to his hometown and meets up with Savannah once more. John finds that Savannah's fiance is struggling with melanoma. While Savannah's fiance is on his death bed, John discovers the meaning of true love. He describes it as, "... love meant that you care for another’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”. Therefore he went off and paid, anonymously, to help find a cure for Savannah's fiance, and the cure healed all of his wounds. Even though John didn't end up with the girl, he did end up with a true and compassionate heart and that he will always know he made the respectable decision.