'a Walk to Remember'

Question: Discuss the transformation that occurs in Landon’s life due to the influence of Jamie Sullivan.



During the book A Walk to Remember Jamie changed Landon into a completely different person and he didn’t even know it. She taught him not to judge people from first impressions, how to help others and think of others and he realised that there God is worth reading about and that miracles could happen. None of these would have happened without Jamie there to help him along.

Firstly, Jamie had started to teach him not to judge people by first appearances. He learnt that people like Jamie are really caring, nice and sweet to be around and that they’re really not that bad. ‘Here she was, covered in puke, actually thanking me for the evening.’ (pg. 62) This shows that Jamie was very polite, even in the worst of times. Then you see Jamie going from being an unattractive boring teenage girl (‘…Jamie had never been on my social calendar.’ pg.20) to being a gorgeous angel in the school play (‘She looked exactly like an angel…”You’re beautiful…”’ pg. 134-5). This show that even though she might not look like she is on the inside, she really is like an angel.

Secondly, Jamie had taught Landon how to help people. ‘…it was the right thing to do.’ (pg.146). He had said this after he had added money to a collection for the orphans to buy them presents. This shows that Landon did a good thing for them by giving Jamie the extra money to buy those presents and not taking credit for any of it. He had changed a lot because before then, before he saw the orphanage with Jamie, he wouldn’t have cared. He only started to care after Jamie took him to the orphanage and how good it was to help them. Landon began to care that the orphans had or didn’t have all the luxuries that he had had growing up in his house with all his great privileges.

Landon eventually near the end actually wants to learn about God and read the bible, instead of just sitting...