Jesse

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1994

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-12

Chapters 13-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Religion’s Role in Getting Through Difficult Times

In Jesse, the figure of the Catholic God looms over Jesse’s characterization and character development. Jesse turns to God to help navigate his external conflicts, which in turn helps him deal with his internal conflicts. Throughout the novel, Gary Soto emphasizes the power of religion in helping individuals through dark times in their lives.

Jesse’s evolution of faith is indicative of his age and maturation. He is only 17 years old, which means he is still young and figuring out who he is and what he wants for his future. Because of his youth, he is still learning what his faith truly means to him. As a child, Jesse pictured God as magical. God was the creaks in the floorboards, the mysterious chill in the air. At 17, Jesse has outgrown this version of God. Unlike most teenagers, Jesse has adult issues such as affording rent and food, and his temperamental stepfather. These challenges force Jesse to reconfigure what God looks like to him. He understands God as a figure to whom he prays. This transition from magical presence to leader of prayer is indicative of Jesse’s new challenges. Because Jesse needs to deal with immediate issues of identity and poverty, as well as hold onto hope for the future, prayer is a useful way of organizing his feelings. Through prayer, Jesse feels active in his goal-setting. He has so little control over his life that prayer makes him feel empowered.

God also provides Jesse with a father figure he otherwise lacks. Jesse’s biological father, the man who raised him, died when he was a child. This left a void in his life which his mother tried to fill with his stepfather. But Jesse and Abel’s stepfather turned out to be an aggressive man with alcoholism. Jesse misses his father and yearns for a man who can guide him the way his father would have. In some ways, Abel (and Leslie) serves this role for Jesse. But an older brother and stepfather can never replace Jesse’s father. In Catholicism, God is referred to as the Father, thus solidifying his unconditional love, strict expectations, and guiding hand.

Jesse’s faith helps him feel gratitude for what he does have. Though Jesse’s life is full of challenges, his faith helps him contextualize his experiences, retain hope, and value himself despite his low self-esteem.

The Power of Community

Although Jesse is lonely, Soto emphasizes the importance and power of community. Jesse craves community and misses having a unified family. In the novel, he and his brother Abel are close and form their own small community. The brothers have a common enemy: their stepfather and they’re disappointed that their mother has chosen to stand by him. They both desire family but express this desire differently. Jesse maintains his hope for a united family by seeing his mother for dinner, accepting her help, and working toward a future together. Being the elder, an adult with a more nuanced understanding of fairness and societal rules, Abel has a more difficult time accepting the loss of his family and dealing with their stepfather.

Jesse is happiest when his and Abel’s community includes others. He brings classmate Leslie into their lives, changing the latter’s life for the better through connections with Abel and Glenda. Though Jesse is jealous of Abel’s attentions toward women, this jealousy ultimately stems from his desire to be included in the friend group. Because he is in constant search of community, he plays out different identities with his peers. He joins schoolmate Raul at labor rallies and Raul’s student organization meetings. Though Raul has many admirable qualities as a leader and an activist, he also embraces violence and presents himself with a hypermasculine demeanor that Jesse has difficulty relating to. Around Raul’s friends, Jesse feels inauthentic and intimidated. He tries to reconnect with high school friend Luis but can’t relate to the latter’s carefree behavior, partying, and willingness to fight. As much as Jesse wants a community to call his own, he must first figure out who he is. Jesse is young but deals with adult issues; his stressors force him away from typical teenage social life. This makes him feel odd, as he often wants to talk to girls but doesn’t know how. This internal conflict is common in young adult fiction: Figuring out how to relate to others when one has yet to gain a fully formed understanding of selfhood can be very difficult.

In the novel, it is the absence of community that emphasizes its importance. Jesse can and does look out for himself, but his longing for connection speaks to the human need to belong. Soto advocates for community as a valuable asset in the development of personality, psyche, and self-esteem. But he also forces Jesse into a situation largely absent of community as a way to imply his empathy and positivity will one day enable him to find his own community.

Fighting Against Society’s Influence

In Jesse, Soto articulates the powerful influence of society on the individual. In particular, he demonstrates how easy it is for people to internalize negative images as portrayed by society. Despite being Mexican American, Jesse considers the racist things he’s heard at school—such as Mexicans “taking” jobs from Americans, especially jobs in field labor. Jesse works as a manual laborer, so he knows first-hand how difficult the job is. His experiences should refute the racist things he hears, yet he still wonders if his white peers are correct. Jesse entertaining racist criticisms of Mexicans over his own personal experiences speaks to how deeply individuals can internalize societal misconceptions. Jesse’s mother also falls victim to this issue. When she sees Jesse’s drawing of Mexican laborers, she calls them lazy. While Jesse feels connected to these Mexican laborers through his own work, his mother wants to put distance between her experience and theirs. Jesse’s mother subconsciously sees the value in creating an “us versus them” mentality to protect herself from white society’s negative perceptions of Mexicans—a mentality which perpetuates racism.

Societal structures can interfere with and control individual lives. The Vietnam War was a decades-long conflict that bitterly divided Americans. Some saw the war as a positive portrayal of Americans preventing the spread of communism, while others saw the war as a failure of imperialism. Despite these divisions, Jesse and Abel have no choice in being dragged into the war. 21-year-old Abel is eventually drafted into the war, threatening his life and sanity. Jesse also faces this threat, as his 18th birthday will bring the possibility of drafting. Despite the brothers’ own ambitions and fears, the government takes control of their lives and forces them into a war they don’t believe in. This is a prime example of how society can negatively influence the individual. In the novel, Soto advocates for individual freedom in the face of unjust societal infrastructures that seek to control individuals.