Erin H.
Mrs.Zurkowski
Character Sketch: John Tyree
Everyone needs something to stride for. Whether it’s a lifelong dream or even just for someone you love, it is something that you need to live your life to the fullest. If someone doesn’t have something or someone else to live for then their life is uneventful, boring and usually ends up in trouble. In Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks, that is exactly what happened to John Tyree. His Mother left his father when he was very young, so he was raised by his father. At first they both loved to collect coins, but then as time went on John became less and less interested in coin collecting and soon they had nothing to talk about. John’s father was different, he liked everything on schedule and if the schedule changed he didn’t like it all. John and his father soon couldn’t relate at all and their conversations usually consisted of one or two words. John didn’t have much to live for, no family, no steady girlfriend and not even a job. Almost every job he had he either got fired from or quit. Every girlfriend he had either broke up with him or he didn’t really like her. John smoked and drank a lot and had basically nothing of his own. He finally decided he wanted to change his life and made a spontaneous decision to join the army. There he quit smoking because he “almost coughed up a lung in boot camp” (Nicholas Sparks, 24), learned discipline and finally did something with his life. On one of his leaves he went home to his father’s house where he would sleep in late, surf all day then go back to bed again. During one of his surfing outings he met Savannah Lynn Curtis. Little would he know that she would help him finally become mature like an adult and teach him what true love really is.
John Tyree is 23 years old and has brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin. He grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he never left. He, to many people, is intimidating because he is so big and sometimes he is. When he was younger he would always be getting in trouble and has gotten that reputation, though he has changed now. Even though John may seem intimidating he actually cares a lot. One huge example of that is when he saved Savannahs purse when it fell into the water. He had never met Savannah before and when he saw that she dropped her purse from the pier he jumped right into the ocean to get it, this shows that he truly does care about other people. He also tries hard to try to communicate with his dad but most of the time he is not very successful. Many people mistake John Tyree for something he used to be.
The beach, that is where it all started. That’s where John met Savannah Lynn Curtis. When John was on leave in his home town, Wilmington North Carolina, he one day went to the beach where he saw two girls, a brunette and a tall blonde, and two boys, one wearing a pink shirt and one wearing an orange shirt, walking on the pier. “Pink shirt pushed back from the railing but somehow his hand must have hit the bag because it slid, and tumbled over the edge.” (31) The tall blonde’s bag had fallen into the ocean and they thought it was lost. John had watched it all that’s when he heard “‘I need that purse! It’s got all my money in there!’ It wasn’t any of my business, I knew. But all I could think as I leapt to my feet and rushed toward that edge of the pier was, oh what the hell…”(32). Soon to find out the tall blonde and the owner of the bag was Savannah. After they met they were basically spending every minuet they had together. John would come to the house that Savannah was staying at every day and they would go out to eat, surf or just spend the day at the beach, each day falling more and more in love. But John knew this time would end soon and he would have to go back to the army. This leave he had was only 2 weeks, and then he would be going back to the army for a long time before his next leave, where he could see her again. When John had to return to Germany they promised they would write to each other and call each other whenever possible. At first it was hard on both of them but then they learned how to deal with it and would count down the days to John’s next leave. Every leave John had, he would go to where ever Savannah was. He met her parents and stayed at their house, he then went to stay at Savannahs apartment that she had bought. Each time they saw each other they picked up where they last left off. Then when John had to go back, Savannah would take him to the airport and there would be lots of hugs and tears, but they would still know that they would see each other during John’s next leave. They still sent each other letters and talked as often as they could. But one letter was different from the others. Savannah hadn’t sent a letter in a couple weeks, when they used to come every couple days. “She was in love with someone else. I knew that even before I finished reading the letter, all at once the world seemed to slow down” (233). After he received that letter, John went into a state where he didn’t want to talk to anyone and was basically depressed. “Over the next few weeks, I became the consummate soldier, escaping into the only word that still seemed real to me. I volunteered for any mission regarded as dangerous, I barely spoke to anyone in my unit, and for a while it took everything I had not to be too quick with the trigger while out on patrol.” (234) Everything seemed to change in his life for the worse. Some weeks later another terrible thing happened, his father died. John was granted an emergency leave to go to the funeral and make arrangements for what would happen to all of his father’s things. John sold everything in the house, except his father’s most prize possession; his coin collection. After the funeral John went to see Savannah. He was not exactly sure why he went there but he did. When he first saw Savannah she came running to him and gave him a hug and then the awkwardness settled in. “I saw the mysteriousness and maturity that had always made her attractive. I noticed a hint of sadness and reticence as well.” (262) She was married to another man yet John was still in love with her. He soon found out that the other man was Tim, a longtime friend of Savannahs that John had met. Tim had gotten very sick he had melanoma and needed help with his brother, Alan, who had some problems. When John found that out he was astonished but he was glad it was Tim and not some random guy he didn’t know. The longer he spent with Savannah the more he loved her again and she started to love him too. She told him that Tim was so sick that if he didn’t go to a better hospital he might not make it, but they didn’t enough money. One of the times John went to see Tim at the hospital he told him some very important things that John learned a lot from. Tim told him that he was very worried about his brother Alan who, if Tim died, would have to be taken care of by Savannah and he wasn’t sure if she was up to that. Tim also told John that Savannah still loved him, as much as she would try to hide it Tim knew that. “I know she loves me, but she’s never loved me the way she loved you” (324).
After talking to Tim in the hospital John comes to a huge realization. He realizes that true love is when you care more about the other person’s happiness than your own. He also realizes that right now Tim needs Savannah and that him being there is only making things worse, so he had to say goodbye to Savannah. “Saying goodbye was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Part of me wanted to turn around and race back to the hospital, to tell her that I would always be there for her, to confide in her the things Tim had said to me. But I didn’t.” (329) John also knew that Tim was going to die if he didn’t go to a better hospital, so he sold his father’s coin collection and gave the money anonymously to Savannah to help Tim, and that helped enough to get Tim to a better hospital and eventually cured. Before John would have never been mature enough to be able to leave Savannah because he knew he had to. He had changed so much since the first time he met Savannah.
Throughout John’s entire experience with Savannah he changed a lot. Before he didn’t care about anything, “I spent every dime I earned, had zero illusions about eventually working my way up the ladder to management and ended getting fired from every job I ever had. For a while, I didn’t care.”(19) He also didn’t really know what true love really is and Savannah and Tim taught him that. He was not mature at all when he first met Savannah and having to say good bye to her just shows how much he has grown. John Tyree goes from being a careless guy to a strong mature man. John Tyree changed because of Savannah Lynn Curtis.
