Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

“The Pants are like an omen. They stand for the promise we made to one another, that no matter what happens, we stick together.”

Here, Carmen identifies the power of the traveling pants as a symbol. Though the girls credit the pants for helping them stay close, the effort that they put into their relationships is the reason they remain strong, not any magic qualities inherent to the pants. The pants are simply a physical manifestation of their shared friendship and can be passed from person to person while they are on their individual summer adventures. The pants are an example of magical realism and the only magical aspect of the novel.

“They always had dinner at a restaurant she picked. She tried to choose places he would like. She always checked his face carefully as he studied the menu and then as he took his first bite. She hardly tasted her own food.”

Carmen feels like she must continually win over her father to receive his love, to the point that she lets her own identity be subsumed by what she thinks he wants. Over the course of the summer, this dynamic will cause problems for her because she hasn’t learned how to express herself honestly to him.

“She’d decided the morning after the vow of the Pants that she was going to record her summer of discontent in a movie—a suckumentary, a pastiche of lameness. Duncan had just won himself a starring role.”

The conception of the “suckumentary” is emblematic of Tibby’s attitude at the start of the narrative—sarcastic, aloof, and occasionally cruel. She sees most people as beneath her in some way and has no issue with mocking them for their differences. While she does not have malicious intent in doing this, her character arc throughout the novel centers on her emotional and empathetic growth.

“I feel like I should love them right away. But how do you do that? You can’t make yourself love someone, can you?”

The complex nature of love, particularly within families, is a running theme throughout the novel. Here, Lena contemplates whether it’s possible to force love out of thin air. The answer given by the narrative is no; love takes time and continued effort to develop, and then to maintain. Her mythologized version of her grandparents isn’t meeting her expectations, and this is the first indication that her summer will not come as easily as she had hoped.

“Lena was an introvert. She knew she had trouble connecting with people. She always felt like her looks were fake bait, seeming to offer a bridge to people, which she couldn’t easily cross.”

Each of the girls struggles to overcome an aspect of her character that holds her back. For Lena, it’s her intense shyness, which makes it hard for her to connect with people. Lena’s journey involves accepting her introverted personality while overcoming her fear of vulnerability.

“I’m dying a slow death at Wallman’s, Tibby decided the next afternoon under the whirring fluorescent lights. This job probably wouldn’t cause death any sooner than the normal time. But it would be very painful.”

Tibby takes a pessimistic approach to life, seeing the worst in her surroundings and her peers. She isn’t grateful for the privileges she has until she meets Bailey. It is significant that she casually contemplates death because of her mundane job, which is sharply contrasted by Bailey’s disease and actual imminent death. This juxtapose helps Tibby to reconsider her pessimism and cynical approach to life.

“‘My mom…’ Is? Was? She was still indecisive about tense when it came to this. ‘My mom…was from Alabama. She died.’”

This quote from Bridget shows that she is unsure how to navigate her mother’s death, even years after the fact. Death is a frightening and intense subject for anyone, but especially for a teenager. Throughout the novel, it is suggested that Bridget’s sometimes-erratic behavior is a reflection of her internal struggle with her mother’s death. When she is ultimately able to acknowledge this, she is able to mature and complete her character arc in the story.

“Today, thought, she’d have an adventure. She’d do something. She wouldn’t let her friends down. Or the Pants. Or herself, come to think of it.”

When the girls are apart, they personify the pants as an extension of their friendship. Wearing the pants is almost like being together again. Here, the pants inspire Lena to make her friends proud by stepping out of her comfort zone. She particularly embodies Bridget’s personality whenever she needs a boost of confidence. Though Bridget is sometimes confident to a fault, unable to regulate her emotions, Lena sees the best in her friend and identifies her strengths, longing to adopt them in her own life.

“Carmen promised herself she’d smile at Lydia when they got home and ask at least two friendly questions about the wedding.”

When Carmen is away from Lydia, Paul, and Krista, she finds it easier to sympathize with them, but when they are together her frustration at their dynamic makes her forget her promises to be kinder. Brashares presents a realistic portrayal of how challenging family relationships can be.

“She now knew she should have toned it down. Why was it so hard for her to make herself stop?”

Bridget approaches everything with intensity and energy. While this quality is one her friends admire and even envy, her main challenge is slowing herself down long enough to examine her own actions and their potential consequences. Toward the end of the novel, she is able to connect this to the tragedy of her mother’s death.

“If she were real and not invisible, if she could get a look at herself through the eyes of her friends or her mother, she might have been able to examine her feelings. Alone, she felt floaty and transparent.”

Here, Carmen highlights how her friendships help her understand herself. Her loved ones act like a mirror in which she can see her own image, and when they aren’t there, she feels less grounded.

“I’m afraid of the quick judgements and mistakes that everybody makes. You can’t fix them without time. I’m afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies.”

Here, Bailey speaks frankly about her terminal diagnosis and indirectly highlights a flaw in Tibby’s character. While Tibby is prone to making snap judgements, Bailey prioritizes understanding other people and being understood because she is hyper-aware of her mortality.

“Bailey smiled at her. ‘I like that you let yourself be surprised.’”

Tibby’s friendship with Bailey softens the sharp edges of her personality. Tibby proves herself to be willing and able to change into a better person. Bailey also points out a positive trait in Tibby, as she’s always willing to see the best in everyone she meets.

“But for Eric, her body felt something else. Something bigger and craggier and stormier than she had glimpsed before. Her body wanted his in a painful, distinct, demanding way, but she wasn’t even exactly sure what or how much it was asking for.”

Here, Bridget considers her feelings toward Eric. She finds it difficult to pinpoint her actual desire, highlighting how complex and confusing love and attraction can be as a teenager. Bridget has a very layered response to first love, as it is suggested that she is trying to fill an emotional need that connects to her mother’s death.

“When had Tibby become Miss Perspective? Miss Proportion? If anybody got feeling sorry for herself and blaming other people for it, it was Tibby. Why was Tibby making her be reasonable when she just needed to be heard?”

On arriving back in Bethesda, Carmen is shocked by the change in Tibby’s character. She relies on Tibby to gossip and complain with her, but Tibby has grown past her role as the cynical pessimist in their group. Carmen initially finds this transformation hard to accept, but Tibby’s new perspective eventually helps her confront her father. In this way, Bailey has not only affected Tibby but has also affected Carmen and others that Tibby meets, creating a chain of kindness.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a big night. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have the Pants, which feels a little like having you and Tib and Carmen, so it can’t be bad.”

Each of the girls wears the pants in anticipation of big moments in their lives. Here, Bridget notes that wearing them makes her feel like she has her friends with her, again highlighting that the real power of the pants lies in their ability to evoke the bond of the sisterhood.

“It was an easy promise to make when Carmen was alone. But when was faced with her mother, it became impossible to keep. Her mom was always doing something unforgivable like laughing too loud at Friends or calling her computer her ‘Vaio.’”

The fact that Carmen’s mother’s “unforgiveable” flaws are minor annoyances highlights how fraught parent-child relationships can be during adolescence. Again, Carmen finds it easy to make promises when she is alone but is easily overwhelmed by her temper during decisive moments.

“She was sad about what had happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who’d lost nothing, was not.”

Lena’s experience with loss is indirect but learning that Kostos lost his family still has a profound impact on her. Knowing that Bridget and Kostos remain open to love despite the tragedies in their families helps Lena start to realize that love is worth the risk of vulnerability.

“There. Fine. Mimi wasn’t…whatever. She was just on ice. There was technology for this kind of thing. There was a whole science, Tibby was pretty sure.”

Earlier in the novel, Tibby says that Mimi serves as a barometer for her own feelings. When Mimi dies, Tibby refuses to accept it. She has never experienced loss firsthand, so the death of her beloved guinea pig upsets her deeply. Tibby’s inability to process her grief shows that she is not ready to accept Bailey’s impending death.

“She wasn’t like either of her parents or her sister, but she was just like her Bapi—proud, silent, fearful. Lucky for Bapi, he had found the courage once in his life to seize a chance at love from a person who knew how to give it.”

Lena initially thinks that she must push past her introversion to connect with Bapi, but eventually realizes that their shared diffidence is part of their bond. Still, even Bapi knows that giving and receiving love is worth the risk. Lena’s arc centers around the theme of Love and Vulnerability.

“Tibby nodded, feeling equal parts awe for Bailey and disappointment in herself. All she’d ever noticed about Angela were her fingernails.”

By the end of the novel, Tibby’s perspective on the world and other people has completely shifted. She can recognize the error of her former tendency toward harsh judgements and has learned to take an interest in other people beyond their appearances.

“She was alive, and they were dead. She had to try to make her life big. As big as she could. She promised Bailey she would keep playing.”

Bailey’s death presents an opportunity for Tibby to plunge back into her former pessimism and cynicism, but instead, she vows to live a life that would make Bailey proud. Her willingness to stay open and vulnerable in the midst of her grief shows how much she has matured through her friendship with Bailey.

“Bridget looked down at the Pants, grateful to have them. They meant support and they meant love, just as they’d all vowed at the beginning of the summer. But with Lena right here, right next to her, she almost didn’t need them.”

When Lena flies to Baja to comfort Bridget, Bridget realizes that while the pants are important for their symbolism, it is her connection with Lena that helps her out of her darkest moment. It’s not the pants that she really needs, but her friend.