Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

At the heart of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is the friendship between Carmen, Tibby, Lena, and Bridget. As they experience the highs and lows of growing up during their first summer apart, their friendship anchors them, providing a source of comfort and a catalyst for personal growth. Brashares explores the important role their bond plays in helping them to establish and develop their individual identities.

In the Prologue, Carmen says that the four friends sometimes feel like “one single complete person rather than four separate entities” (10). This speaks to the way in which friends, particularly in adolescence, sometimes feel bonded at the expense of their own individuality. Except for Carmen, each girl knows her role in the collective organism of their friendship: “Bridget the athlete, Lena the beauty, Tibby the rebel” (10). When they scatter to different parts of the world, they lose these easy identity markers. A major part of maturity involves the development of identity and individuality, as both are necessary to live in an adult world free of the structure of school and heavy familial influence.

Brashares does not suggest that this close of an adolescent friendship is something to grow out of or change, but rather with which to mature. In their “sisterhood,” the characters refer to their friends and imagine their responses and behaviors as they venture out of their comfort zones. In having close friends to rely on, even in just a spiritual sense, the girls can navigate difficult situations. Thus, the functionality of their friendships have changed but have not been weakened by the time apart. It is through their friendships that they are able to mature individually.

Each girl is affected differently by the absence of her friends. Bridget loves strangers because they don’t know about her past. Among her cabinmates in Mexico, she is able to shed the tragic parts of her history and present only as she wants to be seen. As Bridget pursues Eric, she is encouraged by her new friends. They don’t know about Bridget’s propensity to get in over her head, so they don’t understand that she’s putting herself in harm’s way. Meanwhile, Tibby, Carmen, and Lena worry about Bridget’s behavior from afar. They encourage her to practice “good sense,” slow down, and think twice about her actions. After sleeping with Eric, Bridget feels listless and dissociative. She can’t parse her own emotions and grows afraid, feeling as though she no longer recognizes herself. When Bridget seems poised on the brink of disaster, Lena flies out to comfort her. Lena’s presence reminds Bridget of who she is and helps her come back to herself.

Though Lena has her sister, Effie, with her in Greece, she feels misunderstood without the people who know her best. Lena admires her friends greatly and often looks to them for inspiration. When she wants to be brave, for example, she draws on Bridget’s confidence. Through the pants (a physical representation of her friends’ support) and her new experiences, she finds her voice outside of their foursome.

Among Carmen’s father’s new family, she feels isolated and othered. She even begins to feel invisible as her attempts to signal her distress are ignored. In Chapter 10, Carmen says that “if she could get a look at herself through the eyes of her friends […] she might have been able to examine her feelings” (86), an observation that highlights how much her friendships help her affirm her own identity. With no one to bounce her feelings off, Carmen struggles to manage her temper. She directs her frustration toward Lydia, Paul, and Krista, acting intentionally rude and difficult. It’s only once she returns to Bethesda and reunites with Tibby that Carmen begins processing her emotions. Tibby coaches Carmen through her emotions in leadup to her father’s marriage. With all of the girls, but particularly with Carmen, Brashares illustrates that close friendships make it possible to make mistakes and learn from them in a safe environment, knowing the relationship is not fragile or in danger.

Tibby begins the novel as a misanthrope. Though her acerbic wit is a quality her friends appreciate, she can be cynical to the point of cruelty in her judgements of strangers, quick to write people off as losers. Tibby’s plan to have a miserable summer is interrupted by the arrival of Bailey and the friendship that develops between them. Bailey teaches Tibby to take an interest in the world around her, without using sarcasm as a shield. Through Bailey, Tibby learns to see the best in others, a change symbolized by the evolution of her “suckumentary” into a genuine passion project. Bailey’s fight with cancer also reminds Tibby to be grateful for the privilege of good health and a long life, things she previously took for granted. When Bailey dies, Tibby’s instinct is to retreat into herself, but the support of her friends helps her process her grief in a healthier way.

When the girls reconvene, they have each grown past their original roles in the group into more self-assured, multifaceted characters. While the coming-of-age journeys they undertake are ultimately their own, their friendship shapes and guides their growth even when they are apart.