1940s

The 1940s are not a period in which the novel’s main action takes place; they are a historical frame Lara Jean Song Covey recreates for a USO party at Belleview. The decade gives her a vivid vocabulary for an evening of costume, music, and dancing, briefly turning a nursing-home event into an imagined wartime celebration. Its romance is real as an experience, but the past it evokes remains a performance—and cannot keep the present from intruding.

A Past Imagined Through Courtship

Lara Jean’s interest in earlier romantic customs extends beyond the 1940s party. While doing homework with Peter Kavinsky, she imagines dating as it might have worked in the 1950s: one boy could take a girl to a drive-in, another to a sock hop, and a pin would make the relationship official. She likes the formality and lightness of that imagined arrangement, and hopes that even if a relationship ends, the people involved might still remain friends. Her reference to the 1950s is distinct from the party’s 1940s theme, but both reveal her attraction to historical courtship as a gentler script for contemporary love.

That attraction also shapes her Valentine-making. She values a homemade card’s humble, sincere, old-fashioned quality and assembles one for Peter from lace, ribbon, and other saved craft materials. The period feeling is not simply decoration: it lets her mark their relationship with a playful, tangible gesture while keeping the occasion from becoming overly grand.

Staging the USO Party

The night before the event, Lara Jean asks Chris for a Rosie the Riveter poster to use at the 1940s USO party she is organizing at Belleview. Preparing for the evening becomes a source of anticipation. She carefully puts on seamed stockings, takes time to straighten their seams, and wears a navy dress patterned with white sprigs and little holly berries, with floaty cap sleeves. Red heels with bows and ankle straps complete the outfit; she admits that Kitty was right about adding a victory roll to her hair.

Her father makes a fuss over how she looks and takes numerous photographs, which he sends to Margot. Margot joins by video chat and asks for a picture of Lara Jean with Stormy. These preparations place the event within family life as well as in its historical theme: the 1940s outfit is something Lara Jean builds step by step, while her family watches and responds.

The Soldier and the Dance

John Ambrose McClaren arrives in a red convertible Mustang with its top down, dressed in a tan uniform from shirt and tie to trousers, belt, and hat. His side-parted hair and costume make him look, to Lara Jean, like a real soldier. The arrival gives the party its most striking piece of period theater, and the family rushes outside to see him and the car.

Later, John takes Lara Jean to the center of the dance floor while Glenn Miller’s music plays. They attempt the steps together, repeatedly stepping on each other’s feet, then swing and twirl through the dance laughing. When the song ends, John pulls her close and sends her out once more; the crowd applauds, and he lifts her into the air. The moment is both awkward and exuberant, its appeal resting less on perfect performance than on the shared pleasure of trying. Afterward, John helps take down the decorations and carry the boxes, while Lara Jean remains buoyed by the successful party and the dance.

The Past Gives Way to the Present

As Lara Jean leaves the nursing home, still caught up in the evening, she sees Genevieve approaching with Peter’s arm linked in hers. The sight abruptly makes the previous year feel erased, as though Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship had never happened. Her enjoyment of the party and her dance with John gives way to humiliation and the feeling that she has lost again; she realizes she had become so absorbed in the event that she forgot about the game underway between them.

The sequence makes the 1940s setting both an escape and a temporary stage. Costume and dance let Lara Jean inhabit a romantic past for an evening, but they cannot suspend the rivalries and attachments of her own time. The contrast is especially sharp because the night has felt almost dreamlike just before the sight of Peter and Genevieve restores the unresolved present.