Themes of paper towns
She never believes this till the end of the book: she still perceives herself as a lonely girl heading to vague “full” life. Attractive “elite” girl turns to be lonely while seeming to have friends literally everywhere – that’s the reason of her astonishment at discovering the fact that somebody cares about her enough to conduct a search. On the other hand, popular and legendary Margo seems to have no true friends at all, she even gives an eerie quote about “the last string broken” after scandal involving Becky and Jase, so “female friendship” is no more. Reader is left with impression that these three would not lost their connection right after graduation. All three are not perfect and have their vices but help each other and demonstrate genuine care, whether it is a search for clues about Margo’s escape or finding a girlfriend for Ben. While all three do not belong to “school elite”, they are doing along quite well, never messing with anything criminal and heading to their college years quite smoothly. Green shows the reader a realistic trio of friends: Quentin, an introvert narrator, smart and witty Ben and a little geeky Marcus, aka Radar. Friendshipįriendship is an important aspect of everyone’s life and high school is usually a place where one gets friends that would stay with him for a long time. Perhaps it is good to be a son of two smart and good-natured practicing psychologists. Quite opposite, Quentin feels ok with his “boring” life and goes over his daily routine without giving it a second thought. Her quotes on this subject are witty and poignant, which is not surprising if one would pay attention to her parents’ reaction at her running away. Margo, who is blessed/cursed with a lively and curious nature, cannot stand the “paper people living their paper lives”, so she heads off in search for something more interesting and charged.
#THEMES OF PAPER TOWNS FULL#
In “Paper Towns” this subject is actively discussed, sometimes in form of monologues of Margo or more or less pointless musings of Quentin, sometimes in a form of a rather funny attitude of Radar to his parents’ weird hobby that makes invitation of a girl in his house a rather uncomfortable deed – see, for instance, his famous quote about the house full of black Santas. In a book involving teens this theme is truly inevitable, because the mentioned period is everyone’s life involves questioning of way of life, perspectives and values offered. Dissatisfactionĭissatisfaction is an issue any teenager can associate his/her life with. Green’s text offers a whole range of eloquent and aphoristic quotes about this. The main idea transferred by Green, is that true identity is a complicated and mysterious subject and its complete understanding may be unobtainable even to the person itself, not to mention other people. Some could be understood and estimated by the reader from general narration. Some of these aspects are revealed, only slightly at times, via observations of Quentin, her humble neighbor and narrator, or remarks of his friends. At the same time, all these exotic and decorated trees hide the proverbial forest of Margo’s nature, hobbies, relations in her family and many more.
She is a school “elite”, a legend, a heroine of incredible stories. On the other hand, other people’s attitude to Margo is rather curious. She perceives people as paper dolls living their paper lives and, after understanding the fact that she is not so different, starts her way to finding her true self, the one that is made of flesh and blood. This theme revolves around Margo Roth Spiegelman: even her surname is a charactonym that can be translated as “mirror man” from German. The theme of identity is probably the major theme of John Green’s novel. It also shows the examples of their usage and meaning in Paper Towns.
Thesis Statement: The essay contains the explanation of main literary themes of Paper Towns by John Green.