Paper Towns Character Analysis Essay

Payton Ray-Conklin

Mr.Hyde

English II Pre-AP, Period 1

7 March 2016

Paper Towns

by John Green

SETTING:

The main setting of Paper Towns takes place in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. It also takes place in the neighborhood where the two main characters, Quentin and Margo, have lived their whole lives. Another major setting of the story takes place on the “mission” Margo takes Quentin on. The setting throughout the story changes extremely, but Orlando is the origin of story; however, the setting changes extremely when Margo disappears to Agloe, New York.

PLOT:

The Story is filled with an extreme amount of adventure; however, the main event is when Margo disappears from her hometown, Orlando, Florida to live in Agloe, New York. Margo leaves behind many clues for Quentin and his friends to lead them to where she is. Quentin

is determined to find Margo for their school prom which is in less than twenty four hours. I like how the author foreshadows and builds suspense throughout the story. However, I think the story just lead to a disappointing ending. The ending is very dull and boring. To me it seems pointless for the author to write such a creative extraordinary plot with a not as extraordinary ending. Quentin finally finds Margo after putting together all the clues she left behind, but her reaction is not as extraordinary as the audience expected. Margo is uninterested in Quentin, and only wanted to escape Orlando to a place that she found most desirable.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
The main characters of the book are Quentin Jacobsen, and Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Quentin Jacobsen: He is the main character. He is very shy, he lives a very uneventful life, and is just an average shy high school boy. He wants a eventful life, but doesn’t know how to have one. He is a very realistic character in comparison to some of the other characters in the story, but in the story i think Quentin was the character who changed the most. He went out of his comfort zone and started having an eventful life to find a girl. He started doing things he never imagined he would ever do and I believe he starts to grow as a person the more life he experiences.

Margo Roth Spiegelman: She is the most vivid character of the story, because of her intense actions and mysteriousness. She likes to be secretive, leaves people unaware of what she is capable of, adventurous, and mysterious. Margo is portrayed as the popular, one of the most attractive girls in her school, and is admired by especially by Quentin. I believe in this story Margo doesn’t change much, but she stays the most mysterious character throughout the entire story.

TONE:
John Green’s tone in the story is relatable to adolescents, because of the characters language, and personalities. He uses literary devices like metaphors and hyperboles to show the youthfulness of the characters to make the characters seem more relatable. An example of a metaphor from the story is “Here’s what’s not beautiful about it: from here, you can’t see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.” She is comparing the boring, dull sight of Orlando when it is up close to paper because it looks like it is ready to fall apart.
THEME:
I believe the theme of the story is Identity. I believe the author shows this in the story by showing how the characters aren’t fully happy with their lives. They searching for more. Being a teenager is a very difficult time because we are finding ourselves and figuring out what we want to do with ourselves. For instance, when Margo takes a risk and leaves everything behind knowing the consequences. It is as if she is searching for more.. Another example is, when Quentin misses his graduation, leaving his family and friends behind in order to find Margo, because without keeping the consequences in mind, he leaves with closure, and eventually finds Margo.
PERSONAL RELEVANCE:
In my opinion, the theme is very straightforward, and I think the author represented the theme of perseverance very efficiently. He made the theme fit in with the main ideas, and managed not to make it too oblivious for the reader. The main ideas of the book are portrayed through the characters within their acts of rebelliousness. They are an example of the author's message and what point he is trying to get across, for the reader to understand.