Paper Towns John Green Essay

Paper Towns, written by John Green is an award winning novel narrated by a high school senior, Quentin Jacobsen. Ever since Quentin was younger, he had been secretly in love with his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. As they got older, they grew apart and went into different social groups. Quentin is shy and level headed, and hangs out with the band nerds. Margo is adventurous, outgoing and mysterious; she is also the most popular girl in school. Quentin's ordinary life got flipped upside down when one night Margo unexpectedly climbed through his bedroom window for a miraculous adventure. The next day, Margo disappears and Quentin is eager to find her.
Margo has run away many times in the past, and each time she left clues of where she was going for her parents to find. Instead, this time she leaves numerous clues to help show Quentin where she might be hiding. While Quentin and his friends were trying to find where Margo might be, they also learned many things about her that they hadn't known before. They discovered that she is a daredevil, they all knew Margo

but did not think of her as the adventurous type. (Page 170) Quentin states, "These are the things I cannot imagine, and I realize I cannot imagine them because I didn't know Margo." He was at a pseudovision, where Margo had spent the night hiding, when he realizes he doesn't actually know who she is as a person. He knows what she smells like, he knows what her favorite drink is, and he knows how she acted in front of him. But he did not know or understand why she would run away. This shows the theme that people aren't always as they seem.
John Green's use of metaphors also helped develop the central idea.

Margo says, "Orlando is a paper town." (Page 57) She says this to show that she feels that Orlando is "fake". Kind of like paper, she is pointing out how flimsy the town really is. Margo says, Everything is built only for the purpose of looking nice, when in reality everything only looks beautiful from afar. This metaphor also proves that people only like people based on their physical appearance. Margo felt that everyone saw her for someone she wasn't, so she felt the need to escape. Margo also states, "Maybe all the strings inside him broke." (Page 8) When Margo and Quentin were younger, they found a dead man in the park who had committed suicide. The strings they talked about signified the things in life that give you a desire to live. These quotes helped Quentin find where Margo may be hiding, and also helped develop the central

idea.
Once Quentin finally found Margo, Margo refused to come back to Florida but insisted that he should stay with her in New York, After Quentin denies her request, he goes back to Florida. Using themes and metaphors found in the novel, John Green portrayed the idea that people aren't always as they seem in Paper towns.