There are many ways we could describe Margo, and over the course of Paper Towns, the book builds two divergent portrayals of her. If I were to describe her based only on the prologue in which she meets the dead man and what we see of her immediately afterwards in the first few chapters of the book, I would stick to the author's words and describe her as mysterious and unprecedented. The prologue closes with the line that " . . . maybe [Margo] loved mysteries so much that she became one," and the opening paragraph of chapter three claims that "[s]he was absolutely unprecedented in every way." A close third choice could be "vindictive," as we see her dragging Quentin into a complex revenge scheme against her ex in the early chapters of the book.
However, over the course of the book, we are asked to question whether this framing of Margo as mysterious, fascinating, unprecedented, and adventurous is a fair one or if it is an example of Quentin being an untrustworthy narrator and romanticizing Margo. A tension develops between Q seeking to find meaning in Margo and wanting to be important to Margo and Margo living her own life, sometimes interested in Q and sometimes not. She is busy with her own search for meaning and never content to live her life for someone else. Based on this perspective, we might describe her as solitary, independent, or determined.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
What are two words that describe Margo after her encounter with the dead man in Paper Towns?
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