John Green’s Paper Towns follows the protagonist, Quentin, as he chases the object of his desire, Margo who disappears, leaving mysterious clues as to her whereabouts. Green takes care in this story to allow Margo to not fall into the trope of being an object who exists solely for the growth of the male protagonist. This is a feminist story about the discovery of a woman for who she really is.
From the beginning, it is apparent to the reader that Quentin views Margo as an object, or in the context of this story: a paper person. She is perfect, without fault. In fact, he goes on to state that she is his miracle, “My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman”…
She recognizes that she is a one-dimensional myth and says as much after she is done with her revenge spree, “But it was the last string. It was a lame string, for sure, but it was the only one I had left, and every paper girl needs at least one string, right?” (58). Margo’s use of the word “paper girl” suggests that she is self-aware. She realizes that she is admired and objectified. There is an understanding that people look upon her with profound desires and jealousy, yet these very people do not know her or her struggles. They do not comprehend that there is profound conflict in her life. Margo begins to hint that there something more substantial to her when she says, “The closer people get to me, the less hot they find me”…
He finds out that she loves music, rather unconventional music by contemporary standards; she enjoys poetry; and that she has more than the average teenage contempt for her parents. Over the course of the book, it becomes less about the mystery of where Margo is, but rather who she is. Quentin and Margo become dynamic characters through each other.
Finally, Quentin deduces that Margo is in Algoe, New York: literally a paper town. As a way to thwart suspected copy-right infringement, the cartographers invented this town and placed it upon a map. Like Margo before, it was fake, existing only on paper – that is until someone built a general store, thereby making Algoe real.
When Quentin sees her, he wants to understand her. No longer is he fantasizing of being her hero per se, though he does want to make sure that she is well, but it goes much deeper. He wants to know why. She tell him, “Because it’s kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way. And Agloe is a place where a paper creation became real (294). She hopes to become real. Perhaps there is something there that she can find and she does. She is a multi-dimensional person with all her glorious faults. Quentin no longer idealizes her. He understand that she has flaws and he confirms this when he uses the metaphor of the cracks, “When did we see each other face-to-face?…
