Quentin Jacobsen is a seventeen-year-old living in an Orlando-area high school. He has been in love with his childhood best friend, Margo, his entire life. Quentin is an intelligent boy and Margo has a reputation for being tough and cool. When they were nine years old, he and Margo shared a discovery that changed their lives forever. While walking through a park, they found a man named Robert Joyner who had killed himself. Since that night, he and Margo went separate ways. Fortunately, Quentin’s parents are therapists and other than that tragedy long ago, Quentin has lived a balanced and well-adjusted life with few risks and little drama.
A few weeks before high school graduation, Margo appears at Quentin’s window in the middle of the night. She asks him to accompany her on an all-nighter of pranks. Margo is on a litany of revenge that includes spray paint, blackmail, and breaking into Sea World. Quentin thinks that this night will bring he and Margo together again as friends. However, Margo runs away after their adventures.
Quentin turns to his friends Radar and Ben, and to Margo’s friend, Lacy, for help in an attempt to find her. They eventually skip their high school graduation and go on a cross-country trip to find or “save her.” Margo has left clues in a volume of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in the hopes that he will find her. Along the way, Quentin realizes that Margo is not really the person that he thought he knew.
Reviewers note Green’s deft hand describing the social challenges of the culture in this part of Florida with its heat, overdevelopment, and temptations. Margo’s description of their town as “a paper town” is an apt metaphor: she describes a paper town as one with cul-de-sacs and streets that turn into themselves and houses that are meant to fall apart. Critics admire Green's memorable and unusual characters in this slice of Florida life.
Character Analysis of Margo Roth Spiegelman - Paper Towns
Margo Roth Spiegelman is considered to be the antagonist in Paper Towns, by John Green. She is not a villainess but she is at the center of the conflict. The protagonist, Quentin, is smitten with her and has been since childhood when Margo was his best friend. Margo is the “it” girl in school: she is beautiful, popular, and is part of the in crowd. But, there is a mysterious side to her that she conceals. She likes folk music and poetry which she does not reveal because that would tarnish her image. Instead, she runs away on occasion to fulfill her adventurous side, a trait that is well known to her friends. Margo blames others for their misguided perception of her personality until she finally runs away and does not want to be found; she longs to find a place to call her own where she can allow her true personality to emerge.
- beateach.
Character Analysis of Quentin Jacobsen - Paper Towns
The protagonist in John Greene’s novel, Paper Towns, Quentin Jacobsen, is known as “Q” to his friends. He narrates the story as the senior class prepares for their impending high school graduation which is one week away. Quentin is not part of the “it” crowd as he is considered to be a band geek; a nerd. He ruminates over things, while he longs to renew his friendship with the antagonist Margo Roth Spiegelman. They were childhood friends but went their separate ways during their school years. Quentin has never stopped idolizing Margo. When she finally asks him to join her on a night of rabblerousing he is more than willing to accompany her, but the next morning she is gone. Thus begins his quest to find her. Being the caring friend that he was, he felt that he was the only one who could save her until he realizes that the only one who can save her is herself.