Paper Towns Coming Of Age Essay

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Paper Towns: A Coming of Age Novel
Without a doubt, coming of age novels are one of the most popular themes in literature. These novels rose to popularity in the 19th Century and are still growing in popularity today. But what is coming of age? Coming of age can be defined as the transition in one’s life from pre-adulthood to adulthood. Coming of age is not only a physical, but also an emotional, transition from youth to adulthood, immaturity to maturity. It is “... a recurring element of the coming-of-age narrative... in which a protagonist’s adult identity is framed by historical events and points of origin and conditioned by social obligations and expectations (Daniel G. Jones “coming of age”).” In the novel, Paper Towns, the protagonist comes of age once he realized that his one true love is not who he expected her to be. …show more content…

In his mind, she is the only thing he can think about. His infatuation with her physical beauty hinders his ability to see her as an individual. When Margo mysteriously disappears overnight, he begins following clues she left behind as to her whereabouts. The clues begin to be contradictory as Q starts traveling to places he would have never thought Margo would go. His ideal image of his childhood friend starts to be questioned, and he starts to ask himself who is Margo Roth Spiegelman? “I don’t know who she is anymore, or who she was, but I need to find her (Green 141).” This is the beginning of Q’s first insight of a different side of Margo. Dr. Baxter describes this in his essay as “Coming of age is a rich and complex cultural phenomenon that can tell us a great deal about who we are or, in many cases, who we imagine ourselves to be (14).” Hence, Q initially only saw Margo for her outside beauty but then begins to discover through the clues that there may be more to her than what is on the

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