Archetypes In Paper Towns By Quentin Jacobsen

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Life is something that we all have. We all have it differently and live it the way we want to live. Some people are more daring and adventurous than others and some people are sitting at home and reading a good book. Life gives us different paths and we learn new things, make mistakes, and learn from them. The more we learn, the less innocent we are. This is called an innocence to experience archetype, where is a loss of innocence which leads to experience. The book Paper Towns written by John Green shows this archetype through the main character, Quentin. Quentin Jacobsen is taken on an adventure by his love and neighbour, Margo Roth Spiegelman based on the clues that she has left behind. Quentin starts out as a “concerned for college with a perfect attendance” kind of person who goes on a journey and learns about things that he has never heard of, which is his loss of innocence who at the …show more content…

He likes things to be the same and did no try new things. He is one of those people who rather sit at home and read a good book. The book says, “It is May Fifth, but it didn't have to be. My days had a pleasant identicalness about them. I always like that: I liked routine. I liked being bored. I didn’t want to, but I did. (Green 23-24) Quentin likes routine so, he obviously does not like change. Because he does not like and try anything different, he is still very much innocent. Even if he wanted to, he never has time for himself, or travel, or even try something new. He is still a high schools student who has to go to school. Quentin says, “ I felt significantly more tired than I had at 5:55 AM, and I would have skipped school, except I had perfect attendance, and while I realized that perfect attendance is not particularity impressive or even necessarily admirable, I need to keep the streak alive.” (Green 85) With such a streak, you can see how he would have no time to actually live the way he wants to. He is too concerned about

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