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Part 3, Hour 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paper Towns, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Perception vs. Reality
Authenticity and Artificiality
Human Connection
Leaving Home and Growing Up
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Quentin and his friends have agreed to sleep in shifts, so Ben and Lacey are lying across the two back seats with seatbelts strapped around them. Quentin thinks that the minivan has become like a small house: the back seats are bedrooms, the driver’s seat is the living room, the passenger’s seat is the den, and the pile of food sitting between him and Radar is the kitchen. He thinks this little house has many wonderful qualities.
Quentin’s sudden appreciation of his minivan, which seemed like a cruel joke when he first received it, shows how the company of people one cares for can transform places and experiences into something much greater than the sum of their parts, and even how keeping an open mind about things you originally don’t like can lead to liking those things down the line.
Themes
