Discussion Questions on the Film, Paper Towns

 Characters: How can you identify with the characters you have met? How did the characters’ decisions surprise you? Did you agree with these decisions? Why or why not?
Quentin Jacobsen or Q
Main character
High school senior
Narrator (tells the story from his perspective)
Grew up with Margo but they went different ways after their childhood
He became a nerd, hanging out with his band friends (Ben and Radar)
He is smart, careful, calm, and caring.
Q changes when Margo pops into his life again
He falls in love with her
Margo Roth Spiegelman
Paper girl and Q neighbor
Seen differently by just about everyone she knows
Adventurous, sneaky, tricky, and always causing trouble.
Ben Starling
Q’s best friends
He is in the school band with Q and Radar
Nickname: Bloody Ben (because he had a kidney infection that caused his urine to be bloody and a rumor was spread that it was from chronic masturbating.)
Marcus “Radar” Lincoln
He one of Q’s best friends and he is black
He is obsessed with editing pages in a website called Omnictionary which is like Wikipedia.
His parents own the world’s largest collection of black Santas.
Lacey Pemberton
Margo’s friend since kindergarten (they a have precarious friendship)
Lacey is one of the targets in Margo’s reverge spree before she dissapears

 Setting: What does the setting add to the story? Why?
Orlando, Florida
Jerfferson High- they highschool they go to
Quentin’s Window- the place where Q viewed Margo for years and where Margo left Q his first clue to where she was.
RHAPAW- ben’s car
Senior Prom
Since the story is about a girl who escapes town its important to know where she lived because Q had to travel plenty of time to find her and he had to do it quick.

 Symbols and imagery: What symbols did you think were important to the author’s message? Why?
Grass
Used in Walt Whitman’s “Song od Myself” to represent a number of things like the extent to which human beings are mentally and creatively