Topic > The feeling of suspense in John Green's novel 'Paper Towns'

Suspense is a feeling that overwhelms people in its sea. It will grab readers by the throat and leave them in despair. John Green not only leaves the reader in suspense throughout the story, but also the characters in the story. The mystery follows Quentin as he goes through a very liminal time in his life. Three weeks before high school graduation, Quentin experiences a life-changing night after his former best friend Margo shows up at his window and urges him to join her on a revenge adventure. When he arrives at school the next morning, he finds that those dreams are dashed, as Margo has disappeared and no one knows where she is. Symbolism, the author's tone, and description of the setting are used throughout the novel. It increases the intensity of the story and creates suspense for the reader. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay From the beginning of the book, ropes play a huge role in the story. The text shows the breaking of the threads to show that someone is detaching, but over the course of the novel this changes. At the end of the text, the strings symbolize freedom. The first occurrence of the word is spoken by Margo regarding the death of Robert Joyner. After investigating the case further she had come to the conclusion that “'all the threads inside him broke'” (Green 8). It implies that our lives are made up of a series of threads. She suggests that he has become detached from everything in his life and has failed to survive. Nine years later, Margo uses this same phrase to describe her broken relationship with her former best friends Quentin, Jase, Becca, and Lacey. An investigation was conducted after Margo's disappearance, and Detective Warren put strings into a different perspective, comparing children to balloons: "'They strain against the string and strain against it, and then something happens and the rope is cut, and they float." away'” (Green 104). Broken threads could also mean freedom. After Margo disappears, Detective Warren creates an elaborate metaphor about balloons with broken strings sailing off and landing in different places. Sometimes, he says, they return, but sometimes they stay where they went. Since Margo tried to escape from the Jefferson Park subdivision, people believe that Margo broke her string. The question of Margo's return leaves the reader questioning for the entire novel. John Green uses many different tones throughout the story to create a mood in the reader. One of the most important tones he used in the text is suspense. Throughout the story, Quintin experiences mixed feelings about the statement about “what she said about the dead boy and the wires – and about herself and the wires” (Green 70). Margo mentions how everyone has strings and when the last one breaks you die, Quentin is worried that Margo's strings have broken too. John Green uses threads to create suspense in the book's characters and the reader. Towards the climax of the story, Quintin and his friends were searching for Margo. Some clues Margo had left behind had led them to an abandoned mini-mall. There at the mini-mall “a rusty pole stood about eight feet high on the side of the road. But the sign was long gone, broken by a hurricane or an accumulation of decay. The shops themselves fared slightly better: it was a one-story building with a flat roof, and bare concrete blocks were visible in some places. Streaks of cracked paint peeled off the walls, like insects clinging to a nest” (Green 139). This description of the mini-mall creates fear and anxiety. The building the author was talking about seems mysterious in a.