The Manic Pixie Dream Girls in John

Green’s Looking for Alaska and

Paper Towns
Emma Dunder

Student
Vt 2017
Examensarbete för kandidatexamen, 15 hp
Engelska
ABSTRACT

In this study, the function of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in John Green’s young adult novels Looking
for Alaska and Paper Towns is researched using feminist criticism and postfeminist theory. My claim is
that The Manic Pixie Dream Girls in Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns perpetuate stereotypical gender
roles and thereby help maintain a glorified image of the muse. I support this claim by researching how
Alaska and Margo fit into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and, as such, how they perpetuate
stereotypical gender roles. Furthermore, this study shows how the MPDG is connected to the traditional
archetype of the muse.



Keywords: Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Muse
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 5
1.1 Defining the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ........................................................................... 7
1.2 Previous Research ....................................................................................................... 8
2 MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS AND FEMINISM .................................................................. 9
2.1 Gender representation in literature .......................................................................... 11
2.2 Female characters in young adult literature ............................................................. 12
2.3 Women as muses, the historical context of the MPDG ............................................. 12
3 THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS IN LOOKING FOR ALASKA AND PAPER TOWNS ........... 14
3.1 Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska .......................................................................... 14
3.2 Margo Roth Spiegelman in Paper Towns .................................................................. 17
3.3 The development of the MPDG character, from Alaska to Margo ............................ 21
3.4 Perpetuating stereotypes and glorifying muses ........................................................ 22
4 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 23
5 WORKS CITED .............................................................................................................. 25
1 INTRODUCTION

It all starts with a male protagonist in a desolate state, incapable of finding his purpose.
Then he meets her, a female catalyst who will change it all. She is constructed to fulfil
his fantasies and perfect in his eyes. She is mysterious, making him discover new things
about himself while forgetting all about the miserable state that he was in. She always
seems just out of reach, even before being completely gone, forcing him to constantly
push forward and struggle to reach her. When her mission to spark a fire in the hero is
complete, she vanishes. Leaving behind a crushed but altered hero who is now ready to
go out and save the day, at least right after he is done obsessing over why she has left
him. She is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG in short) is a type of character first described in 2007
by film critic Nathan Rabin after observing the movie Elizabethtown. He wrote: “The
Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-
directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries
and adventures” (Rabin, n.p.). The term Manic Pixie Dream Girl has since then continued
to be mostly used when talking about on-screen characters, but can also be found in a
literary context. This trope, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is described as quirky, bubbly,
fascinating, dreamy, mysterious, slightly crazy and beautiful. The main purpose of this
girl, in any type of story, seems to be to fulfil the romantic dreams of the male main
character and/or to rescue him from his dreary state. She is as a sort of modern day
muse, or a catalyst, for his benefit.

In this project I will study the young adult novels Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns by
John Green and see how the MPDG is present in the form of the female characters
Alaska Young and Margo Roth Spiegelman. Green claims that he does not create Manic
Pixie Dream Girls. For example, in a Q and A on his Tumblr page he writes that: “Paper
towns is devoted IN ITS ENTIRETY to destroying the lie of the manic pixie dream girl”.
However, I argue that Alaska Young and Margo Roth Spiegelman can be interpreted as
MPDGs because they both work as catalysts for their male protagonist, they are “dream

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girls” in their protagonist’s eyes, their own stories are not central in the plots and they
both embody traditional female stereotypical traits. Also, the novels have more than the
presence of a MPDG in common; the plots are centred around high-school-aged kids
and they both have protagonists who are defined as male, white and heterosexual. All
of these components combined speak to why I have chosen these specific novels for
comparison. Looking for Alaska is the first novel published by John Green and I therefore
think that it is relevant to compare the evolvement, when looking at the later published
Paper Towns. Looking for Alaska was first published in 2005, pre-dating the coining of
the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl, in 2007. Paper Towns, however, was published in 2008.
I argue that there is some development in the portrayal of the MPDG character, where
Margo has more of a story and dreams of her own. However, there are more similarities
than differences when comparing her to Alaska.

I claim that the Manic Pixie Dream Girls in Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns
perpetuate stereotypical gender roles and thereby help maintain a glorified image of
the muse. I will research how Alaska and Margo fit into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope
and, as such, what their functions are. Furthermore, if there is any development of the
Manic Pixie Dream Girl character in Paper Towns compared to how she was portrayed
in Looking for Alaska. I will also analyse in what ways the MPDG can be seen as
perpetuating stereotypical gender roles and how the MPDG is connected to the
traditional archetype of the muse.

I analyse my chosen novels from a feminist point of view. I argue that it is a relevant
perspective since some of the traits assigned to the MPDG, such as childishness or
caregiving (in the way that she is there to fix whatever is wrong in the male character’s
life), are also traditional stereotypical roles applied to women. Feminist criticism
provides a useful critical lens when analysing stereotypical representations of women
and feminine themes in literature. Feminism in itself is a vast area of theories, ideas and
knowledge constantly changing and evolving. However, postfeminism is where I have
decided to place my focus while researching the MPDG. For this project, I will be using

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Angela McRobbie’s theories on postfeminism as described in “The Aftermath of
Feminism: gender, culture and social change”.

In order to support my claims in this essay, I will present the MPDG and the relationship
between the MPDG trope and feminism, feminine themes and stereotypical images.
I will then proceed to tie the traits ascribed to the MPDG together with my findings from
each perspective novel, first separately and then comparing the two portrayals. Finally,
after presenting my views on the MPDG function and clarifying why I think that Alaska
and Margo are MPDGs, I will tie it all together with postfeminist theory, how the MPDGs
perpetuate stereotypical gender roles and the relationship between the catalyst
function and the muse.

1.1 Defining the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Writing about the MPDG trope is not entirely unproblematic. The coining of the term
was by Rabin in 2007, as I have previously mentioned. However, in 2014 Rabin says that
he regrets coming up with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl all together after seeing it explode
and being frequently used in the world of popular culture in ways he had never been
able to imagine when first coming up with the term. Rabin said: “I coined the phrase to
call out cultural sexism and to make it harder for male writers to posit reductive,
condescending male fantasies of ideal women as realistic characters. But I looked on
queasily as the phrase was increasingly accused of being sexist itself”.

In an honours thesis from 2014, Meredith Metcalf argues that the MPDG is just a new
name for a trope that has been present throughout film history. Metcalf also claims
that when used in a non-derogatory way, the term can be useful in critical discourse if
it is clearly defined (2), which she does as follows:

a secondary female character whose personality has male fantasy wish

fulfillment elements, which are in some way girlish or impish, and whose
function within the plot is to aid in the male protagonist’s development, with
her own growth and back story largely removed from the plot (3).

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Subsequently, I felt the need to define what it is that I am looking for while researching
the female characters Alaska and Margo in the novels I have chosen. Much like in the
definition by Metcalf, my focus will be on the catalyst, or muse, function of the
character’s as well as the fantasy element and the lack of their own purpose in the plot,
besides sparking the growth of the protagonist. I will also address the references to
traditional female stereotypes such as being childlike or caregiving, as well as what I call
the “crazy factor”, which entails the daring, disregard for rules and conventions as well
as the mischievous behaviour. The “dream girl” fantasy, at least in my interpretation,
implicates physical traits as well as personality. It basically entails all of the components
which make a girl seem like the “perfect girl” in the eyes of the protagonist, this means
that there could be variations of how a MPDG is presented when it comes to her looks,
for example.

Naturally, there can be no MPDG without a protagonist to inspire. In all the material I
have read on the MPDG trope, in movies as well as in literature, the protagonist is always
male, white and defined as hetero sexual.

1.2 Previous Research

Since the coining of the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl, in 2007, there have been several
mentions of this trope in articles and different forums online. A simple Google search
will provide numerous references to the MPDG, which has become well-known in
popular culture. Despite this, there is very little published about the MPDG in the
academic world and what I have found is some research on this type of character in
movies rather than literature. One example is the above mentioned honours thesis by
Metcalf where the MPDG is researched mostly in the comedy genre, for example in
Annie Hall (1977), There’s something like Mary (1998) and Garden State (2004). Overall,
the MPDG trope seems commonly present within romantic comedy and some of the
other films frequently mentioned in connection with the MPDG are: Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind (2004), Elizabethtown (2005) and (500) days of Summer (2009). On
the topic of the MPDG specifically in the books of John Green, I have mainly found blog

8
posts or columns in online magazines touching the subject, as well as a couple of book
reviews. Therefore, I feel there is a place in literary research for further exploration of
the MPDG trope.

2 MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS AND FEMINISM

Feminist criticism of literature is a vast area where focus can be on a number of different
components from researching representation of gender to traditional feminine themes,
relationships, masculinity, narrative voices, power, class, race and what impact the
author’s gender has on different aspects of the characters. In Women in Literature:
Reading through the Lens of Gender, Fisher and Silber write:

Feminist Criticism, as it is practiced today, critiques inequalities and
oppressions in the context of various and diverse interpersonal, sexual and
social relations. Feminist critics move easily from analysis of the female into
examination of images of oppression in its various forms, connecting gender
bias to other forms of domination. While feminist critics may emphasize the
study of women in literary works, because women and men coexist in
innumerable and intimate ways, a fresh view of one gender necessitates
heightened awareness of the other (Fisher and Silber xxxiii)

For this study, I have chosen a feminist criticism perspective while close reading Looking
for Alaska and Paper Towns because it will give some more in-depth understanding of
the MPDG trope and her relationship with the male protagonist. Some of the critique
against using this trope is due to her being described in a way that can be perceived as
degrading towards women by objectifying them and also by restricting their existence
to be solely about helping a male protagonist grow. One example of this is the care giving
side to the MPDG, which Julianna Joyce writes about:

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl perpetuates the care-giving stereotype, in which
women exist simply to cater to men, with her mythos and the subsequent
characters existing in a realm of post-femininity, which subverts female
progress by glorifying the role of the caretaker and typical women’s roles (n.
p.).

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Historically, the relevance of biological differences between the sexes has been
discussed and used in order to justify separated roles in society for women and men.
The caregiving role ascribed to women, simply because they had the biological ability to
give birth and were generally not as physically strong as men, was also a reason to keep
women out of the public sphere. Furthermore, women were described as being more
controlled by their emotions and less reasonable than men, deeming them incapable of
making, for example, political decisions (Freedman 23). Joyce also writes about the
“realm of post-femininty” which is an interesting aspect to consider in relation to the
MPDG. Postfeminism is a term not easily defined and it has been interpreted in many
different ways. However, the core of postfeminism seems to entail transcending the
need for absolute gender equality, and more striving towards individuality and choice,
even if that choice means perpetuating stereotypical sexist gender roles. Angela
McRobbie writes about postfeminism in popular culture, where she looks at examples
of how romance is brought back in a postfeminist context. McRobbie’s examples are
taken from the movies about Bridget Jones as well as the TV-shows Ally McBeal and Sex
and the City, and for all three of them McRobbie claims that they have taken feminism
into account and then asked “what now?”(21). McRobbie writes:

There is a strong sense in all three that young women somehow want to reclaim
their femininity, without stating exactly why it has been taken away from them.
[…] Feminism, it seems, robbed women of their most treasured pleasures, i.e.
romance, gossip and obsessive concerns about how to catch a husband […](21)

The views on postfeminism that McRobbie describes entails the presumed wish to take
traditional feminist values into consideration, for example equal rights, while still
upholding more traditional, stereotypical and sexist female roles and attributes.
Furthermore, McRobbie refers to postfeminism as undermining of the gains of feminism
during the 1970s and 1980s. While continuing to write about the tropes of freedom and
choice as being directly connected with young women as a category, McRobbie states:
“Feminism is cast into the shadows, where at best it can expect to have some afterlife,
where it might be regarded ambivalently by those young women who must, in more
public venues, stake a distance from it, for the sake of social and sexual recognition”

10
(11). The publication of McRobbie’s ideas I have referenced for my essay came out in
2009 (she also previously published on the topic in 2004), in fairly close proximity to the
novels I have studied which are published in 2005 and 2007. The postfeminist arena
within popular culture that McRobbie describes is therefore relevant to the time period.

2.1 Gender representation in literature

In a study published in 2004, Amanda B. Diekman and Sarah K. Murnen present a

model for researching gender roles and representation in children’s literature. They
also claim that this model should be effective for other categories of literature, as well
as movies or TV (381). In their study, they looked at personality characteristics, social
roles, status inequality, gender segregation, traditional feminine ideal, unequal
representation as well as different domains where the characters would be situated
such as job, domestic and leisure. The purpose of the study was to:” explore whether
the gender equality represented in nonsexist books was truly ‘equal’—that is, do
nonsexist books show equality in female-stereotypic domains as often as in male-
stereotypic domains?" (374). Twenty books were included in this study, ten labelled as
sexist and the other ten labelled as non-sexist. The result showed at best a narrow
vision of gender equality, even in books praised as non-sexist, where women adopt
male stereotypic attributes and roles but men, on the other hand, do not adopt
aspects of feminine attributes and roles. I find this study to be a relevant tool to use
while close reading my chosen novels, since it provides clearly defined areas to
consider when reading with a gender perspective in mind. For example, whether or
not both male and female characters are portrayed as affectionate, if men are
portrayed as having greater status and if there was a romanticized description of
women’s traditional roles saying that love and marriage should be considered as goals.
There are also other aspects to consider, according to this study, such as how many
men and women are portrayed in the story, how much place they take up and what
sex the main character identifies with. The study concludes that many books had

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succeeded in showing girls that they can be assertive and independent, but very few
books show boys that they can be nurturing and caring (382).

2.2 Female characters in young adult literature

According to Terri Suico, in an essay about portrayal of female characters in young adult
literature (YAL), there has been an increase in demand for books targeted towards
young adults since the beginning of the 2000s (18). Suico continues to write that
although the novels targeted towards young adults have evolved in the way that the
stories are longer, more complex and more similar to those written for an older audience
(compared to the books from this genre from the 1970’s-90’s), the portrayal of the
characters in these books have not gone through any similar evolution. Suico writes:

[…] rather than becoming more nuanced and thoughtful, the female characters
of the beginning of the YAL renaissance are extensions of their predecessors.
Themes on what it means to be female, including the importance of
appearances, the contrasting roles of the good girl and the ”other girl”, and the
often complex, competitive, and unsupportive entity that is female friendship,
are just as prominent in the books from the early 2000s as they were in books
from decades earlier (Suico 19).

Speaking about themes on femininity, Suico mentions the importance of appearance
which is a reoccurring factor in the description of traditional female stereotypes and also
present in the traits ascribed to the MPDG. Although the novels I have studied are not
based on themes of female friendship or the “good girl and the other girl”, I find this
essay to be interesting because it does also address the reoccurrence of traditional
female roles in YAL literature.

2.3 Women as muses, the historical context of the MPDG

Feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, founder of the website Feminist Frequenzy,
which hosts analyses of women in popular culture, talks about the MPDG in an episode
of her video series called “Tropes vs. Women”. Focusing on the childishness of the
character, Sarkeesian says the trope is like “A shiny beacon of childlike joy”.

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Furthermore, she talks about how the MPDG is there for the white straight male
character’s benefit, in order to save him from his troubled state. Sarkeesian goes on to
briefly touch on the subject of seeing the MPDG as a modern day muse. I find this to
be an interesting perspective, since it might help to place the MPDG in her historical
context.

Women being the inspiration for the creations of men is a notion dating back as far as
ancient Greece. In a collection of essays from 2015 called Muses, Mistresses and
Mates: Creative Collaborations in Literature, Art and Life, Anna Suwalsk- Kolecka
(editor) and Izabella Penier (author and editor) address the relationship between the
old archetype of the muse and the person she inspired. Suwalska-Kolecka and Penier
write that muses were believed to be the source of knowledge and also referenced to
as being the inspiration of literature, science and arts. As time passes by, the muse
keeps on being referenced by authors, poets and painters. In the literary context, there
are many tales of how women have inspired great novels, characters and other texts
written, usually, by men. Although the portrayals of the muse have varied, from
glorified beings to passionate mistresses or even looked upon as obsolete or sexist in
modern time, her function remains the same no matter what shape or form she takes.
Furthermore, Suwalska-Kolecka and Penier describe the muse like this:

She is usually a representation of an idealized woman – blessed with beauty
and creativity and exerting irresistible attraction for any man. She is thought
to ignite an erotic spark and some sort of alchemy in those people she
becomes attached to, which, in turn, enables them to fulfil their true potential
(1).

This description of the muse from Suwalska-Kolecka and Penier, could also be a
description of the MPDG. Undoubtedly, there are similarities between the two which is
why I have chosen to include this perspective in my study.

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3 THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS IN LOOKING FOR
ALASKA AND PAPER TOWNS

I claim that the female characters Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska and Margo Roth
Spiegelman in Paper Towns both fulfil the criteria necessary in order to be labelled as
MPDG. In my studies of these novels and their main characters, the male protagonists
and female catalysts, I have specifically looked at the traits ascribed to the MPDG trope
and her relationship with the protagonist which are; the “dream girl” fantasy, the
catalyst function, the lack of a purpose of her own, the crazy factor, the mystery
component and the references to traditional female stereotypes such as being childlike
and/or caregiving. In order to support my claim, I will now proceed to tie the traits
ascribed to the MPDG together with my findings from each perspective novel, starting
with Looking for Alaska.

3.1 Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska

Miles Halter, the protagonist in Looking for Alaska, is the typical male character in need
of a MPDG (Sarkeesian n.p). He is white, described as straight and also in somewhat of
a gloomy state when leaving his family home in Florida for boarding school in Alabama.
His parents assume that he wants to go to this specific school only because his father
once did, but Miles proclaims that he is going to seek “the great perhaps” (Green,
Looking for Alaska 11) . Upon arrival at his new boarding school, Culver Creek, Miles
meets a girl named Alaska Young. The novel goes on to be divided into two parts, where
one is simply called “Before” and the other “After”. This is relevant to mention because
it refers to the time before and after Alaska Young dies and consequently, after her
death, she is part of the story only in the form of memories and flashbacks. However,
her death has a large impact on the male main character and it is also the mystery
component commonly ascribed to the MPDG. The fact that she dies in a somewhat
unclear way drives Miles to search for the reason why and to keep obsessing over her
even after her passing. To say that Miles is infatuated with Alaska Young is putting it
mildly. “If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane” (Green, Looking for

14
Alaska 109), is a quote that speaks to his glorification of Alaska. Miles is written as a
follower, proven by the fact that he goes to the same school his dad once did, he makes
some friends there and starts following them around, taking part in their pranks, starts
smoking because they do (25) and he especially focuses his time and energy keeping
track of Alaska. This even after he finds out that she has a boyfriend and she even states
that she can be of no romantic interest to him (56). Furthermore, there are several
referrals to how appealing Alaska’s physical appearance is to Miles and what effects they
have on him. For example:

She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every
endeavour. And not just beautiful, but hot too, with her breasts straining
against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the
swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then,
between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I
realised the importance of curves, of the thousand times where girls’ bodies
ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf
to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to
the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before,
of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance (Green, Looking
for Alaska 27–28).

This can be connected back to what Suico wrote about characters in YAL and the
importance of appearance when it comes to portrayals of femininity (1). Also, the
description from Sowalska-Kolycka and Penier which addressed both the beauty and the
erotic part of the muse. In another section of the novel, Green writes even more about
how Miles is distracted by Alaska’s body, mostly her “sizeable cleavage” (p 53). Green
thereby choses stereotypical female traits, also upheld by society and patriarchy, to
describe Alaska as pretty, or hot, in the eyes of Miles.

The caregiving, or even motherly, side to the MPDG can be seen as contradictory to the
childishness. However, there are references to both of these qualities in Alaska Young.
At one point, for example, Miles thinks to himself: “She’s cute, […], but you don’t need
to like a girl who treats you like you’re ten: you’ve already got a mom”(Green, Looking
for Alaska 45). Alaska also comforts Miles when he feels homesick (98), and she

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encourages him to find another girl to like and gives him pointers in order to succeed.
The pointers entail both getting close to another girl and more elaborate instructions,
for example on how to enjoy oral sex with his new girlfriend (Green, Looking for Alaska
155). Other traits ascribed to the MPDG are those of being adventurous, daring and not
really caring about rules and conventions. In Looking for Alaska, the setting is a boarding
school and so besides the rules of society and perhaps their parents/guardians, the kids
are also supposed to obey by school policies and rules. Alaska Young, however, breaks
several of these by smoking, drinking and pulling off pranks. She is also one of the
instigators behind an elaborate plan to mess with other students as well as the head of
the school and when Miles expresses a concern about getting caught she says she will
take the fall if that happens (Green, Looking for Alaska 134), thus illustrating that she
does not care for the consequences for herself and she will step up and take the blame
for Miles and the others. By “the others”, I am referring to a group of friends surrounding
both Alaska and Miles, a group that becomes even more significant after Alaska is gone
and the remaining friends support each other through the loss but also bond over trying
to figure out what actually happened on the night Alaska died.

My findings show that Alaska made an immense impact on Miles, in life and after, but
he made little or no impact on her. This speaks to the fact that she is in the story as a
catalyst, only to spark his growth. Towards the end of the story, Miles thinks about the
ways that Alaska has changed him; “She taught me everything I knew about crawfish
and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different” (Green, Looking for Alaska
205). This illustrates one of the main traits of a MPDG and I also argue that it is one of
the most defining ones. If we take away the fact that this trope is only in the story as a
catalyst for the male protagonist, we are left with a type of character that could go many
different ways. For example, a woman written as daring and unconventional in
combination with being quirky, crazy, mysterious and childish could make for an
interesting heroine if she is allowed to be the protagonist of a story. For these reasons I
would like to point out that the catalyst, or muse, part of a MPDG should be seen as an
essential factor. Going back to the story of Miles and Alaska, there are continuous

16
references to what Miles calls “the Great Perhaps” in the novel. This is because Miles
has a thing for famous last words and he had read the ones of a poet called Francois
Rabelais who said: “I go to seek a Great Perhaps”(11). To quickly sum it up, Miles says
that this is the reason for him wanting to go away to boarding school, why he seeks to
explore the unknown so that he does not have to wait until he dies to do so. Therefore,
I find the following quote to be of importance: “She didn’t leave me enough to discover
her, but she left me enough to discover the Great Perhaps” (252). This is how Miles
speaks about Alaska at the end of the story and my interpretation is that he is connecting
her with the very reason for his whole journey. He went out looking for something, not
knowing what, and she turned out to be the one who could get him there. By “there” I
am referring to more of a state of mind than an actual place in time or geography. She
became what he needed, maybe because he moulded the memory of her to suit his
quest. Miles is asked by one of his friends: “Do you even remember the person she
actually was? Do you remember how she could be a selfish bitch? That was part of her
and you used to know it. It’s like now you only care about the Alaska that you made up”
(197). This references how the importance of Mile’s made-up version of Alaska is
perhaps more important to him than the real life version ever was. The mystery she left
behind gave him purpose, direction and last but not least, it gave him close friends and
the feeling of belonging.

3.2 Margo Roth Spiegelman in Paper Towns

Although John Green specifically claims that Paper Towns is intended to destroy this
trope, I argue that there are still traits assigned to the female character Margo Roth
Spiegelman that define her as a MPDG. In one way, I see where John Green could be
going with his statement because Margo does have a plan of her own, an agenda. She
has dreams and she travels, we learn these things through other’s stories about her.
Margo leaves everything behind including Quentin (the male, straight, white main
character) who finds the mystery of her disappearance irresistible. Unlike Alaska Young
in Looking for Alaska, Margo Roth Spiegelman does not die, she simply vanishes.
However, just like Alaska, she leaves one confused and truth-seeking young man behind.

17

If we rewind to the very beginning of Paper Towns, the plot kicks off when Margo takes
her next door neighbour and childhood friend Quentin on a wild nightly tour with the
intent to pull pranks on a friend and ex-boyfriend in order to get revenge on them for
cheating and lying to her. Quentin goes along with Margo although he seems weary of
just how far she will go with her pranks. For instance, he declares that he will not commit
any felonies and Margo laughs it off by asking if breaking and entering counts as a felony
(Green, Paper Towns 26). This simple question posed by Margo embraces many of the
traits ascribed to the MPDG such as; adventurous, daring, wacky, crazy, childlike and
nonconforming. She definitely has the “crazy factor”.

The plot continues to centre around what happens after the night of pranks. This, the
main part of the novel, is all about how Margo has disappeared and left Quentin behind
to wonder why and where she has gone. He quickly starts to see what he interprets as
clues or signs left for him to follow in order to find Margo. While searching for answers
he thinks: “[…] I had my hopes: maybe Margo needed to see my confidence. Maybe this
time she wanted to be found, and to be found by me. Maybe – just as she had chosen
me on the longest night, she had chosen me again. And maybe untold riches awaited he
who found her”(115). After a while, Quentin becomes convinced that she means for him
to follow her and that she is creating a mystery instead of just asking him to come along.
However, I would argue that the above quote illustrates how Quentin himself creates
the mystery. He is desperate for clues so he finds them. Drawing back to the MPDG
stereotype, this behaviour certainly goes hand in hand with the catalyst function and
the fantasy of a girl being more important than the girl herself. The idea of Margo
wanting him to follow her sparks a flame in Quentin pushing him forward. He also enrols
a few others in his search for Margo, which actually takes them all on a road trip further
along in the plot, bringing them closer as friends in the end. Margo, as a MPDG, brings
Quentin purpose, new experiences and closer relationships than he had before. All this
without ever really being present, besides in the mind of the protagonist.

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Similarly, as he did with Alaska, Green puts emphasis on Margo’s physical appearance.
Green writes the following on Quentin’s thoughts of Margo: “You can’t divorce Margo
the person from Margo the body. You can’t see one without seeing the other. […]
Margo’s beauty was a kind of sealed vessel of perfection – uncracked and uncrackable”
(50). Furthermore, there is reference to Margo’s breasts in a conversation between
Quentin and some of his male friends, after Quentin tells them about the night of
adventure he spent with Margo. The friends immediately ask if they had “hooked up”
and continue to ask Quentin to reveal details, for example by saying: “I would like you
to write a term paper on the look and feel of Margo Roth Spiegelman’s breasts” (88).
Once again, Green perpetuates the stereotypical importance of a girl’s, or woman’s,
appearance, especially when it comes to feminine traits.

In the case of Margo, a character Green clearly states he did not write as a MPDG
(Green, “John Green’s Tumblr” n.p), I argue that there were several opportunities for
Green to keep her further away from the MPDG if that was something he intended to
do. Margo did, in fact, not leave clues for Quentin to follow, she did not even want to
be found (Green, Paper Towns 285). So when Quentin found her, she did not have to
include him in her agenda at that point, she had already gotten there without him. At
least that would make her less of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and more of a girl following
her own dreams. Diekman and Murnen wrote about the need for romance to be part
of a happy ending:

The traditional feminine ideal may be rife in both sexist and nonsexist
children’s literature because marriage and romance are often requisite for
“happy endings.” For example, although the female protagonists in Little
Women and Caddie Woodlawn model independence and assertiveness, they
ultimately decide to pursue more traditional caretaking roles. Sexist as well as
nonsexist stories may thus perpetuate gender inequity through the
reinforcement of the traditional feminine ideal (375).

Although this passage talks about examples from novels other than the ones I have
studied, it still might explain the need to keep a romantic ending as an option. By doing
this, Green upholds traditional feminine ideals saying that a girl, or woman, should
consider romance (and ultimately marriage) as a goal in life. This also relates to the

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postfeminist ideas of being able to “pick and choose” from feminist ideals combined
with more traditional female stereotypes. For example, when McRobbie writes about
popular culture and how the character Bridget Jones is an independent woman living
in a city, drinking, smoking, having fun and not economically dependent on anyone.
However, she still dreams of romance, finding the right partner and puts emphasis on
girlishness (12).

Margo, much like Alaska, also has a care-giving factor to her. Perhaps it is not clearly
directed towards Quentin, but she does care about her little sister who she leaves clues
and messages for whenever she goes away (in this case not imagined ones). Also, her
little sister is the person she mostly wants to talk to when Quentin catches up with her
towards the end of the story and convinces her to call home in order to let her family
know that she is ok (Green, Paper Towns 296). Even though the character Margo is not
precisely described as a caregiving person, the simple fact of her being in the story only
to help Quentin’s development is caregiving in itself. She needs to have this impact on
Quentin in order for him to end up where he does. He does not, however, have any
apparent impact on what happens to Margo.

I claim that Margo would make an intriguing character if she was the protagonist in her
own story. Green created this girl who steers clear of many, but not all, conventions and
pretty much does whatever she likes. She is mysterious and daring, and hard to figure
out. “Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came after-ward, I could
never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one”
(Green, Paper Towns 8). I find her character to be much more interesting than Quentin,
the protagonist, and I am sorry that the story does not let the reader follow Margo on
her trip out of town after that night full of pranks instead of staying behind with Quentin.
Instead, we get the story of a boy growing into a man and the effects that Margo has on
him. Or in the words of Akilah Hughes: ”The true problem is that people don’t write
stories about Manic Pixie Dream Girls being the protagonist of the story, but rather,
make her a secondary, supporting character” (n. p.).

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3.3 The development of the MPDG character, from Alaska to Margo

At this point I have found many similarities between the portrayals of the female
catalysts in Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns and their relationships with, or effect
on, their perspective protagonists. However, there are also differences between the
two and perhaps what I would call certain developments between the Manic Pixie
Dream Girls in these two novels. Initially, I would like to talk about the endings. In both
novels the protagonists, Miles and Quentin, come to realizations about the effects the
catalysts have had on them. While Miles is questioned by a friend if he is holding on to
the real Alaska, or just the version of her he has made up in his mind (Green, Looking
for Alaska 197), Quentin seems to more ready to let go of his fantasy version of Margo.
“The fundamental mistake I had always made – and that she had, in fairness, always
led me to make – was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She
was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.” (Green, Paper Towns 199). The
following quote from Laurie Penny also discusses women as fantasies:

The one abiding secret about us is that we’re not fantasies, and we weren’t
made to save you: we’re real people, with flaws and cracked personalities and
big dreams and digestive tracts. It’s no actual mystery, but it remains a fact
that the half of the human race with a tendency to daydream about a
submissive, exploitable, transcendent ideal of the other seems perversely
unwilling to discover (n.p).

The theme of the fantasy girl is very much connected with the MPDG trope, where a
big part of the portrayal of the catalyst is actually what the protagonist has made up in
his mind and not any actual back story about the girl herself. At least Quentin finally
did come to this conclusion that Margo is more than the fantasy girl he has created in
his mind, after putting her on a pedestal for the main part of the story. This points in
the direction that he would not continue to keep the fantasy version of Margo alive in
his head. However, this does not entail that he would let go of the hope that they
could one day end up together. It could also be argued that it would be easier for
Quentin to maintain a more grounded idea of Margo after getting to talk to her and
lifting the vail of mystery. In Mile’s case, he could never get the same kind of closure

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since Alaska is dead and although he does get some of answers as to why Alaska is
gone he can never get all of them.

Margo, in Paper Towns, also has more of a purpose of her own than Alaska does. Margo
goes away looking for her own dream, leaving her family and her friends behind.
However, the very fact that she does leave has somewhat the same effect as Alaska’s
passing has in Looking for Alaska. In both cases, the vanishing of the girl is what pushes
the protagonist to develop and what drives the whole story forward. Neither one of the
catalysts choses to leave because of anything that has to do with the protagonist, and
still the impact on them is severe. Focusing on the development though, there is perhaps
more of a purpose in Margo’s leaving since she wants a different life for herself and she
is not written out of the story. We are at least left with glimpses of what happens to her
and what direction she is going in.

3.4 Perpetuating stereotypes and glorifying muses

Having argued that Alaska and Margo both fit into the MPDG trope, I will focus on how
they, as MPDGs, perpetuate stereotypical gender roles and help to uphold the glorified
image of the muse. Going back to what McRobbie writes about postfeminism, I argue
that the MPDGs in the novels I have studied both fit into the category of girls, or young
women, written as wanting to enjoy the perks of the gains of feminism such as freedom
and choice while still holding on to more traditional romantic ideals of relationships and
also being portrayed as girlish and embodying stereotypical female traits.

As I have written in previous sections of this essay, Alaska and Margo are girls portrayed
as independent, wilful and w tendencies to break rules. They drink, smoke and pull
pranks. Still, as MPDGs, they are objectified and put in a position of submission, where
the protagonist has a position of power over them. The objectification is proven by the
fact that both of these girls are portrayed as being both physically and otherwise perfect
fantasy beings in the eyes of the protagonist’s and also by the fact that they mainly
function as catalysts. They are a means to a goal, more than they are portrayed as
people. Joyce wrote that the mythos of MPDG subverts female progress by embracing

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traditional roles such as women being caretakers, a role that I have found to be related
to the catalyst function since it is caregiving in itself.

On the topic of being submissive, the MPDG characters might seem like girls with power
over the protagonists, in the way that she inspires him to try new things and he follows
her, but I claim that it is still mostly the other way around. Since the MPDG character
exists for the protagonist’s benefit, anything she does is really for him. Joyce writes
about “women catering to men” (n.p.), which the MPDG function is an example of.
Furthermore, the MPDG is not portrayed as adventurous and independent because her
adventures matter, she is portrayed as such because there is something within being
adventurous that the protagonist has to discover in order to grow. This draws back to
the description of the muse by Suwalska-Kolecka and Penier who wrote about the muse
being irresistible to the person she inspires and helping them fulfil their true potential.
The MPDG trope helps to uphold the image of the glorified muse by embracing both the
fantasy girl element and the catalyst function.

4 CONCLUSION
My findings show that Alaska Young and Margo Roth Spiegelman both fit into the MPDG
trope. They are the prospective “dream girls” of the male protagonists in their story,
they function as catalysts, they both have huge impact on their protagonist’s
development, they each have the crazy factor and the mystery component and they
seem to be there only for the protagonist’s benefit. Alaska and Margo have similar
effects on the protagonists in their stories. In both cases they are idolized at first, and
then later on described as more understandable and less mysterious. This development
is seen in both stories when the protagonists start to realize and reflect on what effects
the catalyst has had on them. Furthermore, both protagonists are left with more close
relationships than they had before meeting the “girl of their dreams”, resulting in them
feeling less alone even though the girl herself is gone (in once case more definitely than
the other). Both protagonists have broken out of their shells, taken more risks and
discovered profound things about themselves, because of their involvement with the

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female catalyst in their stories. In both novels, it seems like these girls had larger impacts
on their protagonists while in the form of fantasies in their minds, than they did when
actually present in real life. Furthermore, I have presented connections between the
MPDG and the traditional portrayal of the muse, and showed that Alaska and Margo do
perpetuate stereotypical gender roles in their functions as MPDGs.

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