50 pages • 1 hour read
Rachael LippincottFive Feet Apart
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Abby
Although she dies a year before the novel’s beginning, Stella’s older sister Abby serves as an important symbol throughout the story. Daring and nurturing, Abby stood by Stella’s side from her first hospitalization at six years old until her own untimely death. The novel starts with Stella slowly tracing the outline of Abby’s drawing, which hangs by her bed. A depiction of lungs filled with blooming flowers, the drawing encourages Stella and reminds her of Abby’s calming and positive presence, which Stella can no longer rely on. This unprocessed grief surrounding Abby’s death fuels Stella’s blind observance of her regimen, and it is only after she encounters Abby in the afterlife at the frozen pond that Stella finds peace. Her reunion with Abby guides Stella to choose to live fully and accept the lung transplant. Once a figure through which Stella vicariously experienced a bolder and more adventurous life, Abby transitions into a motivational figure who inspires Stella to embark on her own adventures. Stella honors this guidance in the last chapter as she travels to fulfill her and Abby’s wish to see the Sistine Chapel. Abby teaches Stella how to live the rich life she desires to live, and how to rise above death’s inevitability to live life to the fullest.
Five Feet Apart
The inspiration for the novel’s title, five feet apart comes to represent Stella’s defiance in the face of unrelenting struggle. Initially an avid rule-follower, Stella transforms throughout the novel into a bold rule-breaker who refuses to hide from life’s challenges. The six feet of distance that she and Will must maintain at all times is the central tension in their relationship as they attempt to navigate intimacy without touch. Stella’s reimagination of the six feet of distance rule as five feet symbolizes her confrontation of their harsh reality and her ability to face the challenges that define their relationship. She and Will develop true intimacy despite the distance that separates them. Stella alludes to the five feet apart in her reunion with Will in the novel’s final chapter to wordlessly communicate the persistence of her hope that, though they cannot be together, their love will remain real and true.
The Rooftop
Will often escapes to the hospital’s roof in moments of distress and to flee the monotony of hospital life, breaking the rules to do so. He relies on the vista from the roof to observe the outside world and feel hope for a future free from the hospital and his mother’s control. After their initial tense meeting, Stella and Will meet for the second time on the roof when Stella, fearing for Will’s safety, abandons her strict adherence to the rules to save him. On the roof, Will offers Stella a new perspective, and it is this new perspective that later inspires Stella to escape the hospital to see the holiday lights she visited once a year with Abby. On this journey into the outside world, one of the few in the novel, Stella encounters Abby and discovers answers to the questions that plague her throughout the novel. The rooftop expands both Will and Stella’s perspectives and offers them a glimpse at the hopeful futures they will adopt in the last two chapters as they embark on their individual adventures.
