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Chapter 4: Will
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Five Feet Apart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sacrifice
Death, Grief, and Guilt
Risk and Consequences
Survival, Terminal Illness, and Hope
Hardship and Family Dynamics
Summary
Analysis
Stella sprints up the stairs to the roof, barely able to breathe. When she gets to the top, she sees that Will used a dollar bill to jam the door’s alarm. Stella sees that Will has caught his breath. She reprimands him for being on the roof. Will explains that the views from the roofs of all the hospitals he’s been to are what allows him to keep his treatments in perspective. He says that his treatments keep him from living his life, and Stella argues that he’s lucky to be in the drug trial at all. Will dangles one leg off the roof, and Stella screams at him to stop. Will laughs at her, and Stella storms off, taking the dollar bill out of the door so that the alarm will ring when Will leaves.
Stella and Will’s respective views of their illnesses are opposites. Stella doesn’t understand that Will feels like he’s wasting the last years of his life, and Will doesn’t understand how much Stella values extending her life as much as possible. Stella is particularly offended by Will’s prank—when he pretends he’s going to jump from the rooftop—because it reminds Stella of the tragic accident in which she lost her sister Abby, though Will doesn’t know this.
Themes
