Materialism In Whitman's 'Song Of Myself'

Looking at the world, it all looks so magical, with all of its beautifully done buildings. However, “Everything’s uglier up close” (Green, 57), even the hardest rocks can’t cover up the “paperness” [1] of the world. Whitman wrote “Leaves of Grass” as a way to represent himself, and his perspective of the fakeness, and materialism of life. John green, on the other hand, used Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” in his book “Paper Towns” to discuss his own point of view on materialism. Margo Roth Spiegelman, the main character of John Green’s novel is influenced by Whitman. She is a teenage girl who is sick of the materialism of the world, and rather run away than be stuck in the middle of some plastic figures in a plastic town. Despite Margo being a character, Green was able to portrait Whitman’s ideas of nature, materialism, and adventure in her throughout his book “Paper Towns”.
John Green chose the name Margo Roth Spiegelman because of how much it represents her character. Margo has the word

Life is a place of contradictions. Both Whitman and John Green discussed materialism and nature in their works. For Whitman, he accepted materialism as a part of our daily lives. However, Margo couldn’t. She rather isolate herself than live in a fake world. Margo’s ideas meet with Whitman’s when it comes to other things; they both shared the same ideas about nature and adventure. They both believed how important it is for human beings to be united with nature. Both of these works of art, inspired their reader to connect more with nature, and care less about material things. Whitman and John green have shown their readers roads they’ve never seen before. Roads that lead to beauty that was covered in the materialism of the daily struggles these readers go through on a daily basis. Roads that led their readers to unit with