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
Barb helps Stella put on her AffloVest, which vibrates Stella’s torso to loosen the mucus in her lungs. Stella asks Barb about Will, and she learns that Will likely only has a few years to live, but he’s in the hospital for an experimental drug trial. Barb warns Stella to keep a distance from Will so that she doesn’t contract the dangerous bacterial infection he has. Stella gets a text from her dad, who just moved into a new apartment. Stella is worried about him.
The AffloVest is a part of all cystic fibrosis patients’ treatment. Cystic fibrosis causes excess mucus to accumulate in the lungs, so the AffloVest loosens the buildup and forces the patient to cough up mucus. Again, Stella is afraid that her parents would be unable to cope with Stella’s death—a worry that most teenagers don’t have to face every day. Will’s presence in the hospital poses a new threat, since he has a contagious deadly infection.
Themes
The next morning, Stella videocalls her dad. She thinks he seems sad and tired. After hanging up, she and Poe videocall as they eat breakfast. Poe tells her that he broke up with his boyfriend. In the middle of the conversation, Poe chokes on his food and his vital monitors beep, setting off alarm bells on the entire floor. Everyone rushes into the hallway, and Stella and Julie rush into Poe’s room to see that he’s fine—his blood oxygen monitor had simply accidentally unplugged. Stella looks towards Will’s room and notices that he didn’t even come outside to see what the commotion was.
Later on, it becomes clear that Poe broke up with his boyfriend because he was afraid of putting his partner through the hardship of Poe’s illness. Cystic fibrosis makes Poe miss out on a relationship, just like it makes Stella miss out on traveling with her friends. This incident with Poe’s blood oxygen monitor foreshadows a similar incident later on that turns out to be a serious emergency.
Themes
