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
Both of Stella’s parents come to see her the morning of her surgery. They bicker between themselves, and Stella tries to appear calm and happy. In the pre-op room, Stella thinks that maybe Will is right to try to live life to the fullest instead of take his treatments seriously, because they’re both going to die early anyway. To Stella’s shock, Will sneaks into the pre-op room wearing scrubs. He starts singing the song Abby used to sing to Stella before all her surgeries—"A Bushel and a Peck.” Will tells Stella she will be okay, and they pinky promise. It’s the first time they’ve ever touched. Stella thinks that if she dies in surgery, at least she’s been in love.
Stella considers that Will’s blasé approach to terminal illness makes sense, because she thinks that she may die on the operating table despite how careful she has been about her treatment, in which case none of the precautions she takes and sacrifices she makes would have been worth it. Will knows about the song Abby used to sing because he’s seen it in Stella’s videos. The chorus of the song goes, “I love you, a bushel and a peck.” Needless to say, the words mean something different coming from Will—something Stella hasn’t experienced before.
Themes
On the operating table, Stella slowly counts backwards from 10 as she breathes in anesthesia. She notices that Will somehow pinned one of Abby’s drawings in the operating room. It’s a drawing of a healthy pair of lungs bursting with flowers against a backdrop of a starry sky. Stella watches the drawing come to life as she goes under. She sees an overwhelming light, and then has a vision of Abby pushing her away and saying she needs more time. Everything goes dark.
Will sneaking into the operating room and singing to Stella is already a very moving gesture to her, and he even manages to pin Stella’s favorite of Abby’s drawings in the room. This shows Stella how much Will knows and understands her—though they had drastically different viewpoints when they met, Will and Stella have come to understand and even believe in each other’s viewpoints about survival to some extent.
Themes
