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 feels healthier than ever as she and Will slide across the ice together. She’s devastated by Poe’s death, but being with Will makes it more bearable. Stella’s phone has been ringing all day, but now messages are coming in at a frantic rate. She finally checks her phone to see texts from Barb, her parents, and her friends asking where she is—there is a lung transplant available for her. She needs to head to the hospital urgently to get the surgery in time. Stella considers her options and stays at the pond instead. If she got the transplant, she would recover in isolation for a while. She’s happy in the moment with Will.
Stella is on the waiting list for a lung transplant, which means that she has been waiting for lungs that are a good match for her to become available. Once lungs become available to a transplant patient, the surgery must take place within a few hours while the donor lungs are still viable. Stella has been hoping for a transplant her whole life, so it’s shocking that she no longer wants to go through with it. The transplant would potentially add at least a few years to her life, but it would mean a long recovery during which Stella would be too physically vulnerable to be around Will.
Themes
