An Abundance Of Katherines Analysis

“What matters to you defines your mattering.” (Green 212). The book An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is about a roadtrip that lands a heartbroken genius and his muslim best friend in the town of Gutshot, Tennessee. Once lured by the road signs advertising the body of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, these two boys meet their tour-guide and soon-to-be roommate for the summer. When these three unlikely friends strive to find their purpose in life, they come to realize that the secret to finding their purpose is held in each other and this small town in which they’ve stumbled upon. The theme of purpose is shown in this story by the characters Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, and Colin Singleton. One of the characters in An Abundance of
Lindsey views purpose in a much different way from Colin and Hassan. They want to matter to the world and Lindsey just doesn’t. Lindsey struggles to find her purpose in the people around her and changes her personality to seek approval of her friends and family. When she’s with her boyfriend she acts dumb and flirty, with her friends she tries to be ditsy and likeable, but with Colin and Hassan she’s herself she isn’t any of those things. Lindsey’s smart and sarcastic and that’s who she really is. While many people want to matter to the world she wants to matter to those around her and to her town. Another way Lindsey struggled for purpose in the story is by losing the things important to her in order to look cool. She thought that in order to matter to these friends of hers she had to give things up, like visiting the retired people in the community that she cared about, or going to the factory to visit with the employees and check in on them. Lindsey realizes that all of this isn’t right later on saying, “You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got it so backwards trying to make myself matter to him (TOC). All this time there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It’s so easy to get stuck. You just get caught up in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don’t even know
All Colin Singleton has ever wanted to do is to be known by the world, to go down in history books as a genius. He wanted to matter to the world. He struggles by looking for purpose in fame, in being known when that isn’t what purpose is. “The problem itself was that he didn’t matter. Colin Singleton, noted child prodigy, noted veteran of Katherine conflicts, noted nerd and sitzpinkler, didn’t matter to Katherine XIX, and he didn’t matter to the world.” (Green 16). This quote is exactly what Colin’s struggle was, his name wasn’t known therefore, what was his purpose? Colin also shows his struggle for purpose as he tries to create a theorem for relationships. Who will dump who, when will it end, where will the high’s and low’s fall? He spends his summer working on this forum to matter to the world of math and to the world itself. Colin doesn’t realize that his purpose had been in front of him the whole time with Hassan and Lindsey and everyone he had met that summer. So, when he finally finished his theorem, his project that would fulfill him and make his name known; he did nothing with it. He kept it in the journal where it had been solved. He didn’t need to matter to the world as long as he had Hassan, Lindsey, and the small town of Gutshot alongside