In the world, over 12.7 million people discover they have cancer. The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green is a compelling novel that presents the story of a sixteen year-old girl named Hazel who suffers from thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs. Throughout the book, Hazel is battling her disease, causing her pain and suffering. In The Fault In our Stars, Green illustrates suffering is apart of life, therefore being human is to have the ability to overcome pain and become stronger.
The novel begins when Hazel is going to a cancer support group because her mother thinks she is depressed. During the support group meeting, she meets a handsome boy named Augustus Waters who suffered from osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, although is also is
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Lidewij and Peter invite Hazel and Augustus to come to their house if they ever visit Amsterdam.
Hazel flawlessly describes her pain at multiple points in the book. One definition is, “Even then, it hurt. The pain was always there, pulling me inside of myself, demanding to be felt” (Green 142). Pain is an underlying condition that damages one from the inside out and hides itself until it’s expressed. Pain can represent itself physically, mentally, or psychologically. In this way, it destroys a person; it doesn’t matter how or where the pain started. All humans experience pain and suffering, creating the concept that pain is humanly impossible to avoid. At some point, people must overcome pain to survive which is what Hazel is trying to do with her cancer. Overcoming suffering is a difficult process, especially when it’s always there, however one must cope with pain to live.
Interestingly, Augustus got in contact with a charity that gives cancer kids a wish. Augustus decided to use his for the two of them to go on a trip to Amsterdam to meet Peter and Lidewij. In the midst of this, Hazel painfully experiences her lungs filling up with fluid causing her to be rushed to the hospital. She lives, however her personal doctors say she isn’t healthy enough to go to Amsterdam. During one of her cancer meetings, one of her doctors, Dr. Maria, says that Hazel should live her life, convincing
Firstly, within the novel, it is clear that Hazel is a caring person and is fully aware of what her body’s condition does to her
Augustus realizes that a lot of people let their cancer identify them, which it seems at first like Hazel does. Through the novel Augustus mentions multiple times how he wants his life to mean something other than cancer. “I fear that I won’t be able to give anything in exchange for my life. If you don’t live a life in service of a greater good, you’ve gotta
Augustus also says “that’s the thing about pain [...] it demands to be felt” (Green, 63). The author must be a sad person because I could emotionally feel how the characters were feeling, and it appears as if Green provides a lot of insight through Augustus’ perspective about pain and sadness. I was able to connect this story to a movie, My Sister’s Keeper. Hazel is like the character Anna in the movie because they were both affected directly by the illness that is cancer. In Anna’s case, her parents’ conceived her because her older sister had cancer and Anna was to donate her organs. Hazel on the other hand, is a recipient of cancer.
Overcoming a terminal disease is not easy, and I have experienced that with my mom, first hand. Usually when this happens and the person dies, you go through five stages of grief. When Augustus Waters dies in the novel, Hazel experiences this. The first stage is denial and isolation. Denial by its very definition is asserting that a statement or allegation is not true. It can be seen that the
For this project, I decided to read “The Fault in Our Stars,” a novel written by John Green. This book is about 16 year old Hazel Grace, who is diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She attends weekly Cancer Support Group, where she meets Augustus Waters, a “very intelligent and hot” boy who is currently in remission. They both take a liking for each other, their relationship growing and developing throughout the book as they fight cancer together. Along the way, Hazel learns many important lessons about life.
Augustus makes an impact on Hazel’s life. Augustus and Hazel meet at Support Group and grow a close bond. Augustus and Hazel fall deeply in love throughout the story. When Augustus’ cancer sprung up again, he asked Hazel to write him an eulogy. In Hazel’s eulogy she says, “My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears”(Green 259). This shows that when Augustus dies he will leave a (mental) scar on Hazel, because Hazel will deeply miss Augustus when he dies. Augustus transformed Hazel
The book revolves around 16 year old Hazel Grace Lancaster, and 17 year old Augustus Waters. Hazel doesn’t lead an ordinary teenage life, she suffers of lung cancer. After a long time of struggling with her illness, her parents decide that
In your story The Fault in our Stars, there is a girl named Hazel Grace, who is diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer. This reminded me of a hard time in my life, when I had a cancerous brain tumor. This was difficult for me because I now permanently have short term memory loss.
The story is structured with Hazel Grace Lancaster and her thyroid cancer metastasizing to her lungs. She was diagnosed at a young age and they used a new treatment to delay the growth and so she was permanently attached to an oxygen machine. Meeting her impending doom, Hazel goes to support group and meets Augustus Waters, who also had cancer but was in remission. They eventually fall in love and in the end, Augustus dies from the cancer starting again and spreading from his
Skeptical about the hype around The Fault in Our Stars? Well I was too. Partially because these coming-of-age novels always manage to poke fun at my comparably uneventful and boy-less life. However this book spread like wildfire, engulfing victim after victim till even the cynical book readers I knew were infected. It imprisoned them, hands cuffed to this book till the turning of pages blurred before my eyes. Soon I became hostage by this book as well. To my surprise, John Green creates a cleverly crafted story that explores the life changing, funny, and tragic effects of being alive and in love.
The two main places that involve the two main characters, Hazel and Gus, were Amsterdam and Indianapolis. Hazel was scared that she will one day hurt the ones who love her when she would one day die from her lung cancer. When Hazel had to go to the emergency room that one time because of fluids in her lungs, Augustus was scared Hazel might die. Then as we learn towards the end of the novel, Hazel ends up being scared of Augustus dying when his cancer came back. Hazel was angry when Augustus died besides being very upset. They were disappointed and Hazel got angry when they saw who Peter Van Houten really was. They both felt like they were cancer victims, but they made the best of it with each other by going to Amsterdam and other events. They had many safe times such as when they were at the Support Group and Amsterdam because there were no health related emergencies and they had a good time together. The dangerous times is when Hazel had to go to the emergency room due to fluids in her lungs and when Augustus got his cancer back.
Hazel generally felt isolated with her peers, envious of the “normal” life that people like her friend Kaitlyn live every day. She comes into the support group that her mom insists she attends with low hopes and
In The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Hazel Grace Lancaster is diagnosed with terminal cancer at the very early age of only 13 years old. Hazel identifies herself as the
Their relationship drives the plot forward because the story is about how they fall into love and support each other through hardships; it drives them to go see Mr Peter Van Houten together and to care for each other even as Augustus is dying. The story also explores the theme of dying as their relationship struggles to keep afloat with Gus suffering from terminal cancer, and Hazel has to deal with grief as she copes with her partner’s death. Most importantly, their relationship highlights the theme of love. Hazel and Gus are devoted to each other up till the very end of the story, as seen from… Their relationship illustrates the enduring and touching power of love.
Despite the adversity they face, the characters in The Fault in Our Stars identity lies within their inner selves, and is not defined by societal expectations. Hazel expresses her frustration with the lesser standard that is expected of cancer patients, saying “According to Maslow, I was…unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art…which is utter horseshit: The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick” (Green 213). According to society, cancer patients, and those who are not “secure in their health” are restricted from experiencing life at its fullest. The outside world sees Hazel in singular terms, as “a cancer kid”, unable to reach for greatness;