Cancer Inside a Young Mind
Imagine, you are a teenager only to find out the horrific news that you have cancer. How would you choose to cope with this and what would be your motivation to get through such a terrible situation? This saddening scenario is exactly what has happened to a young girl Hazel, and her soon to be close friend Augustus Waters in The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. Hazel is met with this major obstacle and most saddening diagnosis of thyroid cancer at the age of thirteen with not a very good outlook for her future. Now just how will she cope with it and what path will she take to overcome this sadness. Finding her way into a support group and meeting Augustus who is also going through a similar battle is what
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“I just want to stay away from people and read books and think.” (Green 99) This is an example of Hazel not wanting to hurt other people around her. It is her goal to be as passive as possible in order to not be responsible for any pain inflicted on others. Hazel’s fear of getting close to anyone is that her eventually death will be much harder on those who she leaves behind. But she continues on and finally realizes that it doesn’t matter if she is a grenade because when you love someone you love them inside and out. Augustus’ character is very different than Hazel’s as he is always found trying to leave his mark on the world, while Hazel struggles to grasp and understand the importance of this. “That’s the one thing about pain,” Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. “It demands to be felt.” (Green 63) This was Augustus’ way to say that even though you may be brave through all of this, it doesn’t mean that you cannot still feel overwhelming pain. This can make you realize that by keeping your distance from others is not always the best answer. Augustus is very persistent in pushing the relationship forward with Hazel even though at first she is reluctant to get to close.
This book can appeal to just about any type of reader having many different interests. I enjoyed seeing the relationship evolve between Hazel and Augustus and watching it unfold as it leaves a very lasting impression on me. My sister was right that the roller coaster
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
There is a sense of rebellion throughout the story that reminds the reader of what it’s like to be a child. As a child I can remember talking back, and when something didn’t go my way I would pout and “give (them) some lip.” (Bambara 450) Having this sense of rebellion makes it feel like you can do whatever you want with no price to pay. However, this again shows the rebellious nature of Hazel helping the reader realize she is a child. Even when Hazel talks to the manager of the movie theater she is courageous enough to “…kick the door open…and sit down...” (Bambara 451)and demand the manager her money back. She even puts up an argument to get out of punishment with her parents when she knows she has done something wrong. The connectivity between these two ideas help
The author begins the story by informing the reader just how much Hazel was detached from her high school experience and affected not only by her grieving family over the deceased of her father, but as well as the thought of living in the shadows of her three older sisters. As stated in the story, “ She wanted the feeling that her life was a small thread in the huge tangle of the world and that nothing she did one way or another mattered all that much” (Ausubel 52). Additionally, Hazel is presented as more of a static character rather than dynamic. Throughout the story the reader is able to realize how little Hazel is unaffected by others.
Topic of Cancer by Christopher Hitchens is a powerful tale of a person diagnosed with cancer. Hitchens likens having cancer to a trip through a strange town with a strange dialogue. He says this best by saying “I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of the malady.” (Hitchens) I am fortunate not to have a personal experience to measure the one of Mr. Hitchens but I do have several second hand experiences from the death of my Great-Grandmother, My Grandmother and my best friend Alice. I truly believe cancer is one of the lonely roads anyone must ever travel but like the Author adrift in Tumortown those close to the people involved ultimate have a piece of themselves live or die with them.
On the other hand, Hazel Grace is an independent character who struggles with cancer, trying her best to isolate herself from others in fear that the disease will kill her and she will leave her loved ones behind. Her opinion on having close, loving relationships changes once she falls in love with Augustus. Hazel becomes a
Hazel says, “I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties” (Green 99). She doesn’t want to get close to anyone because if she dies, she doesn’t want to put that on someone she loves. In the story, Hazel likes Augustus almost from the day she meets him but she doesn't want to hurt anyone other than her parents when she dies because she already feels bad about hurting her parents. Augustus Waters had been cancer-free for a while, but then he went in for a PET scan and they found cancer. He kept it from Hazel for a while, but then finally told her.
Hazel grace is a dynamic character because she changes throughout the story. In the beginning, Hazel doesn’t want to get close to Augustus, because she was afraid he is going to be shattered when she dies. But towards the ending, hazel finds out it doesn’t matter if you die in the middle of a relationship, it’s about the moments you spend together. A quote in the book, on page 214, “Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.”
No matter how old you are, you might know what It feels like to lose a loved one. Hazel Grace has never been anything but terminal, until she meets Augustus Waters, and that’s when her story is about to be completely rewritten. The novel is an emotional roller coaster dealing with first loves, terminal illnesses, secrets, passion and trust. In the novel, The Fault In Our Stars, Hazel Grace must go through what any person with a terminal disease must go through and beyond that: overcoming a terminal disease, love, and fear.
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.
Hazel has a strong identity in the story, she has much self-confidence and is not afraid of letting everyone know that she is the best, “Now some people like to act like things come easy to them, won’t let on that they practice. Not me. I’ll high-prance down 34th street like a rodeo pony to keep my knees strong even if it does get my mother uptight.” p. 1 ll. 29-31. Thus her strong and proud personality, she still loves and protects Raymond and is not afraid of showing this either. At the end of the story Hazel’s view on other people changes, when she sees Raymond running parallel with her at the May Day race in his own unique style. She realizes that everyone is not just who she sees them to be, that there are more to people than you can
Everyday children are diagnosed to cancer, and families are learning how to support their child. These difficulties may be unknown to a new reader. By reading Green's novel, a reader can take away the struggle of traveling with cancer and the support that a patient will always have. Additionally, readers can understand cancer patients are prone to an optimistic outlook in the world. As a reader of The Fault in Our Stars is easy to connect personal history too and similar events like the dysfunctions of cancer.Any reader can take away great lessons and the disadvantages to having serious medical
Cancer has one of the biggest effects on the patients mental health but also the patients loved ones and friends. It is one of the hardest things to get a grip on when the doctor tells someone that they have cancer and a fifty-fifty chance of making it. "The disease can bring many changes-in what people do and how they look, in how they feel and what they value" (Dakota 4). It makes people look at the world and their lives in a different way, valuing now what they took for granted and seeing the bigger picture in every scenario. It is something that no one can actually brace, even after the doctor tells them. Through it all though, the person must remain strong and optimistic because the cancer can affect the person's moods and in return affect the outcome of the person and the chances of their making it
Dealing with growing up can be hard enough as it is, but having to cope with facing death and the pain it creates, makes life that much harder. The novel “The Fault in Our Stars” written by John Green is about various teenagers that have cancer and learn to seek relief from their pain that is caused by a terminal illness. The novel doesn’t proclaim outright that one particular method of dealing with pain is the correct way. However, it clearly indicates that there are some methods that are healthier than others. Some of these methods are; being honest and direct through reading novels, being fearful and through the help of support groups.
In recent years, cancer prevalence has been increasing globally. It is now one of the top 10 causes of death among the middle and high income countries worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2008). In Singapore, cancer has surpassed cardiovascular disease and become the top killer over the last 3 years (Ministry of Health, 2007). Breast cancer tops the chart among Singaporean women (Health Promotion Board, 2007). Thousands of women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually and it causes approximately 270 deaths each year (Jara-Lazaro, et al., 2010). The lifetime risk that a woman in Singapore getting breast cancer is now 1 in every 17 which has risen compared to past two decades (National Cancer Centre Singapore, 2006). Hence, breast