The Fault In Our Stars Character Analysis

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.

“A flower bloomed already wilting. Beginning its life with an early ending.” (R.J. Gonzales). Hazel Grace Lancaster lives a very unusual life for her age. Hazel was diagnosed with cancer when she was young and has been going through aggressive treatment ever since. ☺Her life is like a tangled ball of yarn that gets even more tangled when she meets Augustus Waters. Augustus is a charming, romantic boy who can not keep his eyes off of Hazel. The twist is, Augustus also has terminal cancer, but there is no way they are going to let that stop them from falling in love. In the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, the songs Stronger by Kelly Clarkson, If I Die Young by The Band Perry, and Save You by Simple Plan reflect Hazel, Augustus, and Mrs. Lancaster respectively.

Imagine having the disease, cancer. Or, feeling like a social outcast who carries around an oxygen tank to stay alive. Imagine your world was pretty much pointless until finding someone equally sick and equally corky as yourself. This is how 16 year old, Thyroid Cancer patient, Hazel Grace Lancaster lived her life. When her mother see how depressed Hazel is she forces her daughter to attend a cancer support group. She goes through the motions and shares that her lungs are weak but Gus Waters ,Osteosarcoma patient, is not interested in learning about her sickness, but is interesting in her. ¨What? I asked. Nothing, he said. Why are you looking at me like that? Augustus half smiled. ¨Because you're beautiful.¨ (Green 16)

John Green's novel, The Fault In Our Stars, follows the sorrowful story of a young girl and her struggle with cancer. Experiences in people's lives impact their identities as people, much like the main character Hazel Grace who sustains her battles against the adversities of cancer, death and depression throughout the book, strongly impacting her identity. Hazel Grace’s relationship with Augustus changed her life and taught her to appreciate all of life's aspects and to become more accepting as an individual.

Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters play the role of love stricken main characters who help each other in long-lasting ways throughout their many journeys. However, Hazel and Augustus are not the average teenage love birds of John Green’s heart wrenching teenage novel, The Fault in Our Stars. When the two of them first meet in the Heart of Jesus at support group, Hazel is battling lung cancer and is reluctantly attending support group to fulfill her parents wishes of her making friends and living as normal of a life as a teenager with cancer can. Augustus also has battled his fair share of Osteosarcoma which in trade, cost him a leg. Little did the two main characters know, Augustus’ cancer would soon return.

In his novel, The Fault in Our Stars, John Green successfully creates a realistic yet tragic love story between two teenagers fighting a common battle against cancer. The Fault in Our Stars utilizes foreshadowing, dreams, and death to make this novel one-of-a-kind. Unlike many novels based on teenagers with cancer, the cancer stricken teen herself, Hazel Lancaster, narrates the story. Only 16-years-old, Hazel is forced to drag an oxygen tank around with her to breath, due to her incapable lungs.

As a book selling over seven million copies, John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars is a must read for no other reason than that it swept the nation nearly immediately after being released to the public; however, there’s more. Featuring Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, cancer patients turned star-crossed lovers, The Fault In Our Stars gives readers an “infinite love story” through just a few hundred pages (Green 2012). Despite critically being tagged as a “chick flick” with “poor literary quality,” the novel lends itself to the many families that have been devastated by cancer. When overlooked, the perhaps corny teenage love story transforms into a genuine look into the fight for joy before cancer kills.

So far in the book Fault In Our Stars a 17 year old girl named Hazel Grace, has cancer. She was forced to go to a support group and met someone named Augustus Waters who had a fake leg due osteosarcoma. They went to Augustus’s house and got to know each other more, “My favorite book is probably An Imperial Affliction” Hazel told Augustus on page 34. “He held up the book, which was called The Price of Dawn” Hazel said talking about Augustus telling her a book made after his favorite video game.

An Imperial Affliction, written by Peter Van Houten, is a book written within the book of The Fault in Our Stars. Hazel was in awe of his work and how he seemed to completely understand how she felt, leaving her eager to find out what happens to her characters after the story ends. Unfortunately to Hazel, the sad reality of her eventually meeting this author, is that he is nothing that she imagines him to be. Drunk, and unable to process and filter his own thoughts, he carelessly slurred offensive sentences in the presence of Hazel and Augustus. Due to the death of his daughter, he based some of the book to real life, although having written it doesn’t give him the closure he needs. The disappointment of Hazel not getting her answers is apparent

John Green’s novel, The Fault in Our Stars, is a heartbreaking tale of love lived through the eyes of Hazel Grace Lancaster with her boyfriend Augustus Waters. However, with their everlasting affection, came a price. It is true, that “Everyone in this tale has a rock-solid hamartia” (Green 111). The horror of their lives was impending death that comes with their cancer. It was the disease that which brought them together, and ultimately, is the same cancer to sever their bond. Although Hazel’s fears could have suppressed her actions, the motif of fear within The Fault in Our Stars serves to contribute the message that fear keeps people open to the truth and serves as a motivator.

In John Green’s novel, The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel compares herself to a grenade that is volatile and can explode at any time and she is worried that she only leaves a negative impact on people and she will face oblivion which is her fear. She believes that people will only remember her flaws after she dies instead of her accomplishments and her positive traits despite her constant support from her parents and Augustus. Hazel tries to rationalize her cancer throughout the novel in various ways by presenting her thoughts indirectly to readers. The fact that cancer can kill somebody within seconds or in many years due to the fast widespread of cancer cells that doctors cannot find the cure to, despite the chemotherapy that people receive, cancer

Through the journey of life, it is one's decision to make their life happy and fruitful or relinquish it meaninglessly. Despite being a part of the incredibly small statistic of teenage terminal cancer, Hazel and Augustus handle their teenage angst with grace and humour.

Individuals with cancer need to be seen as “normal” humans and not just a victim of cancer. In “A Fault in Our Stars,” John Green utilizes the characters Augustus and Hazel’s to emphasize their quest for normalcy, through dating, becoming part of a social group, and the journey to meet their hero, in order to express the need to be seen as individuals not just cancer victims.

The need for a peer group and emotions from Konopka’s study is well represented in the novel written by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars. When Hazel’s mother and doctor believe that she is falling into depression, they agree to send her to a cancer support group. They believe that a peer group would help Hazel find a reason behind the cancer and to stop repeating the same actions, such as watching the same show and reading the same book in her case. Even though the support group did not necessarily do what it was meant to, she met two of her friends throughout the book there, Isaac and Augustus. This group led her to the happier emotional side of the young adult realistic fiction novel, which was love.