LITERATURE ANALYSIS #1

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

First of all, I really enjoyed this book! It may not be on the AP list, it is definitely worth the read. But, be prepared to spend your Friday night curled up in bed crying for hours while you read this book. (Well, that's what happened to me at least.)

1. Exposition: The story begins with Hazel Grace. She is a seventeen-year old with cancer that makes it very difficult for her to breathe. The audience gets to know Hazel by learning about her day to day life. We see that Hazel is accepting of her cancer. She goes along with life accepting the fact that she will die sooner than most. She doesn’t go to school but her mother makes her take classes at the community college. She has her oxygen that she must carry around everywhere and she loves reality TV, especially America’s Next Top Model. Her mom makes her go to this support group that Hazel doesn’t really find beneficial. At support group, she meets Augustus Waters. She is immediately intrigued by this boy who had osteosarcoma and now has a prosthetic leg. In the introduction, we also learn that Hazel’s favorite book that she has read multiple times is An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten. It’s about a girl with cancer and Hazel feels like that author understands her.
Rising Action: In this stage of the story, Augustus and Hazel spend a great deal of time together. They watch movies, bond over each other’s favorite books, and talk about being “cancer kids”. They have their late at night phone calls and for the first time, Hazel begins to see more to her life than cancer. Augustus reads An Imperial Affliction and loves it and they bond over how the open-ended ending is intriguing and they speculate about what should have happened in the book. Augustus starts writing to Peter Van Houten about what happens after the book ended and he gets a response so Hazel writes to him as well. Eventually, Van Houten’s assistant offers them an invitation to come visit Peter in Amsterdam.
Climax: The climax of the story happens when Augustus uses his cancer “wish” to take Hazel and her mother to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten. The trip is going very well until they have their meeting with Van Houten. He a cantankerous, rude, unfriendly man and makes no efforts to be nice to Hazel and Augustus. He refuses to talk about his book and acts very uppity around them. He makes a comment about cancer children being a “failed experiment in mutation” and his insensitive comments cause Lidewij, his assistant, to resign, and hazel to throw his scotch at his face. Hazel had built up Van Houten to be an amazing man but after meeting him, that hope was shattered. Augustus and Hazel try to enjoy the rest of their time in Amsterdam. They become intimate and at the end of the trip, Augustus confesses that his cancer has come back all over his body and he doesn’t have much longer to live.
Falling Action: Hazel’s life now becomes consumed with watching Augustus live his last days. He has good days and bad, mostly bad and he gets weaker every day. Hazel reads him a eulogy that she wrote. Hazel spends her days waiting for him to die but when it happens, it’s still a shock.
Resolution: Hazel is devastated when Augustus dies. At the funeral, she is surprised to see Peter Van Houten. Augustus had been corresponding with him before he died. Van Houten confesses to Hazel that An Imperial Affliction had been about his young daughter who died of cancer. Hazel also gets the letters that Augustus wrote Peter about her.

2. One theme that stood out to me in this novel was the theme of identity. Hazel experiences a lot of self-discovery throughout the novel. She allows her cancer to be her identity but throughout the novel, she learns to become more than that. Cancer is such a huge part of her life that she allows it to consume her, and she sees herself as nothing more than a person, destined die sooner than most, with some awful lungs. She thinks this way until she meets Augustus. Throughout their relationship, Hazel learns to live as more than her cancer. She travels to Amsterdam and lives her life rather than sitting around and thinking about when she will inevitably die.

3. I think that the tone of the novel is best described as candid and sincere. The author writes honestly and doesn’t hold back anything that Hazel or any of the other characters are thinking. One quote that displays this tone from the first edition, pages 7-8 is “I went to Support Group for the same reason that I’d once allowed nurses with a mere eighteen months of graduate education to poison me with exotically named chemicals: I wanted to make my parents happy.” Hazel is very open about her experiences and doesn’t hold back anything. She will admit that she thinks Support Group is terrible and she is honest with herself. Another quote is from page 153, “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”. Augustus says this to Hazel and it is pure honestly. He isn’t afraid to say what he feels and this is tone for most characters throughout the novel. Another candid quote is from Peter Van Houten from pages 192/193 “Sick children inevitably become arrested: You are fated to live out your days as the child you were when diagnosed, the adults, we pity this, so we pay for your treatments, for your oxygen machines. We give you food and water though you are unlikely to live long enough--You are a side effect, of an evolutionary process that cares little for individual lives. You are a failed experiment in mutation.” Though this is a very insensitive thing to say, especially to two teenagers with cancer, it is Peter being honest. The tone is always honest, even if it is uncomfortable.

4. One textual device that is crucial to this story is irony. The entire story, the audience is led to believe that Hazel’s terminal cancer will end her life by the end of the novel. Augustus is the stronger one who beat his cancer. He takes care of Hazel in some ways and is seen as the “healthy” one. The irony is prevalent when Augustus takes a turn for the worst and dies. “Augustus Waters died eight days after his prefuneral, at Memorial, in the ICU, when the cancer, which was made of him, finally stopped his heart, which was also made of him.” Page 261. Augustus’s death was unexpected and showed that we never really know where life will lead.
Another device used is personification. Hazel often refers to her cancer as if it is a person, or a tangible thing. “That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt” page 63. The cancer is such a big part of their lives that they associate with it in a different way. They accept it for what it is.
Allusions are used throughout the story. “Everyone in this tale has a rock-solid hamartia: hers, that she is so sick; yours, that you are so well. Were she better or you sicker, then the stars would not be so terribly crossed, but it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius note, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / but in ourselves.” Easy enough to say when you’re a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.” Page 111-112. This quote from Peter Van Houten alludes to Julius Caesar and shows how unfair our modern world can be. This allusion connects to the title of the novel as well.
Bildungsroman is another element used. The entire novel is about Hazel developing as a character and becoming a stronger person. We see her grow and learn to live her life as she loves Augustus. “I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” Page 260. By the end of the novel, Hazel was such a different person. She learned to love someone and she learned to be thankful. In the beginning of the novel, she wouldn’t have had the chance to feel these emotions, but by the end she had experienced so much more and it transformed her.
The characterization of the novel really develops the relationship between Hazel and Augustus. The way those two are characterized is different than how the rest of the characters are characterized. These two are the only two that understand each other. Other characters try to be nice and understand but the will never understand like Augustus and Hazel understand each other. “You are not a grenade, not to us. Thinking about you dying makes us sad, Hazel, but you are not a grenade. You are amazing. You can't know, sweetie, because you've never had a baby become a brilliant young reader with a side interest in horrible television shows" page 103. Hazel’s parents are characterized as supportive and loving but they will never understand her the way that Augustus does and this makes their relationship even more intense.
The point of view in the novel helps the audience connect with Hazel. The first person narration by Hazel gives the audience an inside look into her relationship with Augustus. We are able to see growth as a character as well. “I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space.” Page 72. The audience always knows exactly how Hazel feels about everything.
Since this is essentially a book about cancer, there are a fair amount of euphemisms. Hazel tries to avoid these euphemisms as much as possible because she likes honesty. While other characters say things like “passed away” and “cancer perks” Hazel isn’t afraid to say dying. “I mean, I would just die—" and then stopped short, looking at me as if to say I'm sorry, as if it were a crime to mention death to the dying.” Page 44. Kaitlyn feels the need to walk on eggshells about what she says around Hazel, but Hazel wishes people wouldn’t use these euphemisms.
This novel is definitely a tragedy. At many points in the story, Hazel and Augustus are tired of life and cannot stand where life has brought them. “It was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second worse than the last.” Page 262. When Augustus dies, Hazel is devastated. She had never experienced anything this painful before (which says a lot considering her cancer). Augustus was her first love and he was taken away from her way too soon.
Epiphanies are very important in the novel. Hazel’s epiphany in Amsterdam changes the way that she views the world. “Something inside me welled up and I reached down and smacked the swollen hand that held the glass of Scotch. What remained of the Scotch splashed across the vast expanse of his face, the glass bouncing off his nose then spinning balletically through the air” Page 193-194. Hazel had built up such high expectations of Peter Van Houten that when he turned out to be a jerk, she couldn’t handle it. This experience made her realize that people don’t up to your expectations, and there isn’t always an answer to everything.
Pathos is used in this novel. Most of this story appeals to the emotional side of the audience. Many of have lost a loved one and can relate to Hazel losing Augustus and this connects us with the protagonist on a more personal level. “I wrapped my arms all the way around my mom’s middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in” Page 267. After Augustus dies, Hazel is emotionally in shambles and it’s so sad to watch her experience this because if you’ve experienced something similar, you that nothing can stop the hurt. Her situation appeals so much to the reader’s emotions.