Syed Najam
Prof: Supinski
English 101-43
11/9/14
Essay on Fault in Our Stars
The “Fault in our stars” is a drama and romance based novel written by John Green, where two teenagers Augustus and Hazel meet each other in a cancer support group and catch a glimpse of each other. They both have different views on life and death, so let’s examine what life really means for them.
Hazel was told when she was diagnosed with cancer that her days were numbered and that she was going to die because there was no cure for her type on illness, knowing of this she became for accepting of this, but feared the inevitable she has to make peace with it. When an extreme pain occurred in the middle of the night she had a thought she was going to die and when death didn’t come she just wanted the pain to be over. Hazel saw herself as a grenade waiting to explode and wants to minimize the casualties.
On the other hand there is Augustus who’s main gripes about dying is that he always wanted to live a more meaningful life, one that would go down in history as meaningful and heroic and wanted to be remembered. He fears oblivion and the unknown, because he really doesn’t follow a religion so the mere thought of afterlife is from zero to none. For some people not knowing makes them anxious and Augustus in the kind of person who wants to battle and fight for his life. He references “Abraham Maslow’s triangle exclaiming that, “there is no honor in dying of” as he always tried to do honorable things: so he has a hard time believing that the cancer, something made of his own cells will be the death of him. This is a kid who makes things happen. Hazel's been writing to Peter Van Houten for years, trying to get him to explain the end of his book, but Augustus is the one who succeeds in contacting him because of his dogged determination.
Hazel imagines what it would be like for Augustus after she dies. And especially since he's already had one girlfriend die of cancer, she doesn't want to do that to him. But the thing is, you can't stop yourself from hurting everyone. It's just not possible. He is so concerned with this that Hazel even considers faking an act of helplessness for him to save the day:
“It crossed
