The Fault in Our Stars
1. This story starts off by introducing you to the narrator and other main characters. There is Hazel, who is telling the story and there is her mother who is overprotective and there is Augustus, who changes Hazel's entire life. Hazel is a sixteen year old girl with thyroid cancer and has mets in her lungs. Augustus is seventeen who had recovered from osteosarcoma. They meet at support group and Augustus finds her to be very beautiful. Hazel isn't use to boys complimenting her and she immediately befriends him. They eventually become really good friends who know each others likes and dislikes more than their own parents. Augustus falls in love with Hazel and works on getting Hazel to say it back. Hazel doesn't let herself love anyone because she looks at herself as a ticking bomb. A grenade that is going to explode someday and she wants to minimize the casualties. Never did she think she would love a grenade, and never did she think she would be the casualty. The purpose of the narrative is to make you feel as if you are reading a true story, like Hazel is their in support group telling you all about her hard times.
2. One theme is the fear of oblivion. Augustus has this fear of oblivion which helps you distinguish just how scared of dying he really is. He is obsessed with wanting to do things heroic before he dies, he wants to matter even after he is dead.
3. Hazel is very straight up, she tells it like it is in a very snarky way. An example of this is when she says " That particularly galled me, because it implied the immortality of those left behind: You will live forever in my memory, because I will live forever! I AM YOUR GOD NOW, DEAD BOY! I OWN YOU! Thinking you won't die is yet another side effect of dying." She is also very funny when what she is saying shouldn't be something you laugh at because in reality it's just so true and upsetting. An example of this is "I didn't tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die." This also makes her cautious and considerate. She never wants to make people pity or worry for her. "I'm like a grenade, Mom. I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay? I'm a grenade, I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay? I'm not depressed. I don't need to get out more. And I can't be a regular teenager, because I am a grenade."
4. Irony
Isaac who is a friend to both Gus and Hazel has a girlfriend who he thinks is the one "Always is their thing. They'll always love each other or whatever." eventually though, his eye sight goes and his girlfriend claims she can't be with him because of it. So their 'Always' doesn't last forever like they claimed it would. " Always was a promise. Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them, but you keep them anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway." She promised him always, but couldn't keep it.
Foreshadowing
Referring to the quote above, Augustus tells Hazel their 'Always' should be the word 'okay' because they always say that to each other when they have nothing else to say. Of course this implies that Augustus will always love Hazel.
Foreshadowing
"I'm a grenade..." Hazel refers to her I'm a grenade quote throughout the entire book, but as soon as she lets her guard down and accepts one more 'casualty' she realizes that she is the one loving a grenade. "I couldn't be mad at him for even a moment, and 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 August Waters. And I didn't want to." She keeps her promise and always loves him.
The author creates this giant plot twist by making it seem like Hazel is going to die and we will have to watch Augustus suffer from another girlfriend death, but instead he dies and we watch Hazel love him always.
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Isaac is an example of direct characterization. We don't know what he's thinking nor do we get any serious story line for him, we just know what we are told. Hazel's mom is also a good example of direct characterization. All we know is what we are told by Hazel, there are not multiple characters telling us any information about her mom, it's just the narrator, Hazel. Hazel and Augustus are examples of indirect characterization. Hazel, who is the narrator is not the same person she was at the beginning of the book, so her analysis of her character changes. She goes from being really sheltered and careful to living and lovely openly and freely. We get to read her thoughts and almost feel her emotions. Augustus' actions are what define him. He says nothing, but sweet things to Hazel. I think the author uses both approaches so you make a better emotional connection with both Hazel and Augustus.
2. The authors syntax changes when in conversation with another character, but other wise both the syntax and diction don't change or vary.
3. The protagonists in this story are all the people and they're very dynamic. The antagonist would be the cancer and everyone it effects, even the people who don't have the cancer are still effected by it.
4. After reading this book I found that I had attached myself to the characters as a person who knew their love story, but didn't know them personally. They didn't like to friend people mostly because people would always pity them and they didn't like being around those types of people. I did however fall in love with their love story and felt as if I understood completely how she felt. She would always love him even long after they both die, she would still love him. She promised him always in beginning of the book and ended the book the same way a marriage, a promise begins with an 'I do' and that line affected me the most. "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have get to have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers." and she follows that quote by Augustus with an "I do, Augustus. I do."
