Irony In The Fault In Our Stars

In the novel The Fault in Our Stars (2012), John Green shows that the misfortunes of humanity are sometimes not cause by our own doings but by the merciless and insensitivities of the universe. Green achieves this through the romantic relationship of two central adolescent characters Hazel and Augustus, who constantly use figurative techniques such as metaphors and similes in their dialogue with one another. The irony of Augustus’s death reinforces Green’s concept that humanity’s blunders are sometimes not caused by our own actions, but by the cruel and insensitive twists of fate.
The Fault in our Stars explores one main idea of value being, the harshness of the universe. The main protagonist of the novel, Hazel, is a shrewd and diligent sixteen-year-old girl diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer. Hazel’s cancer is rare and terminal so she knows the inevitable will happen and minimizes the amount of people she hurts in the world because time is fleeting. In Chapter 6, Hazel says, “I’m like a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimise the casualties, okay?”. Hazel uses a simile to compare herself to an explosive weapon

Augustus is a confident seventeen-year-old with osteosarcoma who becomes Hazel's boyfriend. Although Augustus is diagnosed with osteosarcoma, he remains bright and animated. In Chapter 1, Augustus can be remembered saying, “I’m on a rollercoaster that only goes up my friend”. Augustus uses a metaphor in this dialogue in order to emphasise that his life is only improving by the minute although his health suddenly declines throughout the second half of the book. He repeats this metaphorical phrase. Rather than seeing his life as a downward spiral, he somewhat sarcastically creates imagery of his life flourishing. The universe insensitively relapses his osteosarcoma as he was on the verge of getting