“[This] is very important to remember when reading or writing or talking or whatever: You are never, ever choosing whether to use symbols. You are choosing which symbols to use” (fishingboatproceeds 5). John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars, believes that symbols in literature are necessary and can always be found, whether the author intended for them to be there or not. In this award-winning novel, a young girl named Hazel, who has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, is forced to attend a support group. While at the meeting, she meets another cancer victim, Augustus Waters, who attended only to support his friend Isaac. As Hazel and Augustus grow closer and fall for each other, Hazel shares her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, …show more content…
(The Ending of An Imperial Affliction 1) This story, written by the fictional author Peter Van Houten, is about a girl, Anna, who is much like Hazel. Anna is also battling with cancer, and An Imperial Affliction is about her life and her struggle to stay alive. While, at the same time, trying to make sure that the lives of those around her are not ruined in her wake. Hazel deeply relates to Anna as her thoughts and opinions on cancer nearly mirror Hazel’s own. Eventually, Hazel subconsciously allows the lines between her world and Anna’s fictional word to blur. She begins to connect the fate of her friends and family to those of the novel characters, and becomes obsessed with finding out what happens to them after the book ends (Sparknotes Editors 1). To quote Hazel herself, “I understood the story ended because Anna died or got too sick to write and this midsentence thing was supposed to reflect how life really ends and whatever, but there were characters other than Anna in the story, and it seemed unfair that I would never find out what happened to them” (Green, PAGE NUMBER). The book also symbolizes the healing value of fiction, as it helps Hazel cope with her disease. (Only if you read TFiOS 2) This symbol helps to show the importance of books and their effect on our lives. “It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth but you don’t give it the power to do it’s killing” -Augustus Waters (Green, 20). In The …show more content…
“The Fault in Our Stars by John Green Review.”
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Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York. Penguin Group, 2012. Print.
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Every novel embodies symbols that impute different elements of the plot and characters, though some symbols are right at the surface while others must be dug up from the core. The author of How To Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster, discusses symbols in his novel and states “They are what provide texture and depth to a work; without them, the literary world would be a little flat” (243). A symbol that is prevalent in The Shipping News, written by Annie Proulx, is the knot, as visually displayed all throughout the novel. The Shipping News discusses social and emotional change, along with growth, which all can be symbolized by the knot. While knots habitually symbolize conjointment, the implications of knots in this book symbolize strengths and weaknesses, past and present, as well as emotional and social change.
In Cormac McCarthy's 2006 play, The Sunset Limited, McCarthy gives the reader very vague information about the setting and surroundings of the conversation that is occurring throughout the entire work. In the opening stage directions, an essential prop to the play is the "door [is] fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars" (3). The image of the locks is referenced a multitude of times within the duration of the play, as the two men, Black and White, sit at a table and debate the ways of the world. This conversation stems from Black saving White from committing suicide the previous morning and ineffectively tries to keep White from leaving to end his life. Throughout The Sunset Limited, the locks and bars of the door represent the overarching
Cancer affects Hazel Grace, Augustus Waters, and their families deeply, it represents the lost, hope, and surprise of cancer often, but this is not only true in books,it also affects people in real life, parents start to view their kids differently, and the children start to view themselves as nothing but disease, and the culture they once had starts to change. Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace each have their own struggles, Hazel suffers from thyroid cancer and is terminal, Augustus had been cured, but it popped back making his body full of cancer, he as well ending up with terminal cancer. Often organizations and people would give them a little bit more because they are kids who had inevitability of death to look to. They both having to deal with the fact that they never knew what was coming, or if Hazel would lose Augustus first or if Augustus will lose Hazel first, though eventually that fact became obvious. Their families treat them in a way if they were healthy, they wouldn’t be treated in such a way. In real life there are hundreds who suffer cancer, but less who are terminal. Families have to learn how to deal with this, especially when the person is an adolescent. There are point where The Fault in Our Stars shows how different society becomes for those with cancer, and this is true in real life. Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace experiences and cancer let us view the world of cancer for several.
One of the main themes of this novel is the fight against cancer. All three of the main characters struggle with cancer. Hazel struggles with her terminal lung cancer, and Isaac has to have his eyes removed because of cancer. Augustus, who has already lost a leg to Osteoscarcoma, struggles with his cancer returning. However, they all learn through this that their cancer does not control them. They still live their lives to the fullest that they can, and make the best of what they have.
When was the last time you felt certain of your impending future? For cancer survivor, Hazel, the answer is never. In The Fault in Our Stars, sixteen year old Hazel lives with cancer and attends a support group where she meets Augustus, another young cancer survivor who changes her outlook on the world forever. He takes Hazel on an adventure of love, friendship, and pain, and together they yearn to have authority over their uncontrollable fates. Isaac, a blind teenager, and Hazel’s mom also play significant roles in her life. Similarly, in Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie strengthen their friendship through love and suffering, and they learn that humans have some control over their end destination. At the ranch they work at, Lennie and George have to choose how they want their lives to turn out, which directly impacts the choices they will make regarding the future. While John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men both establish motifs of friendship, games, and hands, they convey different universal ideas about humanity. In particular, Green suggests that humans cannot always manipulate every situation, while Steinbeck focuses on the ideas that men often have a choice in their destinies.
The reader is put in the middle of a war of nerves and will between two men, one of which we have grown up to learn to hate. This only makes us even more emotional about the topic at hand. For a history book, it was surprisingly understandable and hard to put down. It enlightened me to the complex problems that existed in the most memorable three months this century.
Borio, Gene, “Tobacco Timeline: The Twentieth Century 1900-1949—The Rise of the Cigarette.” Chapter 6. 1993-2003.
Griffin, R. Morgan. The "E-Cigarettes 101" WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - Web N.p., 3 Jan. 2014. Web. The Web. The Web.
Timothy Findley Creates a fictional world through his novels, where readers can relate to the situations and characters. The protagonists that Findley creates are often similar and connected to the hardships that they eventually encounter and defeat or that which they are defeated by. Findley takes his readers back in time to the First World War, displaying his knowledge of history and research, where the hardships of a young soldier’s battles internally and externally are brought to the reader’s attention in his historical-fiction novel The Wars. Findley writes about the reality and absurdity of the First World War, and takes the reader’s on a journey through the active reading process to find what is “sane” and “Insane” throughout the duration of the novel. Following the journey of the protagonist, Robert Ross as he enlists in the Canadian Army after the death of his sister Rowena, and undoubtedly is the turning point of the text and ideally where Findley initiates the active reading process, and where the contents placed in the story by Findley, are analyzed and opinionated based on the reader’s perception and subjectivity of truth. Essayist Anne Reynolds writes “ Findley manages, through technical prowess, to combine Hemingway-like choices of clear moment searing horror and truth at the battlefront with scenes depicting the effects of war on the families and lovers of the soldiers.” (Reynolds, 4) According to Reynolds Findley has been able to display the absurdity and affect that not only the First World War has caused but the ludicrousness war in general has caused the families of soldiers, and society as a whole. Using the literary theory of deconstruction many aspects and scenarios in The Wars can be analyzed, as Fin...
Augustus Waters always used to say, “The world is not a wish granting factory” (Green 214). In The Fault in Our Stars, both Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Lancaster are dealt a far-from ideal situation for life. At the young age of thirteen, Hazel was diagnosed with nearly incurable stage four thyroid cancer with metastasis forming in her lungs. By some miracle, she survived; but, she does not thrive at all. In fact, she struggles severely, carrying around an oxygen tank wherever she goes, and even still she has to get fluid drained out of her lungs every so often. Gus, on the other hand, was diagnosed with 85% curable osteosarcoma and had to get his leg amputated. This ended his promising basketball career, and even still the cancer ended up taking more of his life; in fact the whole thing. Though Augustus and Hazel would have both wished for easier lives, sometimes what is real is not ideal; and in their case, what was real wasn’t even close to being ideal. As Augustus’s life came to an end, he always spoke about it being his personal dream to be remembered and not dying in vain. He needed to feel like his life had a purpose, which all individuals search for along with hope and truth. Augustus died and left the “sequel” to An Imperial
Life is a purpose, waiting to be fulfilled. The paper intends to take into account the lives of the protagonists of the fault in our stars to infer the meaning and true purpose of life.
Although it is beneficial for the economy for the production of tobacco products it is extremely risky to use the product. According to researchers second-hand smoke is terrible for everyone in the world who walk by someone who is exhaling. In the article by Robert Proctor “Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition” he states that cigarettes are the “most deadl...
charged with covering up the addictive properties of nicotine and finding ways to exploit it to increase profits. For example, in Wigand’s interview for 60 Minutes, he says that tobacco companies view cigarettes only as a delivery device for nicotine. He also says they take advantage of the addictive properties by manipulating and adj...
One of the biggest problems that people are faced with on a day-to-day basis is cigarette smoke. The sole cause for 480,000 deaths each year just in the United States is accredit to cigarettes(CDC). For a lot of the smokers the habit of smoking happens to assist them when under stress and dealing with issues that are unmanageable. Some smoke to appeal to their peers or simply because it “feels good.” Smoking one cigarette can lead to a major addiction. The effects of smoking hurt oneself and those amongst us. Smoking Kills as the ad portrays this revolver and cigarettes as the bullets, and also lists the side effects of smoking. Cigarettes causes cancer, increases the risk of you getting a stroke, highly addictive and causes a lot of health problems. Nearly 16
“Dangers of Smoking Cigarettes for Smokers” healthliteracy.worlded.org. Copyright 1995 by Marjorie Jacobs revised 1997, n.d web 14 April 2011