Saturday, 2 June 2012

The Fault in Our Stars - A Reading Response

 *SPOILER ALERT*

      The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is a novel following sixteen year old Hazel Grace after she meets beautiful Augustus Waters. Meeting at a Child Support Group for cancer (they both have terminal cancer but of different sorts - though he has been NEC for a while), the two bond over a book and go so far as to travel to Amsterdam to learn the end of the story from the writer himself, whom turns out to be a drunken mess. When they return home, Augustus is revealed to have had a recurrence and dies shortly after. Unable to find closure, Hazel eventually finds comfort in the letters that he had sent antemortem to the writer.
       The way that John uses the characterization of Hazel and Augustus really helped bring out the themes and made them believable.
       A theme that I found the writer tried to convey to the reader is that lasting throughout existence -like a celebrity or sports player- is, at least for the most part, not possible; however, we live on past our deaths in the decisions we made and in the people we loved, the people we taught, and the people we scarred.
       I believe that the author of TFIOS also meant to imply that regardless of the fact that the end of human civilization is inevitable, we should still strive to be good people and live - or at the very least try to live - full and engaging lives.
      
       In the story, the writer successfully uses characterization to create a three-dimensional character that is believable and helps reveal the theme. Hazel's complete and honest understanding and acceptance of death and oblivion and how all things will eventually come to an end, struck me as something interesting, especially when compared to Augustus who seems to need to leave the world something after his death. Hazel understands that "Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught." (13) and others see this in her as well - "Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either." (312) Augustus is also an interesting character: He strives to live past his death, not only in those who knew him, but in everyone around him. He is, in many ways, the polar opposite of his star-crossed love. A thing that I find important to note is the fact that he is entirely aware of this fact. He says it himself in his closing letter, "Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I want to leave my mark." (310)
       Augustus' death, and the realisation that only a limited few really knew his inner thoughts, [so only a few will really remember him as he actually was] helps show that not everyone will remember you. Or, better yet, not everyone will remember you as you wish to be remembered, which leaves us with an important question: Is it truly worth being remembered for something that we are not? But, Augustus will forever live in Hazel's heart and in the memory of his parents, and his friends. He has left them with happy memories of himself [though not accurate portrayals of himself]. 
      A second thing that I couldn't help but notice was the abundant number of symbols: The water that both keeps Hazel alive and threatens her very existence, the cigarette that is smoked but remains unlit, and the chalked cover: chalk, of course, being a very in-permanent way of writing something. My favorite symbol, the symbol that was possibly most obviously displayed was the cigarette. In fact, after having angered Hazel, Augustus explains that "They don't kill you unless you light them. And [he's] never lit one. It's a metaphor: You put the killing thing right between your teeth but you don't give it the power to do it's killing." (20) This leads the reader to think about how, regardless of the fact that he is an amputee that - though he doesn't know about it at the time - is no longer NEC (no evidence of cancer), he can still see the good in life, and how he is cautious so that he may continue to live on.

      Alaska, a protagonist in John Green's past book, Looking for Alaska, is similar to Augustus Waters in several ways. Firstly, though she does not strive to outlast her death, she lives in the moment, making the best of every situation. For this, she is remembered, and will always be remembered by those who knew her. She leaves her mark, though I believe her mark may be more of a scar. Pudge [The narrator of LFA] references the fact that "we are greater than the sum of our parts" (221), and I believe this to be especialy true in both Augustus and Alaska. So much life, and happiness and general goodness could not possibly fit into their small frames. I may not have lived the tragic events that they have but I am positive that I would not be able to handle it with half their class.
     In the end, in their untimely ends, they were remembered in the hearts of those who loved them, and they did leave their marks.


-Kim

No comments:

Post a Comment