English 1201 – The Fault in our Stars
full title · The Fault In Our Stars
author · John Green
type of work · Novel
genre · Young Adult
time and place written · 2002-2012; America and Amsterdam
narrator · Hazel Grace Lancaster
point of view · Hazel narrates the story in the first person, giving the reader access to her
thoughts but also limiting the reader’s perspective to what she sees.
tone · The tone is generally direct, as Hazel tells her story in a straightforward manner, but is
also often introspective and philosophical as Hazel considers existential questions.
tense · Past tense, with the exception of the last sentence.
setting (time) · The year is never explicitly mentioned, but based on context clues such as
physical setting and technology the story takes place presumably anytime between 2008 and
2012.
setting (place) · Indianapolis and Amsterdam
protagonist · Hazel Grace Lancaster
major conflict · Hazel struggles to figure out how to live her life and find meaning in it as first
she and then more urgently boy she loves face terminal cancer.
rising action · Hazel meets Augustus Waters and quickly falls in love with him as they bond and
travel to Amsterdam, but soon they discover that Augustus’s cancer has returned.
climax · Hazel rushes to the gas station where Augustus, his health badly deteriorated, finds
himself stuck and helpless.
falling action · Augustus passes away, and Hazel realizes that as much as the pain of losing
Augustus hurts, she still thinks the pain was worth it.
themes · The Necessity of Suffering; Fear of Oblivion; The Insensitivity of the Universe; The
Realities of Terminal Cancer; The Importance of Fiction
motifs · Drowning; Metaphors; Existentialism
symbols · Water; Augustus’s cigarettes; Grenade; An Imperial Affliction
foreshadowing · Augustus begins writing to Van Houten; Augustus frequently sacrifices himself
in the video games he plays; Augustus argues with his parents before leaving on the trip to
Amsterdam.
The Story Plot
Seventeen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster reluctantly attends a cancer patients' support group at
her mother’s behest. Because of her cancer, she uses a portable oxygen tank to breathe properly.
In one of the meetings she catches the eye of a teenage boy, and through the course of the
meeting she learns the boy’s name is Augustus Waters. He's there to support their mutual friend,
Isaac. Isaac had a tumor in one eye that he had removed, and now he has to have his other eye
taken out as well. After the meeting ends, Augustus approaches Hazel and tells her she looks like
Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. He invites Hazel to his house to watch the movie, and while
hanging out, the two discuss their experiences with cancer. Hazel reveals she has thyroid cancer
that has spread to her lungs. Augustus had osteosarcoma, but he is now cancer free after having
his leg amputated. Before Augustus takes Hazel home, they agree to read one another’s favorite
novels. Augustus gives Hazel The Price of Dawn, and Hazel recommends An Imperial Affliction.
Hazel explains the magnificence of An Imperial Affliction: It is a novel about a girl named Anna
who has cancer, and it's the only account she's read of living with cancer that matches her
experience. She describes how the novel maddeningly ends midsentence, denying the reader
closure about the fate of the novel’s characters. She speculates about the novel’s mysterious
author, Peter Van Houten, who fled to Amsterdam after the novel was published and hasn’t been
heard from since.
A week after Hazel and Augustus discuss the literary meaning of An Imperial Affliction,
Augustus miraculously reveals he tracked down Van Houten's assistant, Lidewij, and through her
he's managed to start an email correspondence with the reclusive author. He shares Van Houten's
letter with Hazel, and she devises a list of questions to send Van Houten, hoping to clear up the
novel’s ambiguous conclusion. Hazel is most concerned with the fate of Anna’s mother. She
figures that if Anna’s mother survives her daughter’s death, then her own parents will be alright
after Hazel dies. Van Houten eventually replies, saying he could only answer Hazel’s questions
in person. He invites her to stop by if she is ever in Amsterdam.
Shortly after Augustus invites Hazel on a picnic. It turns out he's planned an elaborate Dutchthemed picnic where he reveals that a charitable foundation that grants the wishes of kids with
cancer has agreed to grant his: he's taking the two of them to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten.
She is thrilled, but when he touches her face she feels hesitant for some reason. Over time she
realizes that she likes him a lot, but she knows she'll hurt him when she dies. She compares
herself to a grenade.
In the midst of her struggle over what to do about Augustus, Hazel suffers a serious episode in
which her lungs fill with fluid and she goes to the ICU. When she is released after a period of
days, she learns that Augustus never left the hospital’s waiting room. He delivers Hazel another
letter from Van Houten, this one more personal and more cryptic than the last. After reading the
letter, Hazel is more determined than ever to go to Amsterdam. There is a problem though: Her
parents and her team of doctors don’t think Hazel is strong enough to travel. The situation seems
hopeless until one of the physicians most familiar with her case, Dr. Maria, convinces Hazel’s
parents that Hazel must travel because she needs to live her life.
The plans are made for Augustus, Hazel, and Hazel's mother to go to Amsterdam, but when
Hazel and Augustus meet Van Houten they find that, instead of a prolific genius, he is a meanspirited drunk who claims he cannot answer any of Hazel’s questions. The two leave Van
Houten’s in utter disappointment, and accompanied by Lidewij, who feels horrified by Van
Houten's behavior, they tour Anne Frank’s house. At the end of the tour, Augustus and Hazel
share a romantic kiss, to the applause of spectators. They head back to the hotel where they make
love for the first and only time. The following day, Augustus confesses that while Hazel was in
the ICU he had a body scan which revealed his cancer has returned and spread everywhere. They
return to Indianapolis, and Hazel realizes Augustus is now the grenade. As his condition worsens
he is less prone to his typical charm and confidence. He becomes vulnerable and scared, but is
still a beautiful boy in Hazel’s mind. As this change occurs, she ceases calling him Augustus and
starts referring to him as just Gus, as his parents do. Hazel recognizes that she loves him now as
much as ever. Augustus’s condition deteriorates quickly. In his final days Augustus arranges a
prefuneral for himself, and Isaac and Hazel give eulogies. Hazel steals a line from Van Houten
about larger and smaller infinities. She says how much she loves Augustus, and that she would
not trade their short time together for anything in the world.
Augustus dies eight days later. Hazel is astonished to find Van Houten at the funeral. Van
Houten explains that he and Gus maintained correspondence and that Augustus demanded Van
Houten make up for ruining the trip to Amsterdam by coming to his funeral to see Hazel. Van
Houten abstractly reveals the fate of Anna’s mother, but Hazel is not interested. A few days later
Isaac informs Hazel that Augustus was writing something for her. He had hinted about writing a
sequel to An Imperial Affliction for her, and as Hazel scrambles to locate the pages she
encounters Van Houten once more. He drunkenly reveals that Anna was the name of his
daughter. She died of cancer when she was eight, and An Imperial Affliction was his literary
attempt at reconciling himself with her death. Hazel tells Van Houten to sober up and write
another book.
Eventually Hazel learns that Augustus sent the pages to Van Houten because he wanted Van
Houten to use the pages to compose a well-written eulogy about Hazel. Lidewij forces Van
Houten to read the pages and sends them straight off to Hazel. The novel concludes with Hazel
reading Augustus’s words. He says getting hurt in this world is inevitable, but we do get to
choose who we allow to hurt us, and that he his happy with his choice. He hopes she likes her
choice too. The final words of the novel come from Hazel, who says she does.
Themes
The Necessity of Suffering
Unsurprisingly for a novel about kids dying of cancer, suffering is a prominent part of the
character’s lives. Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac all endure quite a bit of physical and emotional
pain. The buildup of fluid in Hazel’s lungs deprives her of oxygen, leading to a bout of intense
pain that lands her in the emergency room. Isaac has to contend with losing his remaining eye,
which leaves him blind and leads his girlfriend to break up with him. Augustus physically
deteriorates to the point that he has to take pain medication strong enough to leave him nearly
incoherent, and he suffers to know he’ll never accomplish any of the heroic things he wanted to
do in his life. In the eyes of the novels’s characters, specifically Hazel and Augustus, all these
types of pain are simply a part of living, a side effect of it as Hazel might put it. That doesn’t
mean they’re desirable, just that they’re inevitable.
But the most thematically significant type of pain in the novel is that caused by the death of a
loved one, and it’s this variety that the novel suggests is the most necessary. Hazel worries a
great deal about inflicting this kind of suffering on those around her when she dies, leading her to
come up with the metaphor of the grenade that explodes and injures everyone nearby. It turns out
she becomes the victim of this kind of pain when Augustus begins to weaken and finally
succumbs to his cancer. What Hazel comes to understand is that this type of pain can’t be
avoided. Since dying is certain and universal, all people will experience it. But as Hazel comes to
recognize over the course of the novel, it isn’t necessarily something one should avoid. She
wouldn’t take back the love she feels for Augustus for anything, even though that love is the
precise cause of her pain. It’s a blessing and a curse, so to speak. The reason, as Augustus
suggests in his letter to Van Houten that Hazel reads at the end of the novel, is that the pain you
cause others when you die is a mark that you mattered. Augustus says happily that he left his
“scar” on Hazel, meaning he hurt her but he also had an effect on her life that she’ll carry with
her always. That type of pain, the novel suggests, is necessary, and in fact it’s a part of joy. Hazel
touches on this idea in her eulogy for Augustus. The first thing she says to the gathered crowd is
that there’s a quote hanging in Augustus’s that always gave the two of them comfort: “Without
pain, we couldn’t know joy.”
Fear of Oblivion
The main characters in the novel are forced to confront death in a way that the young and healthy
aren't. Although everyone will eventually die, as Hazel points out in Support Group, death's
immediacy to the terminally ill means they can't avoid considering what comes after death, and
the potential that all that's waiting for them is oblivion. It's a very present fear for Hazel and
particularly for Augustus, and in fact it's the first thing they share when they meet at Support
Group. Augustus, in response to Patrick's question about what he fears, replies right away with
“oblivion,” and Hazel, who rarely ever speaks in the group, picks up immediately. She points out
that everyone will some day die, which means everything humanity has ever built could all be
for naught, and that just as there was a time before organisms experienced consciousness, there
will be a time after as well. She says if the thought is disturbing one should just ignore it, but her
tone implies that it's something that can't be ignored, at least not forever.
This theme carries throughout the novel. It's what motivates Augustus's desire to perform some
heroic act before he dies and validate his significance. He worries that, without doing something
dramatic that lives in people's minds after he's gone, he won't have mattered. His significance,
like his consciousness, will simply be consumed by oblivion after his death. For Hazel, the fear
of oblivion strikes her in a different way. She needs to know that those close to her, and her
relationships with them, will carry on after her death. The comment she overheard her mother
make that she'll no longer be a mother stays with her for this very reason, and it's also why she
fixates on what happens to the characters in An Imperial Affliction after the protagonist, Anna,
dies at the novel's close. She focuses on finding out what happens to Anna's mother and the
Dutch Tulip Man, and even Sisyphus the Hamster, as a substitute for worrying about what will
happen to her own parents after her death. When Van Houten tells her that the characters simply
cease to exist the moment the novel ends, she tells him that it's impossible not to imagine a future
for them. What she clearly means is that she has to believe that her own parents will continue on
once she's gone, and that's why she's so greatly relieved to learn later that her mother has been
taking classes to become a social worker.
What the novel ultimately suggests is that one person's death doesn't consign their significance
and relationships to oblivion, and that what makes our lives matter are the relationships we form.
As Augustus learns, his importance isn't defined by the fact that his life is temporary, because his
importance to those around him will carry on. He leaves his “scar” on Hazel, as he puts it in the
letter to Van Houten that Hazel reads at the close of the novel. Hazel, via a different route,
discovers much the same. Her mother will continue to be her mother. Nothing, not even her
death, can change that.
The Insensitivity of the Universe
A refrain repeated throughout the novel is that the world is not a wish-granting factory. In other
words, the things we want to come true often don't, and reality can be quite different from our
fantasies. Numerous examples appear in the story. Isaac's girlfriend, Monica, breaks up with him
just before he has his remaining eye removed, and despite his waiting and hoping, he never
receives any word from her afterward. Augustus comes to realize that he will never perform
some extraordinary feat of heroism. Hazel knows her lungs won't heal, and her death isn't far off.
Peter Van Houten isn't so much the open, caring genius Hazel hopes, but a grouchy and
malicious drunk. Augustus's story about his middle-school science teacher, Mr. Martinez, sums
up the theme. As Augustus and Hazel fly back from Amsterdam, Augustus tells her he
sometimes dreamed of living on a cloud, thinking it would be like an inflatable moonwalk
machine. But he learned from Mr. Martinez that, at that altitude, the wind blows at one hundred
and fifty miles per hour, the temperature is thirty below zero, and there's not enough oxygen for a
person to survive. The man, he tells Hazel, specialized in the murder of dreams.
The theme underlies much of the novel's subject: teens dying of cancer for no justifiable reason.
As Hazel and Van Houten both say at times, cancer is just a side effect of an evolutionary
process. It isn't personal. It has no agenda, no feeling toward the person it's killing. This
indifference is the reason Augustus finds no heroism in dying of it. It's just trying to be alive
itself, and in fact it isn't some separate parasite: it's made of his own cells. That complete
insensitivity is something Hazel also struggles with. After Augustus dies, she thinks of her
father's earlier comment that the universe just wants to be noticed, and she reverses the phrase,
saying what we want is to be noticed by the universe. The problem, as she puts it, is “the
depraved meaninglessness of these things.” What her thought suggests is that some of things that
happen to people, like developing cancer, occur at random, not with any maliciousness intended,
but neither with any purpose. We want the universe to notice us, but it simply isn't aware. The
title of the novel speaks to this idea. It comes from Shakespeare's “The Tragedy of Julius
Caesar,” in which Cassius says, “Men at some times are masters of their fates: / The fault, dear
Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” The word stars here refers to fate. Hazel applies
these lines to her own situation and concludes the opposite: the fault for their dying of cancer is
not their doing but fate's.
The Realities of Terminal Cancer
The Fault in Our Stars takes joy in poking fun at clichés and baseless social conventions,
especially regarding cancer kids and coming to terms with death. The novel seeks to downplay
the popular idea that battling cancer is a noble, heroic, and rewarding act, and it does so
primarily by showing the realities of cancer. There is nothing particularly noble for Hazel about
struggling to breathe and knowing her death will hurt others, or anything heroic for Augustus in
having had a leg amputated, or rewarding for Isaac about losing his vision. Instead the reader
sees that kids with cancer are just that: kids. What makes them different from other kids is that
they're put in the terrible position of having to deal with a debilitating and sometimes fatal
illness. Augustus discusses this idea directly when he tells Hazel about his former girlfriend,
Caroline Mathers. He talks about the trope of the cancer victim who heroically fights cancer until
the end, then points out that kids with cancer aren't statistically anymore likely to be better
people than kids without cancer. Caroline, he explains, became increasingly cruel toward him as
her condition worsened. Rather than make her a better person, cancer made her worse.
The most poignant example of cancer's reality is Augustus himself after his cancer reappears. He
withers quickly, and Hazel witnesses all the humiliation and pain he suffers as a result. He loses
control of his body, urinates in his bed, and becomes confined to a wheelchair. When he calls her
for help after driving to the gas station, she thinks of the person he's become, noting that the
“Augustus Waters of the crooked smiles and unsmoked cigarettes was gone, replaced by this
desperate humiliated creature sitting there beneath me.” A few lines later, she thinks of the
conventions of the cancer kid, how they're supposed to maintain their humor and spirit through
to the end. But Gus was the reality: suffering, frightened, and pitiful while struggling not to be.
Through these details, the novel shows that the the false and feel-good conventions regarding
cancer kids are really just hollow clichés used by society to deal with an uncomfortable subject.
The Importance of Fiction in our lives
The Author's Note refers to the idea that “made-up stories can matter” as “sort of the
foundational assumption of our species,” and from that point forward the value of fiction is a
prominent theme throughout The Fault In Our Stars. It turns up most prominently in Hazel's
relationship with her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. Hazel describes the book as her
personal bible, as it's the only account she's read of dying from cancer that accurately matches
her own experience. It offers her a sort of companionship, which comforts her. The question of
whether or not fictional characters and a made-up story can have genuine value in a real person's
life comes up when Peter Van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction, responds to one of
Augustus's emails. Augustus told Van Houten the book meant something to him, to which Van
Houten replies by wondering what value fiction really has. He suggests that it may offer the
temporary illusion that life has meaning, when in fact it may not. He also wonders if fiction
should act more like a call to arms, alerting people to things they should pay attention to, or a
morphine drip, numbing them. But the Author's Note of The Fault In Our Stars offers John
Green's answer, at least, to whether or not fiction has value. He believes it does, and the comfort,
joy, and companionship Hazel finds from An Imperial Affliction in the novel similarly implies
that made-up stories can be truly important.
Motifs
Drowning
For Hazel the idea of drowning resonates both on a literal and a metaphorical level, and it ties
directly into novel’s most prominent symbol, water. On the literal side, the metastatic tumors in
her lungs cause them to fill with fluid, which is the reason she's rushed to the intensive care unit
midway through the novel. But drowning appears in other ways as well. When Hazel wakes one
night with incredible pain in her head and has to go to the ICU, she describes it like being on the
shore with waves crashing overhead, but being unable to drown. Drowning also appears in the
T.S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” that Hazel recites parts of for Augustus.
As they have their dinner and champagne in Amsterdam, she says the concluding lines of the
poem: “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red
and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” She doesn't point it out at the time, but
it's possible that the poem reminds her of her own situation. In these instances, drowning is a
clear reference to the death Hazel fears, a threat she contends with constantly because of the
tumors in her lungs. Finally, once Augustus dies, she uses the same analogy to describe how she
feels having lost him. She compares it to being smashed by waves and unable to drown, meaning
there’s no relief to her pain.
Metaphors
The characters in the novel, notably Augustus and Hazel, frequently use metaphors as a
shorthand they can use to talk about emotionally overwhelming subjects. Augustus, for instance,
describes shooting “existentially fraught” free throws on the day before the amputation of his
leg. The free throws in this instance become a metaphor for Augustus's sense of purpose, since
prior to his amputation he was an all-star basketball player, and losing his leg meant an end to
sports. He suddenly began to question why this activity was so important, but the implication is
that he suddenly began wondering what his purpose might be more broadly. He also fashions a
symbol that is uniquely his own: He often keeps an unlit cigarette in his mouth in order to
symbolize his control over a thing that can kill him, namely cancer. This is the exact form of
control neither Augustus, nor Hazel, nor Isaac has when it comes to their cancers, and it's fitting
that Augustus relies on the significance of the cigarette symbol to give him strength in times of
fear and uncertainty. Hazel has her own frequently used metaphor. She likens herself to a
grenade when she imagines the pain she will cause to her loved ones when she dies. In each
instance the metaphor allows the character to deal with the subject at hand, Hazel's impending
death for example, without having to call it by name.
Existentialism
Existentialism isn't so much a set of clearly defined principles as a convenient term for referring
to a set of thinkers and artists, many with widely varying beliefs, who all examined how one
can find meaning when life and death are potentially meaningless. This conundrum is
precisely the one the novel's characters face. Frequently they question whether their lives have
meaning if they die young of cancer, before having accomplished anything significant, and how
they can then find meaning in their lives. In one notable episode, after Augustus dies Hazel
thinks of her first encounter with him, when she said the problem of life isn’t that it leads to
oblivion, but that there’s no evident meaning in that oblivion. Appropriately, then, there are
recurring references to existentialist thoughts and thinkers throughout the novel, like the names
of the rooms in the hotel in Amsterdam, which are all existential philosophers. The made-up
novel An Imperial Affliction also ties into the motif as it raises questions about authenticity and
value that were also concerns of existentialism.
More significantly, existentialism comes up in the thoughts and fears of Hazel and particularly
Augustus as they try to evaluate what meaning their lives have. Early on, for instance, Augustus
refers to shooting “existentially fraught” free throws just before he had his leg amputated, and
from what he tells Hazel it's clear that he was questioning his sense of purpose and meaning.
Augustus eventually reveals that he wants to perform some heroic sacrifice, like diving on a
grenade to save a group of kids as he does in the video game he plays with Isaac, in order to give
his life and death meaning. When his cancer returns, he struggles with the realization that he'll
never perform that kind of act, and Hazel's response is to marvel at Augustus's “existential
curiosity.” Augustus is thus forced to wonder whether his life and death will be meaningful at all.
Hazel takes offense to this questioning, arguing that an ordinary life without a heroic death, as
hers will be, isn't necessarily without meaning, and Augustus comes to recognize that meaning is
something he has to determine for himself. It’s a line of thought very much in keeping with
existentialism.
Symbols
Water
Water in The Fault in Our Stars mostly directly represents suffering in both its negative and
positive varieties. Water, for instance, symbolizes the fluid that collects in Hazel’s lungs as a
result of her cancer. This liquid causes Hazel a huge amount of suffering in the novel. It forces
her to use an oxygen tank, limits her ability to do any real strenuous activity, and it nearly kills
her at one point. She likens the suffering she feels in that instance to being smashed by waves but
unable to drown. (It’s no coincidence that drowning is one of the novel's major motifs, since
water is, of course, at its center.) This type of suffering is obviously negative. At the same time,
it's significant that Augustus's last name is Waters. He is Hazel's great love in the novel, and his
physical deterioration and eventual death cause Hazel an intense amount of pain. Hazel,
however, wouldn’t trade that pain for anything. It’s a mark of the love she feels for Augustus,
which makes it a kind of positive pain. Hazel even uses the analogy of being smashed by waves
but unable to drown again to describe the way she feels after Augustus dies. In doing so she
creates a metaphor with two parallel sides: one where drowning in water represents the negative
suffering of her cancer, and the other where drowning in water represents the positive suffering
of her losing Augustus. Augustus sums up this dual nature of suffering, and water, in the final
letter he writes to Van Houten. When he found out Hazel was hospitalized, he snuck into her
room in the ICU and found her there unconscious. A nurse told him Hazel was “still taking on
water.” Augustus describes this abundance of water to Van Houten as “A desert blessing, an
ocean curse.”
It's also worth noting that the two locations in the novel, Indianapolis and Amsterdam, are canal
cities. Amsterdam in particular is under constant threat of being inundated by the surrounding
waters, like Hazel herself to some degree. It’s also home to Peter Van Houten, whom we learn is
drowning, so to speak, in his own suffering over losing his daughter many years earlier to cancer.
Finally, the book's epigraph, taken from the metanovel An Imperial Affliction, offers another
layer of meaning to water’s symbolism. It refers to water as “conjoinder rejoinder poisoner
concealer revelator,” giving it a nearly omnipotent quality, like a god, and compares water to
time, both of which take everything with them in their tide.
Augustus's cigarettes
The cigarettes Augustus often puts in his mouth but doesn't light represent his attempt to deal
with and ideally control the things he fears. Though Augustus doesn't say so explicitly, the thing
he fears most appears to be cancer. Cigarettes are a well-known carcinogen, and when Augustus
explains the cigarette to Hazel it seems it's cancer specifically he is trying to control. Over the
course of the novel, however, the cigarettes develop a greater meaning than August initially
states. He reaches for them any time he feels insecure, suggesting they act as a symbolic way for
him to control all his fears, with cancer just being the most notable. Toward the end of the novel,
his incident at the gas station in which he has to call Hazel for help occurs because he's trying to
buy cigarettes. In the context of their symbolic value, he is trying to regain control. By this point,
his body is failing. He has difficulty walking on his own, he can't fully control his bladder, and
when Hazel finds him in his car he's vomited all over himself. He says he just wanted to buy a
pack of cigarettes on his own, and the state of his health and the fact that he was unable to get the
cigarettes both point to the reality that any control he had over his cancer is gone.
Grenade
The grenade metaphor signifies death and the suffering a person's death causes to those close to
them. Hazel uses the term to describe herself after she reads Caroline Mathers's online profile
and sees the effect Caroline's death had on others. She likens herself to a grenade that will one
day explode, injuring everyone nearby. She also says Augustus becomes the grenade once his
cancer returns and it's evident that he'll die before Hazel does. For Hazel, not hurting others is a
major concern. It's evident in her being a vegetarian so that she doesn't add to the suffering in the
world, for instance. Knowing the effect her death will have on Augustus and her parents
therefore poses a serious conundrum for her. She doesn't want to keep them at a distance, but she
feels doing so is the only way to keep them safe. The grenade symbol comes up again and again
in this context as she wrestles with her desire to be close to them and her concern that she'll
injure them.
But it's also worth noting that the grenade also turns up in the video game Augustus plays with
Isaac. In the game, Augustus heroically throws himself on a grenade to save nearby school
children in the game. It's only by sacrificing himself and willingly getting hurt by the grenade
that Augustus, at least in the game, achieves the heroism he always desires, and in this regard the
grenade metaphor ties directly into one of the major lessons in the book. After Augustus dies,
Hazel reads a letter he sent to Van Houten in which Augustus discusses the idea of the people
close to us hurting us. He says people don't get to choose who they hurt, but they can choose who
hurts them. The grenade represents the suffering we cause others, but as Augustus shows in the
game, in some cases the cause is worth it. Clearly we see that whatever pain Augustus's death
causes Hazel was similarly worth it to her, and what the novel suggests through Augustus's act in
the video game is that there's a measure of heroism in being willing to get hurt for the right
cause.
An Imperial Affliction
An Imperial Affliction has an abundance of metaphorical resonance throughout The Fault in Our
Stars. To begin with, it represents the healing value of fiction. Hazel refers to it as her personal
bible because it's the only account of living with cancer she's found that corresponds to her own
experience. That fact provides her with a great deal of comfort as she battles her illness, and it
also establishes the foundation for the novel's other symbolic meaning: It represents Hazel's
experience, and in particular her relation to her family. Hazel obsesses over the fates of the
characters in the novel because they serve as proxies for her own parents, whom she wants to
know will be alright after her death. By learning what happens to them and confirming that they
don't simply disappear after Anna's death in the novel, she can feel certain that her parents will
similarly live on after her death. The novel doesn't fully elaborate on the idea, but learning their
fates might also be her way of confirming that Anna's story, and by extension her own, doesn't
just end with her death. If the story continues, then even if Anna is no longer an active presence,
she would still be connected to a larger saga that carries on after her passing. If that's true, Hazel
could feel she similarly continues to play a part in the larger story of her family and friends, and
that she doesn't simply disappear into oblivion with her death.
As a metanovel, or novel within the novel we're reading, An Imperial Affliction also represents
the question of “What is authentic and valuable?” (This question ties in with the motif of
existenstialism, since questioning authenticity and something's inherent value, say the value of
life or morality for example, was a major theme of existentialism.) Questions about authenticity
appear throughout the story, as Hazel deconstructs preconceived ideas about cancer patients for
instance, but also regarding the authenticity of made-up stories. Starting with the epigraph, which
is supposedly taken from the made-up An Imperial Affliction, the reader is forced to ask whether
the fact that something is fiction has any bearing on its value.
For Hazel, the characters from An Imperial Affliction clearly hold a great deal of value to her, so
much so that learning their fates after the end of the novel, as if they were real people, becomes
an obsession. Van Houten, however, doesn't seem to believe much in the value of fiction. He
questions its use in his email to Augustus, and he tells Hazel quite unapologetically that the
characters simply cease to exist when the novel ends. In Hazel's mind that simply isn't true, and
her questioning prompts the reader to ask the same questions about The Fault In Our Stars. If
Hazel and Augustus are fictional, do they still have real value? The Author's Note suggests they
do, saying that “the idea that made-up stories can matter” is “sort of the foundational assumption
of our species.” An Imperial Affliction, therefore, becomes a symbol of the authenticity and value
of made-up stories.
CHARACTERS
Hazel Grace Lancaster - The novel’s narrator and 16-year-old protagonist. An astute and
remarkably conscientious girl, Hazel was diagnosed at age thirteen with a terminal form of
thyroid cancer that has since spread to her lungs. She keeps most people at a distance, knowing
her death will ultimately hurt them, until she falls in love with Augustus.
Hazel Grace Lancaster
It is immediately obvious that Hazel isn't the typical teenage girl from Indianapolis. She is—
conscientiously speaking—old for her age, as we see when she's contrasted with her friend
Kaitlyn. By comparison, Hazel is far more thoughtful and considerate about her actions than
Kaitlyn, and she is far more analytical. One of Hazel’s defining characteristics is her wish to
tread lightly upon the world. She desperately wants to mitigate the harm caused by her existence
on Earth. Though this outlook on life is dramatically different from Augustus’s, over the course
of the novel the teens are able to learn a lot from one another.
Hazel’s transcendent journey throughout the novel is truly multifaceted. Physically speaking, we
witness Hazel grow weaker. This change is apparent in the fact that she uses the stairs at Support
Group at the beginning of the novel and opts for the elevator near the novels end, as her physical
condition deteriorates. The more nuanced aspect of Hazel’s journey revolves around her spiritual
and philosophical understanding of death. At the beginning of the novel, Hazel obsesses over the
impact her death will have on those around her. She fears getting close to anyone because she
knows that her death, which isn't far off, will hurt anyone close to her. It makes her, as she puts
it, a “grenade.” This fear appears most in regard to her mother. Once, when Hazel was near
dying, she overheard her mother saying if Hazel dies she won't be a mother anymore, and that
thought has stayed with Hazel. This fear motivates Hazel's mission to determine what happens to
the characters at the end of An Imperial Affliction. She needs to affirm that everything turns out
alright for Anna’s mother, so that she can convince herself that her parents will end up alright.
Through her relationship with Augustus, however, Hazel's perspective changes. When his cancer
reappears, she recognizes that, of the two of them, he is now the grenade. But even so, she isn't
sorry she fell in love with him, even though it will hurt her immensely when he dies. Instead, she
cherishes and feels extremely grateful for the time they do have together. The final words of the
novel indicate the extent to which Hazel grows spiritually throughout her journey. The
implication of the words “I do” are of a marriage that takes place through memory. Though the
marriage is symbolic, it is nevertheless real. What Hazel means by saying “I do” is that she will
remember and love Augustus for as long as she lives, and in that sense she has learned that death
is not the ubiquitous finality she had once considered it to be. Our relationships continue, even if
we do not.
Augustus “Gus” Waters - The sixteen-year-old with osteosarcoma who becomes Hazel's
boyfriend. Augustus has a keen wit and a tendency toward performance—he revels in grand
romantic gestures. Augustus almost immediately falls in love with Hazel after meeting her at
Support Group.
Augustus “Gus” Waters
In a lot of ways Augustus performs his own existence. This is why there are two versions of his
character within the novel. The first version we meet is the façade called Augustus Waters.
Named, quite grandiosely, after the first Roman emperor, Augustus plays a strong, confident,
funny, and charming boy. He continuously fetishizes his own grandiosity. He is convinced that
the importance of life is being heroic, leaving a noble legacy, monumentally impacting
humanity. This version of Augustus fumbles over calculated monologues in the park. He overplans Dutch themed picnics, down to the last excruciating detail, purely for stage like effect. He
is deluded by showy metaphors of his own construction, like when he sacrifices himself in a
video game by jumping on a grenade in order to save children.
As his cancer returns, however, all of this performance falls away. What remains is Gus, a
teenage boy in Indianapolis who used to be a star athlete and now finds himself dying from
cancer. Gus is the boy his parents have always seen. In fact, Hazel only learns his nickname is
“Gus” because it's what his parents call him. But Hazel doesn't love him any less for being Gus.
Quite the contrary: She starts calling him Gus rather than Augustus only after they're intimately
familiar with one another, once Hazel knows all aspects of him and not just the performed
version she first meets. She sees that, underneath the romantic gestures and theatrical
grandiosity, Gus is a sweet, caring, and understandably terrified seventeen-year-old guy. What
more, it’s his love for Hazel Grace that teaches Augustus its okay to be Gus. As he deteriorates
physically, he's forced to confront the fact that he'll die without doing anything humanity at large
views as extraordinary, and a deeper spiritual transition takes place. Because of Hazel, he comes
to realize that failing to do something extraordinary does not equal being insignificant.
Over the course of the novel the true Gus reveals himself through the most emblematic gesture of
his Augustinian counterpart: the act of placing a cigarette in his mouth. The cigarette metaphor
serves as a link that binds the two disparate identities. That's because the cigarette reveals the
opposite of what it is meant to project: Augustus wants for the cigarette to represent his control
over the thing that could kill him, but really it is a device he relies on when feeling most
vulnerable, most like Gus. He grabs for the cigarette at times of uncertainty, like when he first
meets Hazel or on board the plane, when he fearful of flying.
Isaac - The mutual friend of Hazel's and Augustus's who facilitates their introduction at Support
Group. Isaac is cynical by nature. Blinded by cancer and kicked to the curb by his girlfriend
Monica, Isaac often embodies skepticism and rage. It is worth noting that he shares his name
with Biblical Isaac, who also was blind.
Mrs. Lancaster - Hazel’s mother. She is an emotionally strong and kind woman who has made
it her life to care for Hazel. During the novel Hazel obsesses over the emotional devastation that
her death will cause to her mother. In the end Hazel is overjoyed to learn that her mother has
secretly been taking classes to become a social worker.
Mr. Lancaster - Hazel’s father. He is caring and prone to tears. In contrast with Hazel's mother,
he only understands Hazel's cancer broadly and spends much of his time at work.
Peter Van Houten - The infamous author of An Imperial Affliction. Hazel and Augustus learn
he is a verbose and brash drunkard who pretentiously deflects emotion with walls of
intellectualism and cruelty. Peter Van Houten: In a novel that is somewhat structured around
metafiction, with An Imperial Affliction playing a starring role in the fiction we're reading, Van
Houten is its keenest representative. As such, he reveals the magical power of fiction while
simultaneously demystifying the romance attributed to authorship. For most of the novel Hazel
considers Van Houten a veritable god, or at the very least, a powerful prophet. An Imperial
Affliction is Hazel’s personal bible. The novel speaks to her about terminal illness in ways that
no other medium, or person, or support group ever do. The act of reading Van Houten’s novel is
so incredibly personal to Hazel that she mistakenly conflates the novel’s magic with its author’s
greatness. However, when Hazel first meets Van Houten, the magic feeling becomes deflated.
She sees him for the sloppy and often mean-spirited drunk he really is. She learns that an author
is nothing more than a human being, with human qualities and problems.
Van Houten wears a lot of masks throughout the novel. One of his most crucial roles is to depict
the variety of ways in which people deal with pain. When we learn that An Imperial Affliction is
really a fictional account of the life of Van Houten’s daughter, Anna, who died from cancer at a
young age, we are able to see the author more sympathetically. He is the real life tragic version
of the fictional Anna’s mother in his novel. It makes him the living embodiment of Hazel’s
greatest fear: that her parents will be so distraught by her death that they will not be able to go
on.
Patrick - The leader and sole adult at Support Group. He is noted for his warmth and
unequivocal optimism. As a consequence of cancer Patrick lost both of his testicles, which
provides some of the more cynical group members with a bit of comic relief.
Augustus’s parents - The few glimpses that we get of Augustus’s parents in the novel are of
kind and understanding people. They do not hesitate to vegetarianize Hazel’s meal. Near the end
of the novel, it means a lot to Hazel when Augustus’s father whispers in her ear about how great
it is that she has been involved in his son’s life.
Dr. Maria - Hazel’s primary cancer doctor. She is a strong, assertive, yet empathetic physician.
At one point Hazel remarks that Dr. Maria is very into giving out hugs. She convinces Hazel’s
parents that Hazel should be allowed to travel to Amsterdam, despite their reservations.
Lidewij Vliegenthart - Peter Van Houten’s assistant. Initially responsible for relaying Hazel
and Augustus’s communications to the author, Lidewij comes to act as a voice of reason for Van
Houten.
Kaitlyn - Hazel’s friend and former schoolmate. She is pretty, popular, and exemplifies what
Hazel might have been like if she hadn't been diagnosed with cancer and left school. Though
they are still friends, there is a palpable distance between the two girls, who occupy such
divergent worlds.
Monica - Isaac’s girlfriend and then ex-girlfriend. Monica breaks up with Isaac prior to his
surgery to remove his remaining eye.
Caroline Mathers - Augustus’s former girlfriend who died from brain cancer. Although we
never meet her directly, we learn that the cancer changed her personality. She became selfish,
impulsive, and cruel, especially in regard to Augustus. Caroline represents the realistic horrors
associated with terminal cancer.
Anna - The protagonist of An Imperial Affliction. Anna is a girl of about Hazel’s age who also
suffers from a terminal illness. Hazel greatly admires the honesty with which Anna deals with
her cancer. An Imperial Affliction ends midsentence, causing Hazel to speculate about her
beloved Anna’s fate.
QUOTES
1. As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean: “Conjoinder rejoinder
poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with
it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Water,” the Dutchman said. “Well, and time.”
—Peter Van Houten, An Imperial Affliction
This quote is the epigraph that precedes The Fault In Our Stars. Typically an epigraph is a
quotation or poem that is intended to serve as a preface, summary, or link to a wider
literary canon for the text that’s to follow. Often it will come from a well-regarded work,
which can be a way of coopting that work’s authority and credibility to some degree. This
epigraph, however, is an excerpt from a fictional book that only exists within the world of
The Fault In Our Stars. The effect, once the reader realizes An Imperial Affliction is a made-up
work, is to call into question what defines something as authentic. It puts a made-up quote on the
same playing field as a real one, and in doing so it suggests a made-up quote can have just as
much authority and credibility. The significance of this decision only becomes fully clear in the
context of the story we’re told in The Fault In Our Stars. Hazel identifies so much with the book
and places so much importance on the fictional characters in An Imperial Affliction that she
becomes fixated on learning their fates beyond the book’s ending. The book matters to her in a
very real sense. By using a quote from the book as the epigraph, The Fault In Our Stars slyly
hints at the importance fiction can have in our lives. Made-up stories, it suggests, can be just as
meaningful to us as real ones. The Author’s Note that follows further emphasizes this point of
view.
On top of playfully advertising Green’s belief about the importance of fiction, the epigraph
introduces one of the novel’s most omnipresent symbols: water. Water represents suffering in
both its negative and positive varieties. An example of the negative is the pain of cancer, and an
example of the positive is the pain Hazel feels after losing Augustus, which although terrible is
actually a sign of how much he mattered to her and how much she loved him. The symbol is vast
in that it uses a single image to encapsulate these two different ideas, which are like two
opposing poles. The Dutch Tulip Man captures this all-encompassing quality by describing water
with opposing names. For instance, it’s a conjoiner, meaning it brings things together, but it’s
also a poisoner. It’s a concealer that hides, and it’s also a revelator that reveals. He goes on to
link water and time, and his meaning is less certain here. One interpretation is that time possesses
the same all-encompassing quality. It’s the thing that allows us to grow, develop, and hit our
prime, and it’s also that which causes us to decay, wither, and inevitably die. And both water and
time, he suggests, take everything with them in their tide.
2. “All at once, I couldn’t figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object
through a toroidal object. It seemed like the stupidest thing I could possibly be doing.”
This quote appears in Chapter 2, when Augustus explains his philosophical epiphany to
Hazel, and it’s tied to the novel’s motif of existentialism. The action Augustus describes is
shooting free throws. By abstracting it as he does, he strips away all the social context, such as
the fact that getting the ball through the hoop is the main objective of an extremely popular sport
in Indiana, and that being good at it is seen as valuable. Without that context, the act seems
somewhat ridiculous, and so Augustus is in a sense stripping basketball of its value. It’s
significant that the night on which Augustus shot these free throws was his last before having his
leg amputated. Augustus was an Indiana high school basketball star, meaning basketball was a
substantial part of his life, but his amputation meant he wouldn’t be able to play competitively
any longer. Undoubtedly it was a serious emotional blow, and the quote can be read as his
description of how he reassessed what was important in his life since he wouldn’t be able to play
basketball anymore. In that light the point is less about basketball and more about how Augustus
was trying to find a sense of meaning and purpose. These questions were some of the main
preoccupations of existentialism—Augustus, in fact, describes the free throws as “existentially
fraught” shortly after the quote—and this kind of thinking and questioning carries throughout the
book as Augustus and Hazel try to determine what has real meaning in their lives given that
they’re both likely to die soon.
3. Augustus nodded at the screen. “Pain demands to be felt,” he said, which was a line from
An Imperial Affliction.
Augustus says these words while playing video games in the basement with Isaac, who is
grieving after being dumped by his girlfriend Monica. On a fundamental level, The Fault in
Our Stars is a novel about coping with harsh realities, and particularly with suffering. We often
watch the characters deal with intense pain, physical and emotional, and one of the more
prominent ideas that comes up again and again is the notion that pain can’t be avoided. As
Augustus puts it in the letter to Van Houten that Hazel reads at the end of the novel, we don’t get
to choose whether or not we get hurt. Inherent in this point of view is an undercurrent of stoicism
that we see often in Hazel and others. If pain can’t be avoided, the best way to handle it, they
suggest, is head on. It’s for this reason that Hazel feels disgusted by all the platitudes about kids
with cancer. They are ways of trying to avoid rather than confront all the pains involved with
being young and dying of cancer, and as a result they’re intellectually dishonest. What’s more is
they don’t eliminate, or even alleviate, pain. Instead, Hazel believes pain should be recognized
for what it is, an inherent part of being alive (a “side effect” of living as she might put it), and
that it should be acknowledged rather than avoided. The phrase “Pain demands to be felt” in a
sense sums up her point of view regarding her cancer.
4. “I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased
toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its
elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe
that it—or my observation of it—is temporary?”
Hazel’s father says these words during a conversation he and Hazel have after the
recurrence of Augustus’s cancer. The quotation touches upon an issue central to The Fault in
Our Stars. Throughout the novel both Hazel and Augustus seek to make sense out of the
meaning of existence. Hazel’s belief is that the universe is indifferent to human life and
suffering, and this view informs her thoughts on the meaning of existence and the possibility of
an afterlife. As Hazel suggests to her father during their conversation, she doesn’t think anything
happens for a meaningful reason or that our consciousness persists in any way after we die. Her
father’s view, which he explains in the quotation, is much more open-ended. Because the
universe seems predisposed to creating consciousness, it appears to want to be observed. While
this perspective doesn’t go so far as to propose a god presiding over the universe, it does imply
that the universe is in some way conscious of the life in it. It also says people don’t have the
knowledge or authority to say for certain that a person’s consciousness is temporary.This idea is
significant through the remainder of the novel. Notably, it ties in with Augustus’s beliefs about
what makes a life meaningful. Augustus places value in the thought of doing something heroic
with his life because he wants others to acknowledge his importance. He feels that only by being
remembered by those who live on after him will his life have meaning, as his importance to the
world wouldn’t simply end with his death. According to Hazel’s father’s view, Augustus’s
importance may not end with his death, and he is in fact acknowledged, perhaps not exactly as he
would like but still the universe in some form knows of his existence. Moreover, her father’s
words stay with Hazel and alter her own feelings. During her Support Group meeting after
Augustus dies, Hazel asks herself why she still wants to be alive, and she concludes that she feels
obliged to notice the universe. The suggestion is that her father’s idea has given her a sense of
purpose that she didn’t have before.
5.
I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
Hazel reads these words from Augustus to Van Houten in the letter that Lidewij sends to
her at the end of the novel. The brief quotation touches on two separate ideas. First, it speaks to
Augustus’s desire to be remembered after his death, which is a main preoccupation of his
throughout the novel. Here he says he left his “scar” on Hazel, and the word suggests something
permanent that won’t disappear with his death. It’s not the mark he wanted to leave for much of
the novel—he always dreamed of doing something heroic—but it nonetheless satisfies his desire
to have made an impact that will survive him.
The quotation also emphasizes the dual nature of pain in the story. The “scar” is not, of course, a
physical one he leaves but an emotional one, and the metaphor suggests that a wound, and
therefore pain, have been inflicted. In this sense it refers to the fact that Hazel will be hurt by
Augustus’s death. The pain that leaves this scar, however, isn’t necessarily harmful, because it
signifies that Hazel genuinely loved Augustus and that he mattered to her. This variety of pain is
actually a major concern of Hazel’s for much of the story as she worries that she’ll hurt others,
specifically her parents, with her death. Hazel’s relationship with Augustus changes her view of
this kind of pain, however. As she comes to realize that she wouldn’t trade the pain of losing
Augustus for the comfort of never having fallen in love with him, she comes to understand that
this pain is actually desirable, or at least not something to avoid. The scar left by losing him is
something she would prefer to have.
Study Questions
1. How do the novel’s various characters seek relief from their pain? Does the novel suggest
that some ways of coping with grief are better than others?
There are a variety of methods with which the characters of The Fault in Our Stars deal with
their pains. Hazel tries to deal with her pain honestly and directly, but she also finds comfort in
Peter Van Houten’s An Imperial Affliction, discovering there a mirror of her own experience.
Augustus tends to deal with his pain through humor and dramatic gestures like sacrificing
himself in a video game or keeping an unlit cigarette in his mouth. Hazel’s mother, not being
sick herself, copes with pain in other ways. First she hovers around Hazel, caring for all her
daughters needs, but she also studies secretly to become a social worker so she can one day help
other families in crisis. Peter Van Houten, who has already lost his child, has a multitude of
outlets for his pain. The most obvious is drinking himself silly, which often leads to him taking
out his grief on others. Less obvious is the way in which he intellectualizes his emotions rather
than deal with them as pure emotions, treating the situations that cause him discomfort as
philosophical puzzles. Lastly, the process of writing An Imperial Affliction, of creating a fictional
future for his deceased daughter, is another way Van Houten sought to exercise his feelings and
deal with his grief.
The novel doesn’t declare outright that one method of dealing with pain is the correct way,
though it clearly indicates some methods are healthier than others. Van Houten, for instance,
exemplifies some poor ways of dealing with pain. In essence he tries to avoid it by drinking to
numb himself and by intellectualizing his suffering rather than allowing himself to feel it.
Augustus, in a similar albeit less destructive way, tries to mask his pain with his performances.
The characters who deal with their pain directly, such as Hazel and her mother, generally have
beneficial strategies. Neither is able to escape their pain anymore than Van Houten can escape
his, but they are also able to turn it into something positive. Hazel eventually comes to realize
that she wouldn’t trade the pain of loving Augustus for anything, and through this realization
gains a greater sense of her purpose in the world. Her mother similarly uses her pain to find a
new path in life as a social worker. The novel in essence sides with an idea mentioned repeatedly
in the novel: Pain demands to be felt.
2. The Fault in Our Stars is a novel about kids with cancer that seeks to dispel many of the
conventions regarding the subject. How does the novel accomplish this feat? Is it
successful?
One major theme of The Fault in Our Stars is the realities of terminal cancer, and in various
ways the novel regularly comments on how those realities differ from common tropes about the
terminally ill. The first and most obvious example is through the characters’ own feelings about
these conventions, which is regularly revealed in the sardonic tone they take when talking about
cancer stereotypes. It’s evident in the first chapter, for instance, that Hazel and Isaac are
thoroughly familiar with and disenchanted by the rote, feel-good cancer survivor’s clichés touted
at Support Group, and they become immediately sarcastic when confronted with these clichés.
The same tone is evident when Hazel and Augustus discuss the idea of cancer perks, and when
Hazel mocks the idea that anyone sick with cancer is supposed to be fearless and an inspiration
to those around them.
But another method the novel utilizes is deconstructing the phenomenon of popular conventions
more broadly to highlight their backwardness. The most humorous and memorable way the novel
examines conventions is through Hazel’s questioning of why scrambled eggs are classified as
breakfast food. But by questioning something so mundane, Hazel raises a point about social
conventions in general. She reveals them for what they are: habits based predominantly on
cultural assumptions and not reality. For example, in Amsterdam Hazel finds that deli meats are
the breakfast staple, underscoring the fact that what foods one eats for breakfast are determined
by culture and not because any food is inherently meant for breakfast. It’s not the most serious
example, but it does the job of showing that conventions only have authority because people give
them that power. When we see how this idea applies to cancer the baselessness of conventions is
even more pronounced. Talking to Hazel about how his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Mathers, became
meaner as she got more sick, he points out that, statistically speaking, kids with cancer aren’t
more likely to be good than anyone else. Such examples appear throughout the novel, effectively
dismantling many of the conventions about kids with cancer.
3. What role does cancer play in the novel? How are the characters’ concerns different from
those of healthy teenagers as a result of their cancers?
Cancer creates a sense of urgency in the novel that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Because the
characters are terminally ill, they view questions about life and its meaning very differently than
their healthy counterparts, and their love is more meaningful to them than it might be to the
average teenager. The reason is that death isn’t an abstraction to them. Hazel knows her cancer is
terminal and that she will likely die before she becomes an adult. She also personally knows
other kids who have died. Augustus has already had a girlfriend pass away from cancer. Because
they know they likely have little time to live, they don’t have the luxury of figuring out what
they believe about purpose and meaning over the course of several decades. The questions
become immediate concerns that demand to be answered as soon as possible, whereas for
healthy teenagers they’re more like philosophical questions. It also means that Hazel and
Augustus realize their relationship may be the only significant one each has, even for Hazel who
will likely live a few years, though perhaps not beyond that. As a result their love becomes that
much more intense and meaningful.
Suggested Essay Topics
1.
Discuss the role of love and death in the novel. How does love affect the character’s
perceptions of death? How does death shape the characters’ love story?
2.
How do Hazel’s relationships with Augustus and her father defy traditional gender roles?
3.
What is the value of metafiction in the novel? Does it matter that some of the novel’s
allusions are to real works, while others are not?
4.
What are the various views in the novel about the afterlife? Does the novel suggest one
view is correct?
5.
What role do the relationships between the main characters and their parents play in the
story? How do these relationships differ from those of more typical teenagers and their
parents?
The Fault in our Stars - QUIZ
1.
At the beginning of the novel what television show would Hazel rather watch than attend
Support Group?
(A) Top Chef
(B) American Gladiators
(C) America’s Next Top Model
(D) Gossip Girl
2.
What is the name of the experimental drug that successfully shrinks Hazel’s lung tumors?
(A) Domperidome
(B) Phalanxifor
(C) Finasteride
(D) Alexandronate
3.
Who does Augustus Waters claim is Hazel’s mid-2000’s filmic doppelganger?
(A) Rachel McAdams
(B) Anne Hathaway
(C) Hillary Duff
(D) Natalie Portman
4.
What is the name of the main character in Augustus’s favorite novel, The Price of Dawn?
(A) Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem
(B) Lieutenant Larry Ludicrous
(C) Captain Kris Crusher
(D) Private Peter Pandemonium
5.
What explosive object does Hazel repeatedly call herself when considering the pain her
death will cause her loved ones?
(A) A bomb
(B) A propane tank
(C) A grenade
(D) A missile
6.
What does Augustus say he fears at the support group meeting where he first meets
Hazel?
(A) Meaninglessness
(B) Oblivion
(C) Cancer
(D) Nothing
7.
Which of these is a side effect of dying that is not mentioned in The Fault in Our Stars?
(A) Depression
(B) Worry
(C) Restlessness
(D) Nostalgia
8.
In their correspondence, what reason does Van Houten give for not answering Hazel’s list
of questions about the fate of the characters of An Imperial Affliction?
(A) He does not know the answers.
(B) He doesn’t trust Hazel to not publish or share the answers.
(C) He is working on the sequel, which he hopes to publish in a year or two.
(D) His Dutch lawyer won’t allow him to share his literary secrets.
9.
In what cliché way, according to Augustus, did Hazel choose to use her wish from the
Genie Foundation when she was thirteen?
(A) Hazel got a pet pony named Purple Pony.
(B) Hazel donated her wish to a child less fortunate than her.
(C) Hazel took a trip to Disney World.
(D) Hazel got backstage passes to an ‘N Sync concert.
10.
What is the name of Augustus’s ex-girlfriend who passed away from brain cancer?
(A) Emily Summers
(B) Janet Moonley
(C) Katrina Pederson
(D) Caroline Mathers
11.
How does Peter Van Houten refer to time in his letter to Augustus?
(A) He says time is space.
(B) He says time is a slut.
(C) He says time is late.
(D) He says time is not enough.
12.
What artifact from her childhood causes Hazel to feel extremely sad?
(A) The swing set
(B) Her first bicycle
(C) An antique dollhouse
(D) Her teddy bear
13.
What film do Hazel and Augustus watch together on their flight to Amsterdam?
(A) The Terminator
(B) 300
(C) Return of the Jedi
(D) Romeo and Juliet
14.
What does Hazel learn about Augustus on their flight to Amsterdam?
(A) He loves cats.
(B) He hates anchovies.
(C) He’s afraid of heights.
(D) He’s afraid of flying.
15.
What do Hazel and Augustus drink during their romantic meal at Oranjee?
(A) Perrier
(B) Coca Cola
(C) Champagne
(D) Tap water
16.
Where do Hazel and Augustus share their first romantic kiss?
(A) Funky Bones
(B) Augustus’s car
(C) The Literal Heart of Jesus
(D) The House of Anne Frank
17.
What T-shirt does Hazel wear to meet Van Houten?
(A) A Pablo Picasso T-shirt
(B) A Rene Magritte T-shirt
(C) A Salvador Dali T-shirt
(D) A Joan Miro T-shirt
18.
What does Peter Van Houten mix his scotch with?
(A) Water
(B) Coca Cola
(C) The abstracted idea of water
(D) Orange juice
19.
What do Augustus and Isaac do to get revenge against Isaac’s ex-girlfriend?
(A) Call her house and leave strange messages
(B) Toilet paper her house
(C) Egg her car
(D) Cut her hair
20.
What does Augustus always do in video games?
(A) Sacrifice himself dramatically
(B) Silly things that make Isaac laugh
(C) Kill everyone in sight
(D) Refuse to kill anyone
21.
Why does Augustus drive to a gas station in the middle of the night?
(A) To meet Hazel
(B) To buy a pack of cigarettes
(C) Because he is incoherent from pain medication
(D) Because he needed gas
22.
What reason does Hazel give for being a vegetarian?
(A) She was convinced by a book
(B) She wants to limit the amount of suffering she is responsible for
(C) Animals are too cute
(D) She does not like the taste of meat
23.
Why has Hazel’s mother secretly been taking classes for the last year?
(A) To get her real-estate license
(B) To become a nurse
(C) To become a social worker
(D) To get her masters in existential philosophy
24.
What is Peter Van Houten’s preferred musical genre?
(A) Italian opera
(B) German techno
(C) Swedish hip-hop
(D) American indie rock
25.
What is the name of Anna’s pet hamster in An Imperial Affliction?
(A) Peter the Great
(B) Baxter
(C) Sparky “The Wheel Runner” James
(D) Sisyphus