The Fault in Our Stars
War can represent something different to everyone. It can be liberation. It can be devastation. It can be both. In John Green’s novel, The Fault in Our Stars, the war on cancer is explored. The reader is able to see how the different characters react and interact given the tragic circumstances. It is evident that the war experience varies from person to person, and this impacts his or her personal outcome. Attitudes towards war on illnesses vary. For example, Hazel, a teenager suffering from cancer, has a pessimistic view about her war. Hazel has already accepted defeat because she knows that she will always have cancer. She will never be able to win because“(cancer) is a civil war… with a predetermined winner (death)” (Green 216). As every day passes by, Hazel is one more day closer to death. She never knows when she will die. It could happen any day now. Hazel waits anxiously for that fateful day. Therefore, Hazel views her life as if she no longer exists. She is worried about her parents and that after she passes away “(they) won’t have a life, that (they’ll) sit around (at home) all day” (Green 297). With this point of view, Hazel focuses on her death rather than living her life. At the beginning of the novel, for example, Hazel prefers to stay at home passively. Hazel needs to live a normal life. She needs to have friends, and she needs to interact with other human beings. Therefore Hazel’s mom forces Hazel to go to the Support Group. This meeting sets Hazel’s journey in motion. Without Hazel’s view on her war, she would have never been forced to go the cancer support group. And she would have never met Augustus Waters. And she would have never spent time with Augustus Waters. And the plot of the novel would have never been developed because of this. People who are part of the struggle but are not directly struggling, such as close friends of a person watching someone fight a battle, have a completely different war. Hazel’s parents are fighting a