Literary Analysis Of The Fault In Our Stars

People with diseases such as cancer not only suffer from an internal struggle, living every day on the brink of death, but they also suffer from the negative perceptions by society. When people are known to have diseases, they are viewed as weak. Even if they are pitied, they are not viewed in the same light as somebody who is healthy. In The Fault in Our Stars, author John Green represents this struggle with a plethora of literary elements such as symbolism and metaphors and manages to create a story of love and friendship despite the dark themes of the novel.
Throughout the novel, the main protagonist, Hazel Grace Lancaster, struggles from not only a fight between her body and lungs as a sufferer of lung cancer, but she also suffers from not

In fact it was Hazel’s own “Regular Doctor Jim”(Green 4) who suggested that Hazel attend the support group. Despite never actually experiencing her struggles, the people around Hazel are the ones making these decisions for her. This everlasting feel of powerlessness is present in most of the cancer patients mentioned in the novel. However, the character of Augustus Waters, Hazel’s love interest, refuses to be powerless despite suffering from cancer like many others. At the beginning of the novel, Augustus is portrayed as a very confident person. After surviving a battle with osteosarcoma early in childhood, it is not surprising how self-assured he is. Upon meeting Hazel, Augustus puts a cigarette in his mouth. Hazel is understandably appalled from witnessing this as a person with lung cancer. She further goes on to exclaim that Augustus is giving ‘“money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER.”’(Green 20). Augustus calmly responds by telling her “‘They don’t kill you unless you light them.”(Green 20). He tells Hazel that he uses the cigarettes to act as a ‘“metaphor..: You put the killing thing right