John Green is a modern day American author that deserves to be considered as a noteworthy author. Throughout John Green’s writings, it can be seen that his life has influenced his writing and is a noteworthy author.
Influences from John Green’s life can be seen through his writing. This can be seen through his first published book Looking for Alaska. In Looking for Alaska the main character Miles goes to a boarding school, in Alabama called Culver Creek and is obsessed with the dying words of famous people. At the boarding school Miles became friends with a girl named Alaska who later died in a car accident. Like the character, Miles Green went to a boarding school in Alabama called Indian Springs and was obsessed with dying words of famous
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people(Bio). Although he was not friends with the girl that died in a car accident like Miles it still affected Green and inspired the character Alaska(Braun 13). Through the Green’s book, The Fault in Our Stars is another example of how his life affected his writing.
After Green graduated college he decided that he wanted to be an Episcopal priest so he started working at a divinity school at the University of Chicago and worked as a chaplain at a children’s hospital in Ohio. As a chaplain, he counseled families that had children who had died or were dying. This affected Green and encouraged him to write a book about sick kids but didn’t write it until later in life. Green said, “But I was so angry, so furious with the world that these terrible things could happen, and they weren’t even rare or uncommon, and I think in the end for the first ten years or so I never could write it because I was just too angry, and I wasn’t able to capture the complexity of the world. I wanted the book to be funny. I wanted the book to be unsentimental. After meeting Esther, I felt very differently about whether a short life could be a rich life”(Braun 30-31). In 2009, Green met Esther Grace Earl at LeakyCon, a convention in Boston for fans of the Harry Potter series. Esther Grace Earl was a fifteen-year-old girl with thyroid cancer and stayed in touch with Green for a while but later died at the age of sixteen. Green was inspired by the way Esther lived her life, humor, and strength which inspired the character of Hazel Grace Lancaster in The Fault in Our Stars (Braun 29). Hazel is a sixteen-year-old girl that has thyroid cancer, has to depend on an …show more content…
oxygen tank, and has very good humor just like Esther. For example, “‘Headline?’ he asked. ‘Swing Set Needs Home,' I said. 'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,’ he said. 'Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,’ I said”(Fault 93). This quote shows the humor that the character Hazel Grace has that was inspired by Esther’s humor while she is talking about her old swing set with the character Augustus Waters. John Green can be considered a noteworthy author for many reasons shown throughout his books including Looking for Alaska. For example, “When adults say, ‘Teenagers think they are invincible’ with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they are old they get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end and it cannot fail”(Looking 220-221). This quote shows that Green is a noteworthy author because of his use of good detail and connection to the reader. Green uses good detail because the reader can imagine their parents saying teenagers think they are invincible with a sly, stupid smile on their face. This quote also connects to the reader because most of Green’s readers are young adults and talks about how teenagers think that they are invincible which can be relatable to most teenagers. Green is often referred to as the “teen whisperer” in his writing because he relates to them so well(John). This is a good example of how Green is a noteworthy author. Another reason Green can be considered a noteworthy author is he makes the reflect on their own lives. For example, “Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. ‘Huh?’ I asked. You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present”(Looking 54). This quote shows Green’s connection to his audience and making a statement. Green is saying that there is no point in thinking about the future because you never do what you say you want to accomplish in the future and that you only use the future as an excuse to not think about the present. This connects to his audience because a lot of young adults do this and his audience is mostly young adults. It also makes the reader think about this quote because most people do this every day and he wants people to act on their thoughts and not just keep as their thoughts. This is a good example of how Green tries to make the reader reflect on their own lives and what they are doing. The last example of why Green is a noteworthy author is his use of humor throughout his writing. “And what is an ‘instant’ death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain.
What the hell is an instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes,
instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous”(Looking
146). This quote shows that Green is connecting to the reader by using humor. Green uses humor a lot
in his books which help him connect to the reader more. Using humor also helps the reader be more
interested in the book because some readers get tired of reading boring serious books. Looking for
Alaska can be serious at times but also has a sense of humor to it to make it an enjoyable read. Overall,
Green does a great job of keeping the reader interested in the serious and humorous topics.
John Green is a modern day author that can be seen as a noteworthy author and has shown through various books that his life influenced his writing. Green’s high school experience influenced many details within the book Looking for Alaska and his job as a chaplain inspired him to write The Fault in Our Stars. Green can be considered a noteworthy in today's world because of his connection to the audience, good detail, and humor. These all contribute to being the true “teen whisperer” writer John Green is and will continue to be in all of his
writings. Works Cited "Bio." John Green. Web. 16 Mar. 2017, http://www.johngreenbooks.com/bio/. Braun, Eric. John Green: Star Author, Vlogbrother, and Nerdfighter. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2015. Print. Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich: Large Print, a Part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016. Print. Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Dutton, 2012. Print. " John Green." 2012. FamousAuthors.org 16 March, http://www.famousauthors.org/john-green.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: a Lively and Entertaining Guide to
Life is a form of progress- from one stage to another, from one responsibility to another. Studying, getting good grades, and starting the family are common expectations of human life. In the novel Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer introduced the tragic story of Christopher Johnson McCandless. After graduating from Emory University, McCandless sold of his possessions and ultimately became a wanderer. He hitchhiked to Alaska and walked into the wilderness for nearly 4 months. This journey to the 49th state proved fatal for him, and he lost his life while fulfilling his dream. After reading this novel, some readers admired the boy for his courage and noble ideas, while others fulminated that he was an idiot who perished out of arrogance and
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who ventured off to Alaska and tried to survive in the wild. McCandless grew up in Annandale, Virginia where he attended school and made very good grades, rarely bringing home anything below an A. His father, Walt worked for NASA for a little while, before starting his own business with Chris’s mother, Billie, out of their own home. They worked hard and for long hours to get the business up and running and it finally paid off. The McCandless family was wealthy, but had many emotional problems. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, Chris McCandless donated twenty-four thousand dollars from his savings account to charity, changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, and then disappeared. This book tells the story of his life and travels. Some critics say that Chris McCandless was a very admirable person. He was a brave man that followed his dreams. However, given all of his flaws, attitudes, and actions, he is un-admirable. McCandless walked into the wild very unprepared and stubborn. He also treated his family poorly as well as anyone who got emotionally close to him. Chris was additionally too impressionable in a way that he admired authors along with the books they wrote, and tried to imitate them. He was very rebellious in his actions as well, and did not try to change the world or help others.
Green drags the reader right into the text from the very beginning, and very skilfully keeps the reader engaged to the end of the introduction. With varied techniques to convey his message, Green is able to summarize the novel and grab attention in the few opening pages.
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon was born in 1937 in Glen's Cove, New York. He is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, Vineland, and Mason & Dixon. Nothing else is known of this author (not exactly true, but close enough to the truth to make that last blanket statement passable). He has attempted to veil himself in total obscurity and anonymity. For the most part, he has succeeded in this, save for a rare interview or two. In 1974 he received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow. He would have been awarded The Pulitzer Prize as well, but his blatant disregard for narrative sequence led to a rift between the judges and the editorial board. Ultimately, the book was not selected. In fact, no book was chosen that year in the Fiction Category, the first (and only) time a work of fiction did not receive the award. The controversy that followed was considerable. Keeping this in mind, any attempt at an expurgated plot synopsis is laughable at best, therefore will be somewhat refrained from. However, given the brevity of this paper, it is possible to address the setting(s), the chief protagonist, and some interpretations concerning the title of this book.
The Fault In Our Stars is a novel by author John Green. The story followed the leading character, Hazel Grace Lancaster, as the she battled cancer. Not simply did Hazel want to live the normal life of a 16-year-old girl, but she additionally struggled with what it would probably be like for her parents after she passed away. While Hazel attended a church support class for cancer survivors, she met a boy that was one year older than her, Augustus Waters. While Augustus had a kind of cancer that caused him to lose his leg in addition to wear a prosthetic, it also had a survival rate that was much higher compared to Hazel's.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Schlib, John and John Clifford. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed.
John Steinbeck is considered one of the most influential and respected prewar and postwar authors of all time. His national and international success with novels such as Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath earned him the Nobel Peace prize for literature in 1962 which marked the end of an amazing writer. Steinbeck’s works shared common themes, but a majority of his renowned works were set right in his childhood backyard in the Salinas valley and Monterey bay area. His short story collection The Long Valley is a prime example of his childhood influence in his setting as well as the common themes used throughout his works. John Steinbeck’s success is still apparent today in modern day classrooms around the world, a famous and renowned author many years after his time.
John Green’s wonderful yet tragic best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars tells a heart-wrenching story of two teenage cancer patients who fall in love. Augustus Waters and Hazel Lancaster live in the ordinary city of Indianapolis, where they both attend a support group for cancer patients. Falling in love at first sight, the two are inseparable until Augustus’s cancer comes out of remission, turning Hazel’s world upside. This is one of the best young-adult fiction novels of the year because it keeps readers on the edge of their seat, uses themes to teach real life lessons, and uses a realistic point of view instead of the cliché happy ending of most books.
Moreover, the authors use the actions of the characters to develop the theme of prejudice. In paragraph five of The Greene it states, “ And he always says that no Greenies will ever move into his neighborhood.” in paragraph 28 of The Hangman he states “For who has served me more faithfully?” The quotes suggest that the character in The Greene does not want green haired people to move into his neighborhood.. In The Hangman the quote suggest that the characters served The Hangman
Looking for Alaska is a book ,written by John Green. The main theme of the book is “Looking for the Great Perhaps.” In the first three chapters of the book, the main characters, Miles “Pudge” Halter, Chip “Colonel” Martin, and Alaska Young are introduced. Looking for Alaska is a story about a guy named Miles Halter who recently switched to a boarding in school in Alabama in order to find out who he really is as a person. At the boarding school, Miles becomes very close friends with his roommate, The Colonel, and a girl named Alaska Young. The Colonel is a very confident guy who’s pretty poor in money, but he’s rich in love and appreciation for people. Alaska is a very beautiful, yet strange girl who is fascinated with death and isn't afraid
bookwormlife. (2014, January 11). John Green: The Faults in Our Stars [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://www.bookandreader.com/threads/john-green-the-faults-in-our-stars.26305/
The Fault in Our Stars was written in January of 2010 by John Green. The story is narrated by sixteen-year-old cancer patient Hazel Gr...