Juxtaposition Between Cancer And Control In Donna's The Fault In Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is a juxtaposition between cancer and control and how it applies to the life of a teenager. Cancer is defined as a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body. Control is defined as the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events. Most teens want to have control over their lives, they want to choose what happens to them, but in reality they have very little control over the events in their lives. The cancer that the three main characters in the books symbolized the lack of control that most teenagers have over their lives. The story is about how teens try to take control, how they try to keep control, how the only control that believed they had been taken

away, and how they came to the realization that the teen years are uncontrollable, like cancer.
Many young adult books speak to the lack of control teenagers feel, and that aspect of the book engages young adults to read these stories.

Having literature that can speak to your situation in life is what young adults need in their books. In Donna’s Norton Through the Eyes of a Child she lists seven characteristics of a good young adult novel and some of them are,“written from the viewpoint of an of young people, main characters must overcome their problem without help from the parent, deal with emotional problem of young adults and have fast paced storyline” (Norton, 2007). The Fault in Our Stars executed theses things perfectly. It is told from the perspective of a sixteen year old girl, living with cancer, but still going through what most sixteen year old’s go through, She has parents who do not understand her life and what she is going through so they cannot actually help her with her problems and she falls in love for the first time and experienced a tragic heartbreak. The story goes on how life does for a teenager, everything is happening fast and very out of their control, and they must live as best as they can with the circumstances of their life. John Green wrote more than just a teen cancer book, he told the experiences of not having any control in your teen years by using

cancer.
The main character of the book, Hazel Grace Lancaster ties to take control of her life by limiting the amount of people she interacts with. The cancer she has is affecting her lungs and she is a recipient of a miracle treatment that keeps her breathing. One of her sayings about her cancer is that “ her lungs really sucked at being lungs” (Green 2012). She does not hope for anything or want to meet any people. She says to her mom one day, “I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?” (Green, 2012). She did not get involved with anything that had other people in it. She was not even open in her cancer support group and that was made of teens like her who are all terminally ill. She believed that she could control who gets affected by her death, and she tried very hard to maintain that control. She meets Augustus Waters and she tried very hard to resist his charms. He was the cancer survivor and so full of life, she did not want to hurt him with what she thought was her impending death. She fell in love with him, she let him complete in and with him came his family and his friend and suddenly she had people outside of her parents who cared about her and who would be hurt by her death. When she fell in love with him she had the adventure of a lifetime, she only wished it could be longer. That is when she realizes that she lost her control and how idiotic it was to think she had any control over the situation. The control that she thought she had was gone when she came to the realization that she was not the grenade but Gus was. She says. “Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t Unloved Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.” (Green, 2012). When she lost him she had to feel what she was trying to avoid making others feel. She became a person who lost someone to cancer. She was the friend, the girlfriend, the one who was left to deal with the aftermath of the grenade. Her driving force of wanting to have control to make sure everyone would be okay, without her. She says “I wanted to know that he would be okay if I died. I wanted to not be a grenade, to not be a malevolent force in the lives of people I loved.” (Green, 2012). She came to the realization that she never really had control, that none of them do and that wanting something to happen does not mean it will.
Isaac, who in the beginning the book is Augustus's best friend, but ends as Hazel's great friend has cancer that affects his eyes and he ends up having to get them removed becoming blind. Isaac loses the control he thinks he has over his relationship. He tried to take control with the promise he and his girlfriend made with each other which was saying always to one another. They would always be together no matter what, they would always love each other. That promise of always a way for him to maintain some control. He was losing his sight so the only thing he had left was his girlfriend of two years. She stood by him throughout his diagnoses and when he lost his first eye. He tried to maintain his control, by validating the love they had. Isaac says Well, I believe in true love, “And I love her. And she promised. She promised me always”(Green, 2012). Isaac was holding on to that promise because that was all he could do. His girlfriend broke up with him because she couldn't handle being in the relationship anymore. The only control that believed he had been taken away, He said to hazel, “ But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don’t you believe in true love?” (Green, 2012). His girlfriend was the last thing left of a normal life for him, it was the only control he had and when he lost it , he was losing the only power he had over his life. He lost his sight and his girlfriend. He came to the realization that he did not have control and decide that all he has to do is try to live the life he has. He learned that life is not about having control because as a teenager, you do not have any, but it is about trying to live life knowing you have no control. He told Hazel,“I’ve stopped thinking about it. I don’t have time to have a girlfriend. I have like a full-time job Learning How to Be Blind.”(Green, 2012).
The other main character Augustus ‘Gus’ Waters, the survivor of cancer and a supportive friend to Isaac. His way of thinking and living is best explained in his quote, “I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up” (Green, 2012). One example of how Gus tries to take control of life is his metaphor with the cigarette. He pulled out a cigarette in front of Hazel knowing they have both suffered from cancer, but he does not light it he only puts it in his mouth, he tells her,“It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing” (Green, 2012). That was how he tried to take control, he tries to keep control over his life when he takes Hazel to Amsterdam to meet their favorite another, he was still trying to live on a roller coaster that only goes up when he knew that his cancer was back and worse than ever. He didn't tell hazel he was sick when he knew, he tries to keep everything together. Gus eventually tells Hazel about his cancer and he tries to take control again by saying “I'll fight it. I'll fight it for you. Don't you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I'm okay. I'll find a way to hang around and annoy you for a long time.”(Green, 2012). He loses the control he thinks he has when he could no longer fake smoke. His body would not allow him the one thing he did that made him feel like he had power over his life. He sadly says,“This is it. I can't even not smoke anymore” (Green, 2012). He came to the realization that he never had any control and his quotes that sums that up his realization is when he says to Hazel, “The world is not a wish-granting factory”(Green, 2012) Just like Hazel, Isaac and most teens in their world, he came to the point when they have to accept life as it is and accept that there are some things in the world they cannot change by wishing or wanting or even making promises. That the life of a teenager is the life of having no control.
By having the main character in this book to have cancer, John green illustrated what Richard Corliss said in his article Topic of Cancer, “Most teens think they're on an adventure adults can't understand.

For cancer teens, that adage is true; they are likely to die before they become adults” (Corliss,2014). In young adult life, the teenagers think that adults cannot help them with their problems, that what they are going through is so unique to them and it has never happened to anyone else before. Given that Augustus does die before he becomes an adult shows that for some young adult's life can be so uncontrollable and not end up in a positive manner. They may not become the adults they wish to be or they may be forced to give up on being youthful. That even the brightest stars die out, but that you can still try to enjoy whatever time you have as a young adult and stop trying to control every aspect of your life. Corliss goes on to say that “ It allows Hazel and Augustus to pack the luster of a lifetime -- first love, trip to Europe, meeting a famous author, last love -- into what may be their only summer” (Corliss 2014). Teens experience a lot of things for the first time during their teen years, The Fault in our stars just gives us a glimpse. The cancer in this book may seem drastic because there were so many other things he could have written about that shows just how out of control teens feel. It just shows that people react to life experiences differently, in the

article, The topic of cancer, Grossman states, “Gus and Hazel refuse to be tropes. Instead, they construct a new kind of cancer rhetoric, one that looks straight on at the unbearable fact that they are monstrously unlucky and stand a good chance of dying young.” (Grossman,2012). Cancer novels sometimes have characters who are insanely hopeful that things will turn out great, and are not ready to face the reality that thing can end horribly. The Fault in Our Stars is a novel in which thing does end horribly. It is a very accurate representation of how crazy and uncomfortable life can get for teenagers. Sometimes you can try as hard as you want to get the outcome you want it still won't work. That is what Hazel, Gus, and Isaac comes to learn, when Isaac and his girlfriend broke up because she couldn't handle the pressure of being with him after he went blind after they promised each other forever, when Hazel felt love after she wanted to minimize the amount of people that would be devastated by her death, and when Gus was no longer on a roller coaster that only went up. When they realized that they never really had control of their lives is what makes them such iconic characters and great representation of teens. Although not every teen deal with cancer, every teen does deal with trying to take control, losing the control they thought they had and realizing in that they never had any control in the first place.