By reading the first two paragraphs, what impression does the narrator make on you?
The first time I read it was long time ago and I don’t remember which was my first impression when I read the first two paragraphs. Still, I can say my opinion or what impression I get when re reading them.
In them, Hazel explains that her mom believed she was depressed and that needed a treatment, so she starts to attend a weekly support group.
The depression Hazel has isn’t clinical, is just a mood caused because of having cancer. Thinking about death, reading the same book over and over again, being all day in bed, it was all a side effect of having cancer, which was a side effect of dying, just like she said.
I think her mood was okay. I don’t say that it was okay that she was depressed, of course not, but I mean, she had cancer. There were many things that she couldn’t do, and being inhibited from many things, many things that probably she would like to do or things that for a person without her type of cancer was common to do, wasn’t going to leave her happy as a lark.
Hazel is somehow forced by her mum to join the support group. Do you justify or sympathize with Hazel’s unwillingness to take part in it? Would you dare to say the support group was worth attending? Justify your view.
I think it was okay that she didn't want to go to Support Group. I mean, if she believed that it was depressing and boring, she had all the right to not want to go to Support Group. Still, I believe that it was worth attending, because she would have an extra activity, and there she would have the opportunity of meeting people like Isaac or Augustus, people whi shared her thoughts, and why not, her resilience of going to Support Group.
Find evidence that may show Hazel’s interest in Augustus.
"A boy was staring at me. Long and leanly muscular, he dwarfed the molded plastic elementary school chair he wassitting in. Mahogany hair, straight and short.[...] I cut a glance to him, and his eyes were still on me. It occurred to me why they call it eye contact."
"He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault.But a hot boy . . . well."
"His voice was low, smoky, and dead sexy. “
"I looked over at Augustus Waters, who looked back at me. You could almost see through his eyes they were so blue. “
"His every syllable flirted. Honestly, he kind of turned me on"
“You choose your behaviors based on their metaphorical resonances . . .” I said.
“Oh, yes.” He smiled. The big, goofy, real smile. “I’m a big believer in metaphor, Hazel Grace.”
I turned to the car. Tapped the window. It rolled down. “I’m going to a movie with Augustus Waters,”
Analyze the role of religion in Hazel’s life.
I think that the poor role that religion has is useful to show that not everybody use religion for confronting their reality. For example, Hazel seems to be atheist, but I think it is because all the anwers that she may be looking for she founds them in AIA. She is more touched by Anna's story than by the Bible.
Religion's most iimportant appearance is when she attends Support Group, and since she finds that group as depressive, she has no way of appealing to feeling more close to religion.
Among the subtle issues of metafiction that John Green shares in his work is that of oblivion; how does Hazel respond to Augustus’s fear of it? Does it sound convincing to you?
She says that fearing oblivion is nonsense because of its inevitability. There would come a time when there won't be more people, a moment where there won't be anybody or anything else for reminding us.
I sounds convincing for me, but I believe that although that is true, I believe that fearing oblivion means fearing to be forgotten by humanity, so it doesn't matter if someday there is no human to remind the rest of the human, what matters, is that if there is one human left on earth, that he reminds all the things that humanity did.
Hazel refers to An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten as her Bible; what makes her be so close to it?
I think it is because she sees the book as a reference to her own life, and she doesn't want to die without the security of knowing that her parents will be okay. That's the reason of why she is so desperate to contact Peter Van Houten for knowing all the answers to the questions she has about the book: those are questions that she also has for her life.
Her devotion to the book and to PVH, might explain why she feels reluctant to religion. Religion isn't able of giving her the answers she is looking for, and she feels the AIA is closer than the Bible of answering, transforming AIA in her own Bible. She found her way to confront the reality with her favourite book, while others, such as Patrick, might have found it in religion.
Analyze Hazel’s attitude towards “death”. Cite examples.
She isn't afraid of it. She knows it is part of life, and that it is more present in her life because everyday she is in the line of being alive or being dead.
"This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying"
All the things that change around her and in her are side effects of dying.
"In fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.)"
John Green makes great use of figurative language; he plays with symbolism all throughout the novel. Just one example of this is Augustus’s faked smoking habit; what’s the purpose of it?
I believe the purpose of it is to show that although cancer has power on him and that it can "decide" wether he lives or not, he also has power on cancer, the killing thing, because he could get sicker if he smoked the cigarettes, but he isn't even litting them.
It means that the decisions we make, even if they imply not doing something, purport that we have power and control in our lives, even if it is little.