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Summary: Chapter 10

Summary

Hazel Grace Lancaster starts her story by telling us that her mother thinks she's depressed. Hazel doesn't deny that she's a little fixated on death. She considers just about everything, including her cancer, a side effect of dying. Her mother and doctor agreed she should attend a weekly cancer support group. The leader of the support group is a cancer survivor named Patrick who constantly talks about the fact that they meet in the heart of Jesus since the group meets in the basement of a cross-shaped church, directly at the spot where Jesus’ heart would be. Despite his surviving cancer, Hazel views his life as dreary. In the meeting, Hazel introduces herself. She is sixteen and originally had thyroid cancer, though it's spread to her lungs, too. Hazel equates the sharing part of group to a circle jerk of support where everyone talks about how they're winning the fight. The only part of support group she likes is a guy named Isaac who lost an eye to cancer and may lose his remaining eye as well. They both sigh derisively at people's stories.

After a few weeks, Hazel attends a meeting where she's surprised by the presence of a new and beautiful boy who stares directly at her. His name is Augustus Waters, and he's attending the meeting to support Isaac, who discovered he will soon lose his second eye to cancer. Augustus is a survivor of osterosarcoma, and when asked what he fears, he says “oblivion.” Hazel, who rarely speaks, says to the group that eventually everyone will be dead, and everything humanity has built will have been for naught. In her narration she explains she learned this from her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten. When the meeting wraps up Isaac introduces Augustus and Hazel. Augustus says Hazel reminds him of Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta.” The two flirt, mock the meeting's location in the “literal” heart of Jesus, and watch Isaac make out with his girlfriend, Monica. Placing a cigarette between his lips, Augustus invites Hazel to his place, to watch “V For Vendetta.” Hazel is disgusted by the cigarette but reconsiders when Augustus explains that he never lights it. Rather, he enjoys the metaphorical resonance of putting something that kills between his teeth and denying it the power to kill him.

Analysis

Functionally speaking, the first few chapters of the novel are dense with a variety of introductions pertaining to characters, background, setting, and tone. First and foremost, we meet Hazel Grace Lancaster, the novel’s chief protagonist and narrator, and become acquainted with the skeptical way she views the world. Cancer has rendered Hazel perhaps more jaded and philosophical than her non-cancer ridden peers. Already on the first page of the narrative Hazel let’s on about her theory of side effects, namely that almost everything conceivable can be viewed as a side effect of dying. She also attacks the convention of portraying kids with cancer as heroic victims, making no qualms about the fact that she sees these conventions as empty cliches. Right away this information tells us that Hazel isn't an unrealistic romantic, and that of all things, she perhaps appreciates honesty most. She suggests that honesty is precisely the reason she loves An Imperial Affliction, the book she considers her personal bible. The author, she says, is the only person who understands what it's really like to be dying, which implies that the book is the only one she's found that accurately portrays that experience.



Hazel's jadedness forms the basis for her friendships in this chapter. She and Isaac communicate through their groans at the sentimentality and unrelenting optimism of the support group. It also creates an attraction right away between Hazel and Augustus. Physical appearance aside, it's Augustus's saying that he fears oblivion and then Hazel following with her speech on the inevitable demise of humanity that creates the first bond between them. They follow that by mocking the notion of the support group being in the “literal” heart of Jesus. The three share a distaste for what they evidently view as the intellectual and emotional dishonesty of the support group, and that mutual feeling allows them all to bond.

One of the pervasively recurrent themes throughout the novel is the underlying current of existentialism, and many of the basic tenets of existentialism are already prevalent by the conclusion of the first chapter. Concerns about authenticity, uncertainty, fear, meaning, and death—to name just the most prominent of existentialism's themes—are practically ubiquitous. The most notable example is Hazel's speech to the group about the guaranteed end of humanity. Given the cast of characters, the prevalence of existential themes is no surprise. By their very nature, Hazel, Augustus, Isaac, and all of the cancer kids at the support group are compelled one way or another to deal with the inevitability of dying in a way that other people in their age group, and even their parents' age groups, don't. Death isn't an abstraction, as Hazel's experience at the support group makes clear. The meeting ends with Patrick reading off a list of names of former members who have died, and Hazel imagines her own name at the end of that list, showing that she's completely aware that her own death is inevitable and probably imminent. Through these details it's obvious that imagining death and trying to find meaning in the world aren't just intellectual exercises for Hazel and the others but very real concerns in their everyday lives.

The first chapter introduces some other important elements as well: Augustus's cigarette, which is major symbol in the novel, and the motif of metaphors generally. Augustus tells Hazel he keeps the unlit cigarette in his mouth for its symbolism, or “metaphorical resonance” as Hazel phrases it. It's a way of feeling he has control over the thing that has the power to kill him. In this case, that thing is cancer, represented by the cigarette, a well-known carcinogen. These sorts of metaphors turn up throughout the novel, with Augustus's cigarettes probably being the most prominent of them. Generally speaking, metaphors allow the characters to deal with emotionally fraught topics, like death and the emotional devastation their deaths will ultimately have on the people around them, without them having to always name those things directly. They become a shorthand, and in certain instances the metaphors give the characters a little emotional distance from these topics. In Augustus's case, he can put the cigarette in his mouth to regain a sense of control rather than having to stop and think through his cancer with all the emotional baggage that involves.

Summary: Chapter 2

En route to Augustus’s house to watch “V for Vendetta,” Hazel comments on the jolting quality of Augustus’s driving. Augustus admits having failed the driving test three times, revealing that he is an amputee, having lost a leg to cancer. He speculates he only passed the test as a “cancer perk,” or the special favors cancer kids get, like famous autographs or free passes on homework. When the subject of school comes up, Augustus lets on about being a sophomore in high school, having only missed one year from cancer.

Hazel recounts the details of her own cancer saga. Her parents pulled her out of school at thirteen when she was diagnosed with terminal stage IV thyroid cancer, and she describes the surgery and chemotherapy to remove her lung tumors. At fourteen Hazel developed pneumonia in her lungs, and probably would have died if not for Maria, one of her doctors, who was able to drain the fluid from her lungs. Since then, Hazel has stayed alive with the help of an experimental drug called Phalanxifor. It hasn't worked for most patients, but in Hazel it's essentially stopped the growth of her lung tumors. Throughout the ordeal Hazel managed to get her GED and now takes courses at the community college. Augustus flirtatiously remarks that being a college girl must explain Hazel’s aura of sophistication.

When Hazel meets Augustus’s parents she distinctly notes they refer to him as Gus, not Augustus. She likes the idea of a single person having two names. Augustus shows Hazel his basement bedroom, which is packed with basketball trophies. He tells her how one day, while shooting free throws, he had a sort of existential epiphany. Suddenly the nature of throwing a spherical ball through a raised toroidal hoop seemed absurd. The epiphany came the weekend before his amputation. Hazel is in awe of a boy who once took existential free throws.

Hazel and Augustus agree to read one another’s favorite books. Augustus lends Hazel a copy of The Price of Dawn, a book based on his favorite video game. Hazel describes her strong feelings for An Imperial Affliction. Augustus drives Hazel home after the movie, and she agrees to call him once she’s finished his book.

Summary: Chapter 3

Hazel wakes to her mother jubilantly announcing that it's Hazel’s thirty-third half birthday. Hazel agrees to meet her former schoolmate Kaitlyn at the mall to please her mother. At the mall, Hazel purchases the two sequels to the novel Augustus gave her. When Kaitlyn arrives, the girl’s somewhat one-sidedly discuss Kaitlyn’s high-school love affairs and shop for shoes. Kaitlyn selects several pair of shoes, whereas Hazel purchases a pair of flip-flops merely to have something to buy. Hazel feigns exhaustion and the girls go their separate ways. With two hours to kill, Hazel begins reading the sequel to The Price of Dawn, called Midnight Dawn. Hazel notes how violent the series is, but there is something exciting about it that reminds her of the series she read as a child when she could immerse into “an infinite fiction.”

While reading, Hazel is approached by a young child who asks about the tube in her nose. Hazel explains it's called a cannula. It connects to the oxygen tank she has to carry with her and it helps her breathe. She allows the child to try it on. Soon the child’s mother appears and apologetically takes the child away. Hazel reflects on the natural innocence of the child, contrasting the normalcy of their short interaction with her strained time with Kaitlyn.

Analysis

These chapters establish the sense of “otherness” that defines cancer victims within society. Cancer is the main way that other people identify Hazel and Augustus, and it comes out in the way people interact with them. Hazel’s mother, for example, insists on celebrating Hazel’s thirty-third half birthday. Half-birthdays aren't really a cause for celebration for typical healthy teenagers, and the emphasis Hazel's mother places on the event suggests Hazel should be treated differently than a healthy teenager. The same notion underlies the idea of the “cancer perk.” Cancer kids get preferential treatment because of their illness, which is why Augustus received his driver's license despite being an apparently shaky driver. That “otherness” isn't just one-sided. Cancer can define the way cancer sufferers view themselves as well, which is why Augustus doesn't want Hazel to be “one of those people who becomes their disease.” Even so, cancer has significant influence on Hazel's social interactions, which we see when Hazel hangs out with Kaitlyn. There is a certain “unbridgeable distance,” or awkwardness, between the two girls as they shop for shoes. Hazel even laments that because of the cancer barrier, it could never again feel natural to talk to Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn can't separate Hazel from her identity as a cancer patient, and conversely Hazel can't reassume her pre-cancer identity. The one time this “otherness” falls away is in Hazel's conversation with the little girl, who addresses Hazel not knowing anything about cancer or why she has tubes in her nose. Hazel for a moment is free from her identity as a cancer patient.

These early chapters also shed light on the budding relationship between Hazel and Augustus. While their shared experience of having cancer isn't the only thing that attracts them to each other—each thinks the other is smart, charming, and of course physically attractive—it does allow them to dispense with that barrier of “otherness” we see between Hazel and Kaitlyn. Hazel and Augustus are on common ground since they're both cancer patients, allowing them to talk about things like the so-called “cancer perks” in a way they might find difficult with someone who hasn't been through the experience of having cancer. They can both recognize, for instance, the irony of the word “perks,” since these perks aren't so much a bonus for having cancer as an expression of pity that both, of course, accept but also find grating. Perhaps more importantly, however, they also begin getting to know each other beyond their experiences with cancer. Augustus makes a point of this when he asks Hazel what her story is, then interrupts when she starts talking about her diagnosis and tells her he means her story, not her cancer story. He's clear to distinguish one from the other, and it's from this point that their relationship begins to develop in a deeper way.

The existential motif appears again in this section, most notably in Augustus's story about shooting free throws on the day before he had his leg amputated. In the story he tells, he describes the freethrows as “existentially fraught,” which indicates that they're about much more than just getting a ball through a hoop. Augustus had been a star basketball player, and it's evident that basketball was an important part of his life. As he shot the free throws, however, he realized how arbitrary the activity was. He describes it as childish and essentially without any real purpose to Hazel. He doesn't say so explicitly, but his story and the timing of this realization suggest that the free throws represented the search for purpose and meaning for him more generally. It was Augustus's last day before having his leg amputated, after which he would no longer be able to play basketball, at least not competitively. This important part of his life would be taken away from him, and it seems this change prompted him to ask what value basketball really has. And if it isn't valuable to him, if it's really just an arbitrary activity, then what does have purpose? The question fits very neatly into existentialism's quest for meaning in a universe where life and death are potentially arbitrary.

Summary: Chapter 4

Hazel summarizes the plot of An Imperial Affliction. The narrator is a girl named Anna who develops blood cancer. Anna lives with her mother, a one-eyed tulip obsessed gardener, who falls in love with a dubious, allegedly rich figure called The Dutch Tulip Man. As a reader, Hazel questions the man’s wealth and even his real nationality. Hazel admires Anna’s candid nature in the face of cancer. She finds it comforting that Anna also, views herself as a side effect of the endless biological mutation that provides the planet with its abundant diversity of life. The only issue with the book is its lack of a conclusion. It ends midsentence without any character resolution. To make matters worse, Van Houten mysteriously vanished into obscurity after publishing the novel.

Setting the book aside, Hazel calls Augustus, who is busy consoling the recently dumped Isaac. Augustus invites Hazel over, and she arrives to find the boys playing video games. Isaac is distraught. Quoting An Imperial Affliction, Augustus points out that “pain demands to be felt.” When Isaac’s carelessness gets the boys flanked in the video game, Augustus heroically sacrifices himself by jumping on an enemy grenade, in a futile effort to save a group of children. The screen reads mission failed, but Augustus contends otherwise, noting the children were spared. Hazel, however, points out that all salvation is temporary. Suddenly Isaac snaps and attacks the pillows. Augustus points out that pillows, unlike basketball trophies, are unbreakable and coaxes Isaac into smashing all the trophies.

Summary: Chapter 5

A week later, Augustus phones Hazel. They discuss the things they love and dislike about An Imperial Affliction. Augustus coyly asks about Van Houten’s reclusive nature, then reveals that he has miraculously gotten in contact with Van Houten through the author’s assistant, Lidewij Vliegenthart. Augustus shares the content of Van Houten’s correspondence. Van Houten’s response is warm but philosophically cryptic, especially in regard to the purpose of art, which the author questions wholeheartedly.

Later, Hazel spends hours formulating the perfect email to Van Houten. Finally, she strikes out a list of questions all pertaining to his novel's lack of resolution. What is the fate of Sisyphus the Hamster? Does Anna’s mother remarry? Is the Dutch Tulip Man actually a con man? Email sent, Hazel calls Augustus and reads him “A Certain Slant of Light,” the Emily Dickinson poem that An Imperial Affliction derives its title from. They also discuss Augustus’s past relationship with a girl named Caroline who died from cancer. At the end of their conversation, Hazel thinks of how speaking on the phone with Augustus is like being in an invisible “third space” that only they occupy.

A few days later Hazel gets a text from Augustus stating that Isaac’s surgery was successful and that he has been ruled cancer free, though the excitement is somewhat empty on account of Isaac now being eyeless. Hazel visits Isaac at the hospital. When Isaac falls asleep Hazel buys him some super-scented hospital flowers. On her way out, Hazel encounters Isaac’s mother, who asks if Hazel knows Isaac’s ex-girlfriend, Monica.

The next morning Hazel receives a response from Van Houten. He states he cannot answer any of Hazel’s questions for fear that she might twist those answers into a sequel. However he extends an invitation: They can discuss the novel in person if Hazel ever finds herself in Amsterdam. Hazel is elated by the offer, but quickly determines a trip to Amsterdam would be financially unfeasible. She shares the news with Augustus, who asks if she's used her wish from The Genie Foundation, an organization that grants sick kids one wish. Unfortunately Hazel spent her wish on a cliché trip to Disney World when she was first diagnosed. A few days later Augustus plans a surprise Dutch themed-date at the Funky Bones sculpture park. He shocks Hazel with the news that he never used his wish, and The Genie Foundation has agreed to fly them to Amsterdam.

Analysis

Chapters 4 and 5 deal with a question that ties into the motif of existentialism, namely: What is authentic and what is artificial? The question turns up in a variety of ways. Some are subtle, like Hazel learning that all the flowers in the hospital are sprayed with Super Scent, so their scents aren't real. They smell good and like flowers nonetheless, but the scent is artificial. Augustus also makes note of the “cold and artificial” pleasures of the theme park in his soliloquy during their picnic, implying that the pleasures of a theme park are hollow and not really authentic. The authenticity question comes up more directly in Van Houten's reply to Augustus's email, when he asks if “the fleeting jolt of meaning that art gives us” is valuable or not. It's a question at the heart of An Imperial Affliction's symbolism, and The Fault In Our Stars does suggest an answer. The Author's Note says the idea that fiction can matter is “the foundational assumption of our species,” indicating that, at least for John Green, art can have real, i.e. authentic, value. In addition, Hazel obviously finds great meaning in An Imperial Affliction. Reading it and experiencing a story that resonates with and captures her own life provides her with a great deal of comfort. The value Hazel places in the book is quite real, suggesting that art can have authentic value and isn't just, as Van Houten implies, a temporary distraction from life's meaninglessness.

In these chapters we learn a great deal more about Augustus, whose character raises further questions about the idea of authenticity. The way Augustus behaves, such as preparing an entire Dutch-themed picnic, composing and memorizing a soliloquy, arranging to use his wish to take Hazel to Amsterdam, frequently keeping an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and doing things for their metaphorical value, seems like a kind of performance. It's as if he's putting on a persona that isn't necessarily fake but certainly appears calculated. The fact that he goes by two names, “Augustus” with his friends and “Gus” with his parents, also lends weight to the idea that he's constructed a persona. It isn't quite clear whether this persona can be called artificial or inauthentic, but what's obvious is that a sense of grandeur is important to Augustus. We get a hint why in his choice to gleefully sacrifice himself in the video game he and Isaac play. Hazel notes that he talks about the game as if it were real, and we see that he genuinely enjoys the idea of dying gloriously for a worthy cause. All these details imply that Augustus finds value in the idea of being an extraordinary, larger-than-life character, as well as in the idea of sacrificing himself. Throwing himself on a grenade in the game allows him to live out this fantasy, and the desire to be a hero, maybe as much as his attraction to Hazel, could be why he offers his wish to fulfill one of her dreams rather than using it for himself.

The section demonstrates some of the realities of cancer and the ways Hazel and Isaac cope with the emotional turmoil they face. The reality Hazel has to confront is the fact that she'll soon die, inflicting a huge amount of pain on her parents. She deals with it indirectly by fixating elsewhere on An Imperial Affliction. Her obsession with learning the fates of the fictional characters seems to stem from her desire to calm her fears about her own parents. If everything works out for Anna's mother and the Dutch Tulip Man after Anna dies, it means her parents will similarly be alright after her death. The reality Isaac faces is much more immediate, and his response is accordingly much more visceral. He'll soon be blind, and his girlfriend, rather than help him through the ordeal, has chosen to remove herself from the difficult situation. He reacts with volatile mix of sadness and rage, first feeling totally distraught and then exploding in a sobbing, pillow-punching, trophy-smashing outburst. The incident offers us a glimpse at the sort of emotional distress that many cancer patients whose lives will be permanently changed by their illness experience. Augustus, quoting from An Imperial Affliction, articulates an idea that will appear again in the novel as the characters try to deal with the inevitable suffering they'll experience, that pain “demands to be felt.”

Summary: Chapter 6

Because an adult familiar with Hazel's illness needs to go with her and Augustus to Amsterdam, it's decided that Hazel's mother will go. As Hazel thinks of the trip, she questions why she tensed up when Augustus touched her cheek at the sculpture park. She realizes that, although she finds Augustus attractive, she has never before considered kissing him. Following another one-sided conversation with Kaitlyn, largely about Augustus, Hazel decides to look up Augustus’s late girlfriend Caroline Mather’s profile online. She thinks she and the healthy Caroline looked nothing alike, but cancer made them extremely similar.

Hazel's parents call her down to dinner. She's being very sarcastic and cold as they talk, and when her mother asks what's wrong, Hazel says she's a “grenade.” At some point, she's going to explode and injure everyone near her. She goes to her room to read and can hear her parents talking about her. She understands suddenly that she tensed up with Augustus because she knows being with him will eventually hurt him. She texts him to tell him that she can't kiss him because it makes her think of the pain she'll cause him. He replies that he understands but also flirts with her, to which she simply responds “Sorry.” Eventually her mother enters her room and tells her she's not a grenade to them. She brings them much more joy than sorrow. Just after four in the morning, Hazel wakes up with a terrible pain in her head.

Summary: Chapter 7

Hazel screams frantically to wake her parents. She feels what seems like a series of explosions in her head. The feeling is so awful that for a brief moment Hazel waits for her death, which doesn't come. She equates the sensation to being on a seashore with waves crashing over her, while not being quite allowed to drown. The next thing we know Hazel wakes up in the ICU. Her father explains that the headache was brought on by poor oxygenation, which resulted from her lungs filling with fluid. Hazel’s father also explains that Dr. Maria remains very optimistic, having run a total body PET scan and finding no new tumors. At this point Hazel’s nurse kindly ushers her father out of the room, citing Hazel’s need for rest. While feeding Hazel ice chips, the nurse mentions that Hazel has been out for a few days, that the world has not much changed, and that Augustus has been outside in the waiting room ever since her arrival, though he has been prohibited from seeing her directly.

On Hazel’s last day at the hospital, Augustus is briefly allowed to visit, whereupon he delivers another correspondence from Van Houten. The letter speaks of thehamartia, or fatal flaw, evident in Hazel's and Augustus’s situation. He goes on to say Shakespeare was wrong when he had Cassius note that “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” He also cites Shakespeare’s fifty-fifth sonnet, calls time a slut because she “screws everybody,” and lastly defends the logic of Hazel’s decision to minimize the pain she inflicts upon others. By the time Hazel finishes Van Houten’s letter she is already wondering if Dr. Maria might clear her for international travel.

Analysis

A main focus of this section is Hazel's struggle to come to terms with the knowledge that being close to people will cause them a great deal of pain when she dies. One of the very harsh realities Hazel faces is that she will ultimately die of her cancer and that those close to her will have to deal with the emotional trauma of her death. Looking at Caroline Mathers's online profile and the comments left for her makes this reality suddenly more immediate, and Hazel begins describing herself as a “grenade” that will inevitably blow up and hurt everyone close to her. She finds herself in a paradox: She wants to be close to her parents and Augustus, but she doesn't want to hurt them, and she thinks being close to them will do just that. Her reaction is to push them away in order to keep them safe. She realizes that's why she tensed up when Augustus touched her at the sculpture park: She was afraid of him kissing her, which would bring them closer. She even goes a step further by texting him to tell him they can never kiss. She also has an angry emotional outburst at the dinner table, which is a way of creating opposition, and therefore emotional space, between herself and her parents. (Notably, in the game he played with Isaac earlier Augustus threw himself on a grenade in a heroic sacrifice, or at least a simulated one. With the grenade symbolism this section establishes, that act suggests there's something heroic in being willing to get close to someone and get hurt for the right cause.)

In these chapters we see why the title of the novel, which appears here in Van Houten's letter to Augustus, is relevant to Hazel and Augustus, and it ties into the motif of existentialism. In the quote from Shakespeare's play “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” that the title of the book comes from, the “stars” Cassius refers to represent fate. Basically Cassius tells Brutus that they can't blame their situations on fate, but rather that they're the ones responsible for their circumstances. Van Houten points out that, for Hazel and Augustus, this point of view couldn't be more wrong. Hazel and Augustus are not to blame for their cancers or the complications their illnesses cause. Instead they find themselves struggling to navigate a situation that has no apparent meaning—their cancers aren't obviously a punishment for any past actions, for example—and is beyond their control to change. The apparent lack of meaning of many of life's events and our inability to control them are central preoccupations of existentialism. Here, of course, they play out through the characters of Hazel and Augustus, who despite being just teenagers have to contend with serious questions about meaning and purpose.

The drowning motif and water symbolism appear again as Hazel suffers through a bout of severe, incapacitating head pain. The analogy she uses to describe the pain is quite apt. As she reminds herself that consciousness is temporary, suggesting she would like it to end, she compares the feeling to being pounded by waves on the shore but not being able to drown, since she remains conscious. In fact, as we learn, the cause of the pain is essentially drowning. Her lungs have filled with fluid, preventing her from taking in enough oxygen and resulting in the excruciating ache she feels in her head and, to a lesser degree, her shoulder. Because of her lung tumors, this way of dying is perhaps the main threat Hazel faces, and the imagery is well-crafted and appropriate in that regard. It skillfully ties together the drowning motif, the symbol of water, and evokes the feeling Hazel is experiencing.

Summary: Chapter 8

A meeting convenes of numerous medical specialists familiar with Hazel’s case. When one doctor mentions that Hazel is not a viable candidate for lung transplant her father breaks down crying. It reminds Hazel of the time she was near death and overheard her sobbing mother say she wouldn't be a “mom anymore.” As the meeting progresses the general consensus is to stick with the Phalanxifor regiment while monitoring the build up of lung fluid more vigorously. Finally the cancer team deems it unwise for Hazel to risk international travel.

Hazel calls Augustus to inform him she cannot travel to Amsterdam. He cracks a few charming jokes, putting Hazel more at ease. They discuss the brilliance of Van Houten’s calling time a “slut,” and Hazel likes being in the “third space” she's in when she and Augustus talk on the phone. The following day Hazel is feeling depressed. She tells Augustus she's upset because she has to miss out on Amsterdam, and because the sky is sad and because there's an old swing set in her yard that her father built for her. Augustus comes over, and they sit in the backyard. He says it's the sad-looking swing set causing most of Hazel's crying. Together they post an ad online for the “Desperately Lonely Swing Set,” and soon someone emails to get it.

While Augustus reads An Imperial Affliction aloud to Hazel she realizes she's fallen in love with him. He gives her a friendly peck on the cheek. The next morning Hazel is shocked by an email from Lidewij. The email states all the preparations for Hazel’s trip to Amsterdam have been made. Confused, Hazel looks to her mother, who ecstatically reveals that Dr. Maria has reconsidered, and now insists upon Hazel living her life and traveling to Amsterdam. Hazel texts Augustus to let him know the trip is back on.

Summary: Chapter 9

Prior to departing for Amsterdam, Hazel attends a Support Group meeting. The meeting is rather contentious. Hazel becomes frustrated by the abundance of clichés about the strength of cancer victims. When a girl named Lida says she admires Hazel's strength, Hazel snidely says she would trade her strength for Lida's remission. She immediately regrets the comment. After the meeting Isaac invites Hazel over to play a blind-friendly version of The Price of Dawn. While playing, the two discuss Augustus's somewhat annoying heroic and suicidal video game habits. They laughingly agree that he is “too enamored with metaphor.” Isaac asks why Hazel hasn't hooked up with Augustus. He thinks she's afraid of Augustus pulling a Monica on her. Hazel thinks to herself that the opposite is true: she's afraid of dying and leaving Augustus.

Analysis

Hazel's concern for her parents and the pain she causes them is a central theme of Chapter 8. In what's clearly a painful memory for Hazel, she recalls the instance where she was near dying and overheard her crying mother say she would no longer “be a mom” after Hazel's death. In fact, she feels so much guilt for the pain she's caused her parents because of her cancer that she calls herself the “alpha and omega” of her parents' suffering, meaning that, at least in her mind, all her parents' suffering stems from her. Her feelings about her cancer and the havoc its caused also seem to be why she finds the old swing set in her backyard so sad. When she tells Augustus about it, she points out specifically that her father made it for her, suggesting whatever meaning it has for her ties in with him. And although she says she doesn't have any special memory of a “healthy father pushing a healthy child” in it, her choice of words indicates that it does raise a feeling of nostalgia for the days before her illness. Evidently it causes Hazel an emotional ache to see the swing and think back to the time before her cancer, when she was a normal child and her parents didn't have to contend with all the painful consequences of having a terminally ill daughter.

Despite her fear that she'll hurt Augustus when she dies, Hazel finally lets herself fall completely in love with him. Until now, Hazel has been reluctant to let down her defenses and allow herself to feel the strong emotions she obviously has for him. In this section her defenses give way, and Hazel admits that she's fallen in love with Augustus, comparing it to sleep, which starts slowly and then comes all at once. Her change of heart, though it was probably inevitable, comes just after Augustus comforts her over her sadness about the swing set in her backyard. Hazel worries a great deal about the suffering she inflicts on others, and the incident occurs just after she's been reminded of the pain her cancer causes her parents. Augustus helps her temporarily forget about these worries, and as a result she seems to worry less about the pain she may one day cause him as well, focusing instead on letting herself enjoy the present. It's a big step for Hazel emotionally, and it allows her to feel even closer to Augustus. Her hesitation with him hasn't disappeared entirely, however. She protests a little when he kisses her cheek, and her old concern appears again when she plays the video game with Isaac. Isaac suggests she won't hook up with Augustus because she's worried he'll leave her, but in fact she's concerned about leaving him when she dies.

Summary: Chapter 10

On the morning of her departure for Amsterdam Hazel wonders why certain foods, like scrambled eggs, have been labeled breakfast foods. Hazel and her mother go to Augustus's, and as they approach his door they hear crying and shouting. They turn back to the car, and minutes later Augustus emerges from his house, seemingly unaffected. At the airport Hazel must disengage her oxygen tank in order to pass through security. She describes feeling a certain freedom being without it momentarily. At the flight gate Augustus says he's hungry and leaves to get breakfast, but it's a long time before he returns. He says the line was long, and they talk about certain foods being stuck in the category of breakfast foods. Eventually Augustus admits the food line wasn't long. He didn't want to sit in the gate area with all the people there staring at them. It makes him extremely angry, and he doesn't want to feel angry today.

On the plane Hazel is astonished to learn that Augustus has never flown. He's afraid at first but fascinated as they takeoff. Hazel feels happy to see the excitably innocent Gus emerge from the “Grand Gesture Metaphorically Inclined Augustus.” Looking out at the sky from the plane window, Augustus quotes from An Imperial Affliction: “The risen sun too bright in her losing eyes.”

During the flight Hazel and Augustus watch the movie “300.” The movie is too violent for Hazel’s liking, though she revels in Augustus’s enjoyment of it. Afterward, the two discuss the total number of living people versus the total number of dead in the history of mankind. Augustus has actually researched it and says there are about fourteen dead people for every person that is currently living. Augustus asks Hazel to read aloud from Ginsburg’s Howl, which she's reading for class, but she chooses to recite a poem from memory instead. When she finishes, Augustus tells Hazel he loves her. He says he knows oblivion is inevitable, and he knows the sun will one day swallow the earth, and he loves her.


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1163


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