The Fault in Our Stars relies heavily on the character development of Hazel and Gus. While Hazel struggles to reconcile herself to hurting those she's close to, she is bot struggling with her own personality. She is not struggling to figure out who she is, and Gus isn't either. To me, this is essential to the plot, yet conveniently skips over a huge plight in the life of a teenager. Don't get me wrong, I think they are really interesting characters, but are they realistic?
Gus tells Hazel that one of the reasons he likes her so much is because, "You're so busy being you that you have no idea how unprecedented you are" (). With her sarcasm, obsession with An Imperial Afflication, and constant literary quotes, Hazel certainly is unique. She constantly has witty comments and does not seem self-conscious like most sixteen-year olds.When Gus stares at her in the Support Group meeting, Hazel decides to stare right back. Similarly, Gus has the bravado of someone much older. He seems completely at ease with himself, riding "a roller coaster that only goes up" (11). They recite Dickens to one another over the phone. This is most certainly not a thing teenagers just do. Are we supposed to believe that Hazel and Gus are fully formed people at such a young age, or are they works in progress who simply believe they know themselves?
This line of inquiry raises the question of whether Hazel and Gus have had to grow up faster than other people. They both have very precarious health for most of the book; Gus less so than Hazel until the end. As a result, they think a lot about death and life. Hazel mostly thinks of the way people around her will be affected by it. As she says, "I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up..." (99). Maybe because of the knowledge that she is going to die, she has realized who she is. Gus, while NEC, has experience the death of Caroline Mathers, so maybe he, too, he matured in a way that other teenagers haven't. He certainly has opinions about the afterlife that most people don't have, saying, "Yes... Yes, absolutely. Not like
a heaven where you ride unicorns, play harps, and live in a mansion
made of clouds. But yes, I've always believed in Something with a
capital S. Always have" (168). Most teenager don't think these thoughts. Even though I have a hard time seeing the reality in Hazel and Gus as teenage characters, maybe their experiences have caused them to grow in a way that I can't comprehend.
I also find the characters of Hazel and Gus to be fascinating and entertaining, but I agree that they do not resemble what you would expect a teenager in a young adult book to be. I had never really considered how different they were from a stereotypical teenager, but after reading this post I started noticing the differences. At least from my experiences teenagers and books written about them spend those formative years trying to decide who they want to be and forming themselves into that person. Yet, Gus and Hazel seem to already be exactly who they are meant to be and have no question as to their purposes in life. I would venture to imagine that being on the verge of death and seeing it so often would have an effect on them, making them mature in ways that other people their age wouldn’t. With that being said I think it would mature them in how they deal with death and how they go about their lives, not necessarily making them know exactly who they are supposed to be at the ripe ages of 16 and 17. At least for me there is no way of knowing what exactly having to look death in the face would do as far as maturing me goes, but I imagine it would not make me turn out like Hazel and Gus.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the reason Hazel is not struggling with her personality as much is because she has come to the conclusion that, in the end, her personality won't matter. It is shown throughout the book that she has accepted her death, albeit in sometimes strange ways, and that she is aware of how relatively small her life is compared to larger ideas and the grand scheme of things. She cares much less about herself than she does the people around her. Her life is destined to end early, and she knows that there is nothing that she can do about that, so she focuses instead on the lives that are going to continue without her. It does not make sense to her to worry about her own personality, when doing so is futile. That is what I interpret her lack of struggle with her personality as stemming from.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do agree that Hazel and Gus do not act like regular teenagers. Yes, their lives have taken turns that regular teenage lives rarely ever take, and that has undoubtedly forced them to mature in certain ways (not everyone has to accept their death before they have reached twenty), but they are still less realistic than they could be. They are too pithy to be real teens. That is one area that I think John Green falls a little short in. He writes very good characters, but there is always that hint that they have been created by an author, and tailored to the story. They don’t have the chaotic, unsure nature that most teens—cancer patients or not—have. I think that if they were shown to be a bit more unruly and confused by their selves, the world around them, and their purpose in life, then they would be more realistic.
I agree with you that Hazel is a lot more different than a normal teenager. I think that part of the reason why she is different is because she hasn’t really had the chance to be around normal teenagers. For the majority of her life, Hazel has had an illness that has prevented her from doing normal teenage things and from hanging out with teenagers. Because of this, Hazel doesn’t really know what normal teenagers do. However, what Hazel does know is that she has limited amount of time left and that she has to make the most of it. Because of this, Hazel has managed to become a lot more mature than girls at her age usually are. Yet, I wouldn’t say that this means that Hazel has her life totally figured out. There are still certain parts of her life that Hazel hasn’t figured out and these parts scare her. For instance, Hazel doesn’t know what will happen to her parents after she dies. In order to figure this out, Hazel, like many teenagers, turns to her friends and family. By reaching out to Peter Van Houten, Hazel shows that she is a typical teenager in that she is willing to figure herself out by reaching out to the people she looks up to.
ReplyDeleteI think the characters less interesting as wizened young people and more interesting simulacrums of what John Greene thinks a teenager is. They have realistic elements to them. They're snarky, especially Gus. Hazel is remarkably mature in regards to her cancer and acceptance of her own mortality, but also is prone to lashing out at others, such as when she grows bitter and frustrated by the platitudes of acquaintances following Gus's death. In terms of broad strokes, this is how teenagers act.
ReplyDeleteBut Greene's dialog doesn't actually sound like teenagers talking, and I don't think that's because his characters are confronting something people at our age typically don't have to face. Almost dying doesn't make a young man describe the pointlessness of basketball as "methodically tossing a spherical object through a toroidal object."
When we watched Greene's YouTube channel in class, I was shocked by how well he was able to approximate the style of younger YouTube stars with his quirky pep and "random" sense of humor. I think he's done his research to write his characters, and that's great. But to think of Hazel and Gus as teenagers realistically different from others because of their affliction is to miss the more obvious point reason. They're different from teenagers because they're coming from the computer of a 39 year-old-man with a good imagination and an impressive sympathy for young folks.