The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

          The book, The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green is about a seventeen year old, cancer ridden teenager named Hazel. Hazel’s life has always had a clear ending to it. But with a new medicine buying her a few extra years Hazel’s chance to live a little bit more. Hazel though, has no point in life, most of her friends have abandoned her, and the friends she does, she distances from so as not to hurt them when the time does come… That is until she begrudgingly goes to one of her stupid support group meetings. Enter Augustus Waters, the most gorgeous, compelling boy Hazel’s ever met. Something about him draws her in, and makes her want to open up. And suddenly, her life is on a roller coaster that only goes up.

          At the first meeting that Augustus goes to, having been dragged there by his friend Isaac, who is blind in one eye, Augustus explains that he had osteosarcoma about a year and a half ago, but for now he’s in remission. Augustus or Gus is asked to share what he fears most to which he replies bluntly oblivion. Oblivion then becomes one of the biggest ideas in the book, the idea of what happens after death, and the mark that you leave on earth.

          When Augustus replies that he fears oblivion, the support group leader, Patrick asks if anyone else can relate to Gus’s fear. To which Hazel, who never raises her hand, says, “There will come a time, when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe this time is coming soon, and maybe its millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was a time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be a time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. Go knows everyone else does.  

          This whole paragraph includes many metaphors and meanings. The second line, “There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything.” This line means that one day Earth will be empty and there will be no record of our existence. The next line is, “no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you.” This sentence means that when the world is empty there will be no record of the important people. And if they don’t even have a record of the significant figures in history, then why would anybody be able to remember you? The rest of the monologue goes on to state that people, events, none of it matter in the end. Life will end; life will go on without you. And nobody dares to pay enough attention because they’re to self-involved or scared to face the reality.

          This quote and the whole idea of oblivion really spoke to me because one of my biggest fears is of death and not being remembered. A month ago, I feared that no one would ever know I felt this way. I mean, my thoughts from 2 minutes ago are gone already, what about a hundred years from now? Reading that quote from The Fault in Our Stars made me feel like somebody understood my fear. I guess that’s good, isn’t it the thing you want? To feel like somebody gets it, to feel like your thoughts have been heard. This quote also made me think that I have to be more than just some nobody that will be forgotten easily. I have to do something memorable, and get my thoughts heard. I’m really glad I read The Fault in Our Stars, on top of it being humorous, and compelling, depressing, and even sometimes gut wrenching, it also made me stop and think for a couple minutes. I mean really think long, and hard.