by Emma Willibey
Cancer introduces teenagers Hazel Lancaster and Augustus Waters in author John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars,” but wit bonds them. Lung-cancer-afflicted Lancaster, who boasts an enormous vocabulary and “America’s Next Top Model” obsession, meets osteosarcoma patient Waters at Support Group. Waters’ cigarettes repulse, then intrigue Lancaster.
“I’ve never lit [a cigarette],” Waters explains. “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.”
Similarly, Lancaster’s diagnosis cannot overcome her cleverness. Rather than allowing cancer to define her, Lancaster twists oxygen-providing nubbins in her nose to guilt a flight attendant into pouring champagne. Lancaster’s irrepressible personality leads her to resent cancer-patient glorification.
Near the novel’s end, Lancaster receives a 2:35 a.m. call from Waters. He sits coated in vomit from a faulty stomach tube after driving to a gas station to buy cigarettes.
“I hate myself I hate myself I hate this I disgust myself I hate it,” Waters moans.
Waters is not an unfazed fighter as the “the conventions of the genre” proclaim, Lancaster notes. He curses, cries and calls his dignity “very small.”
Upon reaching Waters, Lancaster calls the ambulance. Yet as she purchases her boyfriend’s cigars, Lancaster recognizes upholding Waters’ personality is as important as satisfying his medical needs.
