English P.1
August 29, 2013
Unknowing
"Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one" Humans want to know what they don't. In the book The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, Green uses symbolism to compare Hazel and the book An Imperial Affliction. Hazel reads a book called An Imperial Affliction that focuses on a girl that has cancer just like Hazel. This is where she obsesses over the ending of the book because the book ends without an ending making her wanting her to know and it is this where John Green uses symbolism to compare An Imperial Affliction's open ending and Hazels unknowing of herself. John Green uses An Imperial Affliction to symbolize Hazel's life. In the book, even Hazel thinks that An Imperial Affliction and its author " ...seemed to understand me in weird and impossible ways."(34). Hazel's obsession over An Imperial Affliction ending is really a reflection of herself. Hazel has terminal cancer and does not know when she is going to die. Just like the ending of An Imperial Affliction where she does not know happens to the girl, she does not know what will happen to herself. It is this not knowing where An Imperial Affliction and Hazel are connected. It is her wish to know what happens because she believes that by knowing the ending, she'll know the ending to herself and whatever else she does not know. The ending to An Imperial Affliction not only represents Hazels unknowing of herself but also the people's unknowing of Hazel. People want to be noticed in some way or another and Hazel is no exception. In Agustus's last words, he writes "People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely"(312). This quote is saying that Hazel won't be remembered other than being another victim of cancer. That she will not be known to the masses or the world. Very much like the ending to An Imperial Affliction, people don't know what happens to the main