Chapter 3- Star-ring an Imperial Affliction

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by RuhiThukral

by RuhiThukral

Chapter-3
I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life. ~Mike Mills

Star-ring An Imperial Affliction

The book An Imperial Affliction (AIA) comes up again, and again, and again throughout the story. This book is first mentioned during the exposition on pg. 13 and is one of the driving points throughout the plot. This "An Imperial Affliction" story/book does many things in The Fault in our Stars, but mainly it represents the journey a cancer patient goes through.
One of the things AIA represents is the truth about cancer. It shows how having cancer isn't something that you can move on from in the sense that you can't see the goodness of the world when you are dying. When Hazel is talking about the book she describes it as, "It's not a cancer book,because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer curing legacy" (Green, 48-49). This quote shows how different reality is compared to what is in the literature. In the quote, Hazel talks about how charity reminding the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity, isn't true and what is mainly shown through the literature is fake. AIA's main character Anna brings a new light to cancer that Hazel hasn't really seen as shown when she says, "Anna is honest about all of it in a way no one else really is: throughout the book she refers to herself as the side effect, which is totally correct. Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible" (Green, 49). This helps Hazel realize the truth about cancer. She realizes that she is just one misstep in making the human race better and she was just unlucky.
The next thing that AIA represents is how Hazel gets to have relationships with the characters in the book rather than in real life and is living vicariously through the book. We can see this in her reaction to when the book ends in the middle of a sentence where she says, "I understand the story ended because Anna died or got to sick to write and this mid sentence"and, "but there were characters other than Anna in the story and it seemed unfair that I would never find out what happened to them." and "I'd written a dozen letters to Peter Van Houten each asking for some answers about what happens to the end of the story" (Green, 50). These quotes are showing just how connected Hazel is to the characters in the book and shows just how much they were like her friends because she just can't live without finding out what happens to them.
Finally, AIA represents the acceptance of death. In Hazel's case, it allows her to accept her inevitable death sentence. We can see this right in the exposition of the book when Hazel says, "Depression is a side effect of dying" (Green, 1). This is already showing how Hazel has accepted the fact that she is going to die. But, how did AIA lead her to this conclusion? Hazel says, "the ending midsentance was supposed to reflect on how life really ended or whatever," (Green, 50). This shows the reader and Hazel Peter's intentions while writing this book. His intentions were to show how death actually happened most of the time in the real world. This is proved when Peter tells Hazel that Anna was based off of his own daughter and he says, "a series of experimental tortures that increased the misery of her days without extending the number," and, "Well, not at the time of her (his daughter's) death, " and, "Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you" (Green, 286). These quotes show just how painful and sudden his daughter's death was and how it revealed his true, terrible personality and how he wanted to share his pain with the world.
The story of Anna in An Imperial Affliction has a very big impact on Hazel's viewpoint on life with cancer and has helped her cope with the tragic events in her life. There are many themes in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars however, one of the main themes is how death is inevitable and you should live your life to the fullest before you die. This book represents that not only through its plot and its characters, but how it affected The Fault in Our Stars' plot and Hazel.

Objects are more than their physical properties, they hold an emotional value and story.
~Meik Wiking