While John’s take on Shakespeare’s passage argues that fate is inevitable, the original phrase’s meaning was that it is not destiny that condemns us, but instead our own doings. Pain and suffering, and health and happiness are not distributed fairly, but rather in an inequitable way that can’t be avoided. Green’s title implies that the things that happen in our lives are not our fault. In The Fault in Our Stars Hazel and Augustus couldn’t change the fact that they had cancer, nor the fact that they were “star-crossed lovers.” The decisions they made couldn’t alter what fate had planned for their lives. Green had to alter the quotation because in the novel fate is, in fact, in our stars, which contradicts what Shakespeare wrote.
Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the most famous writers of all time, and it’s likely John took inspiration from the phrase in Julius Caesar and incorporated it into the title of the novel to help support one of the main themes, the unjustness of fate. No matter how unfair our destinies, it’s our choices that lead us to them. We cannot not blame our failures on a preordained fate, only on ourselves and our resolutions. Shakespeare was saying that it is the choices we make and the things we do that determine our destiny, and not the stars, destiny itself. The line “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings” means that we control who we are and what becomes of us. But the altered title John Green chose shows that even though the cancer is not their fault what so ever, they can still live with it despite the inevitable fate that awaits them. Hazel and Augustus never had the choice of whether or not they have cancer and they can’t change the fact that they do have cancer now. By altering the title to read “The Fault in Our Stars”, it seems to argue that sometimes it’s not our fault and that something’s cant be under our control. If John Green had not changed the quote, it would suggest that it is the character’s faults for their cancer, when in reality it is out of their control. John Green changes the quote from Shakespeare to better fit the storyline of his book. John Green was inspired by this line to create the title for his book, but his version of Shakespeare’s quote is somewhat contradictory to the meaning of the original line from Julius Caesar. It means that you are responsible for the decisions you made that lead you to your undesirable fate. In my opinion, the line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar means, that it is not destiny’s fault, but our own faults for our failures.
JOHN GREEN QUOTES THE FAULT IN OUR STARS FULL
After his chaplaincy experience, Green said he believed that “life is utterly random and capricious, and arbitrary.” Yet he also said, after finishing The Fault in Our Stars that he no longer feels that life’s randomness “robs human life of its meaning…or that it robs even lives of people who don’t get to have full lives.” Would you say that the search for meaning-even, or especially, in the face of dying-is what this book explores? Why…or why not? But, he said, he likes to write about “clever kids, tend to be funny even when things are rough.” Is his use of humor successful? How did it affect the way you read the book?ĥ. What did you make of the book’s humor? Is it appropriate…or inappropriate? Green has said he “didn’t want to use humor to lighten the mood” or “to pull out the easy joke” when things got hard.
Does he do a convincing job of creating a female character?Ĥ. John Green uses the voice of an adolescent girl to narrate his story. How do Hazel and Gus each relate to their cancer? Do they define themselves by it? Do they ignore it? Do they rage at life’s unfairness? Most importantly, how do the two confront the big questions of life and death?ģ. What does the line mean-and why would Green have used it for his title? Even more important, why would he have altered it to read, “The fault in our stars” rather than ourselves? How does Green’s meaning differ from Shakespeare’s?Ģ. John Green derives his book’s title from a famous line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (I,ii,139-140).
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