Augustus: 1. Cancer: 0. Augustus wins. He has cancer. Cancer does not have him. He is in control of his disease, lung cancer.
Augustus wants to kill his disease; he wants to ends the pain, the suffering it brings to him. Augustus puts a killing thing in his mouth but refuses to give it the power to kill him. He links control of his health with an unlit cigarette—Augustus tells Hazel Grace that “you put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing. “ (Green, 20)
The metaphor of the cigarette initially appears in Green’s first chapter of The Fault in Our Stars. Just when Hazel Grace and Augustus begin flirting, Augustus pops a cigarette into his mouth. Hazel stares at the “cigarette dangl[ing] unlit from the unsmiling corner of his mouth.” (20) She cannot believe this seemingly perfect boy has such a fatal flaw; she gets upset at Augustus saying to him that “even though [he] HAD FREAKING CANCER [he] give[s] money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER.” (20) But Augustus has reasoning behind everything he does—including dangling an unlit cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “They don’t kill you unless you light them” “And I’ve never lit one. 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.” (20) This metaphor seems to please Hazel Grace as we later come to find them together talking about the cigarettes.
The cigarettes are one part of Augustus’ life that he has power over his body. He can put the cigarette as his lip without giving it the last word. “He’s giving the ultimate “screw you” to cancer.” We see the cigarette metaphor appear when Hazel and Gus travel and board the plane. The stewardess tells Gus that he “can’t smoke on this plane.” (146) Soon after explaining this metaphor to the lady, she tells him that this “metaphor is prohibited on today’s flight.” (146)
It is noteworthy that Augustus always puts the unlit cigarette in his mouth when he is looking for sureness: after Hazel first rejects him, before the flight and at Speedway when he knows it is almost his time. But it is more than his death approaching; it is his fight. He will do whatever he can to overcome this pain, physical and emotional. But if he cannot fight the physical, he will fight the emotional. The cigarette will allow him to deny the power of something so hurtful from hurting him.
Augustus wants to kill his disease; he wants to ends the pain, the suffering it brings to him. Augustus puts a killing thing in his mouth but refuses to give it the power to kill him. He links control of his health with an unlit cigarette—Augustus tells Hazel Grace that “you put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing. “ (Green, 20)
The metaphor of the cigarette initially appears in Green’s first chapter of The Fault in Our Stars. Just when Hazel Grace and Augustus begin flirting, Augustus pops a cigarette into his mouth. Hazel stares at the “cigarette dangl[ing] unlit from the unsmiling corner of his mouth.” (20) She cannot believe this seemingly perfect boy has such a fatal flaw; she gets upset at Augustus saying to him that “even though [he] HAD FREAKING CANCER [he] give[s] money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER.” (20) But Augustus has reasoning behind everything he does—including dangling an unlit cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “They don’t kill you unless you light them” “And I’ve never lit one. 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.” (20) This metaphor seems to please Hazel Grace as we later come to find them together talking about the cigarettes.
The cigarettes are one part of Augustus’ life that he has power over his body. He can put the cigarette as his lip without giving it the last word. “He’s giving the ultimate “screw you” to cancer.” We see the cigarette metaphor appear when Hazel and Gus travel and board the plane. The stewardess tells Gus that he “can’t smoke on this plane.” (146) Soon after explaining this metaphor to the lady, she tells him that this “metaphor is prohibited on today’s flight.” (146)
It is noteworthy that Augustus always puts the unlit cigarette in his mouth when he is looking for sureness: after Hazel first rejects him, before the flight and at Speedway when he knows it is almost his time. But it is more than his death approaching; it is his fight. He will do whatever he can to overcome this pain, physical and emotional. But if he cannot fight the physical, he will fight the emotional. The cigarette will allow him to deny the power of something so hurtful from hurting him.