The oxygen tank is one of the things attached to the character Hazel in the book « The Fault in Our Starts », and it also contributed a lot to the development of this character. According to John Green’s book « The Fault in Our Starts, » « Hazel is the protagonist of the story and she has end-stage thyroid cancer, so the oxygen tank helps her during her treatment ». In many episodes, oxygen tank have greatly contributed to the manifestation of her illness, and many readers think that it is the embodiment of her lungs. Her thyroid cancer made it hard for her to breathe, and she could not breathe like normal people, so « an oxygen-tank helps her breath, she can’t take it out » (46). Hazel has two oxygen tanks which is Philip and BiPAP, and they both help her breathe. as she described about Philip is a « rectangular oxygen concentrator, which called Philip, because it just kind of looked like a Philip (39) », and she always carries it with her wherever she goes. she described Philip very clearly in a situation like this, when she went to the park and had a child ask her « What’s in your nose?, » (46) and she answered « it’s called a cannuala. These tubes give me oxygen and help me breathe « (46). Therefor from there we see Philip has a tube connected to her nose, and that’s how she got oxygen to her. moreover she described Philip’s mechanism of action as « The portable tank delivers two litters of oxygen to Hazel each minute » (8), and « the portable tank usually takes six hours to run out of oxygen » (158). Apart from Philip, she has another device that is BiPAP, and it is bigger and more bulky than Philip so she cannot carry BiPAP with her. BiPAP has the same effect as Philip « the BiPAP essentially took control of her breathing away from me (119) ». They are really necessary for her because she needs enough oxygen to breathe and sustain life « with my BiPAP machine, an oxygen concentrator, and a dozen refillable oxygen tanks at the foot of the bed (157) » and when she had a conflict with her parents she removed the BiPAP and after a while she could not breathe « the cannula, » i whined « i need it »(255). Moreover, she discovered BiPAP made a very interesting sound « BiPAP sounded like a dragon breathing in time with me, like I had pet dragon who was cuddled up next to me (120) ». Hazel personified the sounds of BiPAP into the voice of a dragon, and it was also an interesting episode of the oxygen tank. we can see that both Philip and BiPAP are very important and inseparable things for her, because « Without the machines she feel like her lungs were folding in upon themselves like flowers at dusk (141) ». we can say in other words, two machines such as Hazel’s everyday objects, they help her to live and it is extending her life, or we can understand that it is the hero of her illness. In the book Hazel not only describes the form of use, and tells the stories of two oxygen tanks, but she also shares her feelings about them. Because of her illness, she has very little contact with many people around her, so Hazel has very few friends and she sees Philip and BiPAP as her friends, things that are inseparable from her in life. In the absence of them she felt very lost like losing her close friends « When Hazel walk through the x ray without oxygen. The machines’s silence acknowledging that I was, however briefly, a nonmetallicized creature (141) » .However, because of Philip’s entanglement, sometimes she felt uncomfortable with it, she also wanted to be as free as everyone else, not being wrapped around wires such as At the airport Hazel must disengage her oxygen tank in order to pass through security » She describes feeling a certain freedom being without it momentarily (page 141) ». In addition, what she felt most uncomfortable was because they seemed to denounce her condition, which made people clearly see her and others’ difference « the physical evidence of disease separates you from other people (144) » and « cannula is symbol of her cancer I think, when stewardess sees that, she gives them champagne (220) ». In addition to her appearance and personality, the oxygen tank is a symbol in the construction of her character image, the oxygen tank also appears quite a lot in the story, and through that it helps readers understand Hazel better.
Word count: 753.
ca-mai-thy 