Featured in Hazel’s personality is that she is always associated with the fear of hurting those around her with her death and especially with her parents. In my opinion, the biggest fear for people is not death, but they are afraid of hurting those they love. Specifically, Hazel is a teenage girl with cancer, she can not control her life because of the evil disease so she can die at any time. For that reason she said « I’m like. Like. I’m like a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties » (99). She felt like a grenade and when she died as well as when the grenade exploded, and it would cause great damage to everything around. Moreover, she always knew that her parents were there to take care of her and if she died, they would be the most miserable and probably they could not return to normal life. In addition, they are also the closest people in her life and she does not want them to be hurt in any way, especially the suffering of her death. Because of that, she also asked her parents what they would be like if she died, because she wanted their lives to be normal, and they would always live happily together even when she died. On the other hand, near the end of the Hazel story that changed the way she thought, she felt like making a grenade, because she realized that she couldn’t protect people from being hurt by her death. She said, « I loved a grenade đi I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation » (214). She couldn’t stop interacting with people, and she couldn’t stop loving them, so she was no longer afraid of being like a grenade she accepted and liked it. At the end of the story, she asked her parents about what they would look like after her death, after which her parents answered that they would still be together and they had prepared what they needed if she didn’t. also with them. Because of her parents’ answers, she also felt happy and like seeing a future that wasn’t too dark if she died. Finally in the letter Augustus wrote about Hazel, in which he wrote a sentence that « You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers » and she answered « I do » (313). From Gus’s words and Hazel’s « I do » statement that once again confirms that she no longer worries and feels bad about making a grenade because she has so many people who always care and love her. I believe that she is very happy with her current life even though she has a terrible disease, because she is always cared for and loved by people around her.
Word count: 500.
ca-mai-thy 