Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Fault in Our Stars, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Life and Death
Family
Being Different
Religion and Philosophy
Summary
Analysis
A few days after egging Monica’s car, Hazel and her parents go to dinner at Augustus’ house. Augustus and Hazel reminisce about the magical dining experience they had in Amsterdam. As the conversation goes around the table, Mr. Lancaster and Mrs. Lancaster finish each other’s sentences, and Hazel and Augustus find themselves doing the same thing.
Now that Hazel and Augustus have reached a mature stage of their relationship, they set themselves apart from their parents as their own entity. The way they finish their sentences, like Hazel’s parents do, affirms this.
Themes
A week after the dinner, Augustus ends up in the emergency room with chest pains. Hazel notes that the hospital is not brightly colored or full of paintings like children’s hospital where she was treated, but so sterile and functional instead. When Hazel finds Augustus’ mother in the waiting room, she tells Hazel that Augustus heart is working too hard and he needs to scale back on activity. When Hazel asks to see him, his mother says they just need to be a family for the moment. Hazel sits in the waiting room anyways and looks through her pictures, noting that the picture from their picnic seems like it was taken forever ago.
The fact that their relationship has matured is reflected in the hospital. Hazel received her treatment at a children’s hospital, which was colorful, but Augustus is in an emergency room at a regular hospital, which is sterile and functional, mirroring the adult world. Augustus’ mother, however, does not recognize their mature relationship in the same way, as shown by her unwillingness to allow Hazel to see Augustus.
Themes
Two seeks later, Hazel takes Augustus back to the park where they’d had their Dutch themed picnic. They bring a bottle of champagne that Augustus had been given as a gift by one of his doctors. Augustus tells Hazel that the last time he was there, he imagined himself as one of the kids playing on the sculpture, not he imagines himself as the skeleton. They sit there for a while and drink the champagne from Winnie-the-Pooh cups.
The bottle of champagne continues to show their relationship has matured, but at the same time, they are drinking out of Winnie-the-Pooh cups, showing that they are still somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. Augustus' comment about imagining himself as the skeleton shows the way his self-perception has changed since the cancer returned.
Themes
