"The Faults in Our Stars" by John Green

The Faults in Our Stars, by John Green, is a book following Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old cancer survivor who meets the charming, witty and dashingly handsome Augustus Waters at her cancer support group. This book, which I have previously read, is consistently one of my favorite books of all time, refreshed in my mind as being a wonderful, powerful, charming, emotional book every time I read it. I read this book for book clubs, and one of the questions my club had before we started reading was, "What keeps the character motivated?" I thought this question was really important to the plot of the The Faults in Our Stars. Many of the characters are driven by each other, and mutual want of respect and love, in this book.

For instance, Hazel is driven by Gus to do more with her life. Hazel has a fine life before she met Gus, but Gus helped her live more. Augustus introduces the idea to her that she can go to Amsterdam to visit their favorite author, Van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction, a fictional book in the world of TFiOS. Gus introduces a new, exciting sort of energy into Hazel's life, someone who has been living for so long prepared to die, and energy that makes her want to live. I think this is also cause for Hazel not wanting to get too close to Gus, as she thinks that she'll just break his heart by dying, and that their time together, the new energy he brought to her life, will just go to waste. However, overall in the book, I think Gus motivates Hazel to do more with her life than she could have imagined to do otherwise.

The parents in this book are also driven by love for their children. The parents of these teenagers with cancer want to make their kid's live as good as possible, and they help them in so many amazing ways. Hazel's mom, for instance, almost organizes all of the trip to Amsterdam to make her daughter happy. Knowing that her daughter may die at any time also motivates Hazel's mother to take good care of Hazel, and try hard to make her daughter's life better. She wants her to go to cancer support groups to help Hazel with any problems she's having, she supports Hazel in her relationship with Gus, a near stranger, and goes to Amsterdam with Hazel just so Hazel can meet one of her favorite authors.

I think that in this book, the characters are also motivated by their wanting to have made an impact on people's lives. They want to be remembered, as all humans do. So many of the characters in this book are given such short strings on life, because of cancer, they want to make sure they are remembered for something other than cancer. Hazel and Gus often talking about philosophy, I think, is an ode to this, as they want to discover something more about the world. They want to know that they weren't just defined by their cancer, but by something else, something important, something that changed people. Gus, especially, has this want, as he comes into people's lives, such as Isaac, or Hazel, and just tries his best to make them better. As Gus says, "The marks humans leaves are too often scars." Gus doesn't just want to be a 'grenade' that left scars in people lives. He wants people to live as much as he wants to live, and he wants people to know that he wanted them to live. I think in the end, everyone wants that, but as people who were told from the beginning, "You will most likely die", to have that terrible weight on your chest most of your life, they want to know that people remember them not just as, "The girl with cancer."

This book tackles with so many issues, so many, deep, basic human wants and emotions, it's really hard to talk about only one of them. I'm sure I could write hundreds of essays on the different themes in The Faults in Our Stars. The characters in this book are one of my favorite parts of it, which is one of the reasons I chose to respond this question. They're so strong, so inspiring, and so lovin
g. Each one of them made whoever they touched a better person. They're each are so motivated to help others, and to help each other. The book deals with mortality and sacrifice and so many more issues in a relatable, unique, funny, heartbreaking way. The characters in this book are almost doomed from the moment we meet them. These characters, however, these amazing, strong characters, are able to do so much more good in the world. They're not just angry (Though they are a little angry,), they're curious, intellectual, understanding, and compassionate. None of them ever gave up, and I think that's pretty great.

Martin Espada Essay

Recurring Themes in Martin Espada’s Poetry

Martin Espada is a well known, educated and respected Puerto Rican poet from New York City. His poetry often deals with major issues and have recurring themes, which stretch between poems. One strong theme in Espada’s poetry is the idea of power, and the abuse of it.

For instance, in Espada’s poem, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the principal abuses his power over the school by banning the speaking of Spanish in the bathrooms. He has no incentive to do so besides the speaking of Spanish, and hearing his name in these conversations, constipating him. The principal in this poem is abusing his power as the principal, cutting of the Spanish speakers in the school of a location where they can express their culture and may speak the language most comfortable to them, if they learned Spanish as a first language. 

Another example of the theme of the abuse of power in Espada’s poetry is in his poem, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson”. The people mispronouncing the narrators name are either using the power of the narrators name and purposefully mispronouncing it to frustrate him, or just not taking the time to ask them how his or her name is pronounced. When you have a choice to make, like the subjects of the poem mispronouncing the narrators name again, and again, you have power over the situation. Being careless with this power to make better choices is still an abuse of a, even if small power much of the time, power.

Lastly, the theme of abuse of power is an important theme in Martin Espadas poems in the poem, “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877”. This poem speaks of the lynching of two Mexicans by whites in California. The theme of abuse of power is extremely strong in this poem. Not only is the extreme racism and prejudice obvious in this situation, the “gringos” in the poem had much more power than these Mexicans. There were forty of them present at the hanging of the only two Mexican people, which means that the Mexicanos were almost certainly outnumbered to fight the whites who were trying to kill them. The whites were higher status and have a better situation than the Mexicans. They could've gone on to face little or no repercussions for what they did. It’s murder in every sense of the word, and all murders or deaths are terrible, but the way it was committed makes it even worse. The white subjects in the poem abused their physical and societal powers over the Mexicans. 

In conclusion, the abuse of power is a huge theme in Martin Espada’s poetry. He uses it clearly in three different poems of his, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School”, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson”, and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877”. Espada used many different forms of abuse of power in his poems, showing that no matter what kind of power you abuse, it’s still wrong if you do it for the wrong reasons.

Essay: Child Soliders, Perpetrators of Victims?

“As the nature of armed conflict has changed in recent years, the practice of using children--defined under international law as those under age 18--as soldiers has become far more common and widespread. As many as 300,000 child 17 and under now serve worldwide as combatants,” says P.W. Singer in his book Children at War. The use of child soldiers has become more and more frequent in recent years. Often working for rebel groups in developing countries, child soldiers can be girls, boys, fighters, messenger. Child soldiers is a topic that is very controversial. These are still, as stated, children, but they kill people, a lot of the time innocent people. Some people may argue that child soldiers are perpetrators in their crimes. But I believe that child soldiers are victims. 

Many child soldiers are taken advantage of in conflicts situations. In the article, “Armed & Underaged” by Jeffrey Gettleman, he says, “Few adults want to have anything to do with these rebel commanders, so manipulating and abducting children becomes the best way to sustain their organized banditry.” Many children are in fact kidnapped, or as Ishmael Beah says in his interview with Katie Couric on CBS, “forcefully recruited” into the military or as a soldier in their organization. They don’t even have a choice in the matter. It’s comply or be killed. Many children are even given drugs so they follow commands and don’t object to orders. Their addiction slowly grows so they depend on drugs as well. “It is less an army than a drugged-out street gang with military grade weapons,” says Jeffrey Gettleman in “Armed and Underaged”. Even worse, some children are even sold by their own parents into these situations.

For those child soldiers where their decision to join a military group was voluntary, it was most likely out of survival. According to the United Nations on their “Special Concern” website page, child soldiers are most likely to be children who are from “impoverished and marginalized backgrounds, or separated from their families.” Ishmael Beah attempted to go to the military for help, and was forced to be recruited. Many other children may have just seen the opportunity for survival and taken it. These children have very few options, and turn to the life that they don’t necessarily want to participate in. There are very few resources in the countries where conditions like this are occurring, and the chance you’ll be saved by a charity right away is slim.

Children don’t want to kill either. As I said above, children do this for survival, not out of enjoyment. Jeffrey Gettleman says in “Armed & Underaged”, “‘Child soldiers are ideal,’ a military commander from Chad told Human Rights Watch. ‘They don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid--and when you tell them to kill, they kill.’” Children don’t have an incentive besides to live to join these armies. Children are often traumatized when they first have to kill. P.W. Singer says in Children at War, “‘They trained us to fight,’ the boy continues. ‘The first time I killed someone, I got so sick, I thought I was going to die. But I got better...’” The children may be desensitized to the violence after a while, but it doesn’t mean they ever wanted to kill. Children are even traumatized for other reasons than the horrible killing, coming out of their time serving as child soldiers with drug addiction or trauma from rape or sexual abuse. 

Child soldiers are victims, through and through. They are taken advantage of and abused when they’re in situations where they need help, and when they’re not, they become child soldiers to survive, no because they want to, or because they enjoy killing. Children are being left as orphans, then join the very causes that killed their families. Kids are being convinced to become suicide bombers for terrorist organizations without knowing anything about why they’re doing it. There are so many charities and programs, like the military-run detainment facility “Camp Iguana”, trying to help these boys and girls, but they can’t help every child, which is sad. Some ex-child soldiers, even after war, just wandering to find more work as soldiers. It’s the only thing they know how to do. Until renegade, selfish groups that use innocent children for their dirty work is stopped, this will still be a problem. I think it might always be a problem. There are always people who have skewed versions of what is acceptable. These people might not even necessarily want to do this, they might just think it’s needed. But it’s not, and it should never be.