Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
“When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”
-John Green
Laryssa DeMarco
The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Character focus: Augustus Waters
Background: His right leg is prosthetic due to cancer. He previously played basketball. He meets a girl in a cancer support group, Hazel.
Quote: “I fear oblivion,” he said without a moment’s pause. “I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Character focus: Charlie Kelmeckis
Background: Charlie lost his friend Michael to suicide in the 8th grade, and upon entering high school, he meets a group of seniors who he befriends.
Quote: "So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."
I chose to compare these two characters because of the way the address the same reoccurring themes in modern coming-of-age novels. On one hand, John Green portrays a seemingly arrogant high schooler, who has faced his fair share of health issues and deals with them but pretending to be fearless, as teenagers often do in these novels, in spite of being wildly scared of the unknown. Charlie, a vulnerable, shy freshman also deals with the same questions, however comes across more likeable, although blunt and occasionally clueless. The voice the same concerns in different ways, and critics as well as readers respond to their different methods of coping with the uncertainty that adolescence brings.
The concept of youth has been debated about often. Adults tell their children to capture it and not waste youth dwelling on the future, yet this juxtaposes the cautionary tales that preach how inconsiderate, foolish, etc. adolescents are. Modern science has proven the brain has not fully developed until roughly twenty-six years old. The most captivating product of youth is the uncertainty it brings; what does the future hold and what do I [a teenager] want it to hold? These two novels equally address the present rather than the future. These novels rarely speak of the future, but only what perhaps the next week will bring instead of the next decade. Augustus and Charlie are characters that question the existence of their current life: what is the point at 16? This is what sets these two texts apart, while The Fault In Our Stars dwells on the point of everything, The Perks of Being a Wallflower focuses on the point at age 16, which is perhaps why has been berated on the realism of the text.
Charlie is a character that is so likeable because his words are blunt and straightforward and although his thoughts are portrayed in such an easy way to digest, they are more profound. Writers can often be accused of crafting adolescent characters too precocious and often come across as pretentious if not “too intelligent”. The key to creating a character that is likeable however intuitive and inquisitive and blunt all at the same time is the language they use. I’m comparing these two pieces of literature because the character Charlie was so widely received because the themes in The Fault in Our Stars and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are common; the perplexity of individuality. The character Augustus [TFIOS] comes across as exaggerated because his dialogue seems scripted. The character is too suave, too unlikable in the origin of the novel to be taken seriously. Charlie has insecurities, but we see both characters, Augustus and Charlie, although both complex, determinate and expose themselves in separate ways.