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Isolation Videos 32 videos

A Hunger Artist (Kafka)
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Guy in a black leotard. In a cage. Not eating. Weird? Yes. Popular? Absolutely. Kafka's short story includes iconic artist-figures: a mouse singer...

A Rose for Emily
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What? She gets a rose and we don’t? Who is this Emily person anyway? What’s she done to deserve such a delightful, aromatic gift?

Brave New World
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Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

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The Fault in Our Stars 13587 Views


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Description:

Have you ever read a book and thought, "Whoa, this sounds like my life"? If you feel that way about The Fault in Our Stars , you're in for some major bookception: the main character, Hazel, is reading a book whose protagonist's struggles match her own.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:05

The Fault In Our Stars a la Shmoop. Imagine reading a book that ends in the middle

00:15

of sentence. It would be like your favorite show getting

00:23

canceled in the middle of the last episode. That's exactly what happens to Hazel in A

00:32

Fault in Our Stars.

00:34

When her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, ends mid-sentence...

00:38

...she's so upset that she takes a transatlantic journey to find the real ending.

00:44

Why does she take this trip?

00:47

Why doesn't she just move on and read something else that actually has an ending?

00:51

Or write some fan-fiction? Maybe it's just plain ol' curiosity.

01:01

Wouldn't you want to know how your favorite book ends? You know... before the movie comes

01:08

out? Or maybe it's the fact that Hazel is just

01:15

sick of uncertainty.

01:17

She already has plenty to worry about: Will she die? Will her friend Gus die? Will the

01:23

sun go supernova and we all die?

01:27

Perhaps her search for the ending to An Imperial Affection is just the search for some certainty

01:33

in her life. But then there's the fact that Hazel's story

01:40

is basically the same as Anna's, the main character in An Imperial Affliction.

01:46

It's almost like the author was watching Hazel and recording her life.

01:54

Haven't you ever read a book and thought the main character... was you?

02:02

Hazel wants to know what will happen to her family after she dies, and she seems to be

02:06

looking for those answers in Anna's story.

02:10

She wants to know that Anna's mom will be okay, just like she wants to know that her

02:14

own parents and loved ones will be okay. So, what's the real reason Hazel goes on this

02:23

epic adventure?

02:25

Is it because, like all of us, she's just curious?

02:28

Or is she looking for certainty in an uncertain world?

02:32

Or does she see her own story in Anna's and wants to discover her own fate?

02:43

Or maybe JetBlue just had a killer deal on round-trip tickets to Amsterdam...

02:47

Shmoop amongst...

02:48

<<pause>>

03:00

...yourselves.

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