"Pain demands to be felt": Language and Power as Structures in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars

This article offers a semiotic analysis of The Fault in Our Stars, specifically how John Green links cancer to the ways in which adolescents experience language. Green examines how adolescents struggle with adult power structures, an examination that relies on an implied assertion that adolescents are often aware of the power of language as a means of understanding and interacting with the world but are unable to assert that power in an agentive manner. This article argues that young adult literature such as Green's novel can be an educative site for adolescents to discover and interrogate social norms, roles, and expectations.