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This cross-disciplinary essay explores the use of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012) and its pedagogical implications for learners in middle school. It demonstrates that the novel expresses preparatory grief by implementing internal focalisation through the main character Hazel Grace. The essay also argues that the pedagogical implications related to the novel can yield fruitful results in the EFL classroom. The analysis is conducted by, firstly, exploring the novel’s depiction of preparatory grief and, secondly, examining the pedagogical implications from a trauma-informed teaching perspective. The main findings are that preparatory grief is present throughout the novel and that a trauma-informed teaching approach is apt for the inclusion of the novel in the EFL classroom, which ultimately can improve learners’ awareness of a young adult’s perspective on the process of dying.

Uppsatsen analyserar John Greens bok Förr eller senare exploderar jag (2013), som är översatt av Ylva Stålmarck och Josh Boones film med samma titel (2014). Syftet med analysen är att ta reda på hur ett svårt ämne, i detta fall cancer, skildras i boken respektive filmen. Genom att undersöka hur de båda verken behandlar frågan om sjukdomen cancer är ett vidare syfte att se om dessa två verk är användbara i ett skolsammanhang i årskurs 4–6. Uppsatsen är en adaptionsstudie och visar att filmatiseringen efterliknar boken i mycket hög grad och att endast ett fåtal händelser och karaktärer är bortplockade eller omgjorda. Det budskap som bok och film förmedlar är även det ett samma budskap. Även om filmen i en högre grad än boken fokuserar på kärlekshistorien och har tonat ner bokens drastiska uttryck. Slutligen visar analysen att boken är mer riktad mot en äldre målgrupp än barn i åldrarna 10–12 år. Filmen däremot skulle kunna fungera att inkludera i undervisningen, åtminstone i årskurs 6.

This essay analyses John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012) with a theoretical approach of reader-response theory to show how the potential interpretations of the gaps in the novel make it a relevant choice of literary work for EFL education. The essay also examines whether the concept of gaps can be used as a tool in literary analysis. The concept of gaps stem from Wolfgang Iser’s ideas on the individual reader, which in turn is one of the perspectives, together with Stanley Fish’s interpretative communities, from which the gaps found in The Fault in Our Stars are analysed. The results are connected to a list of criteria, created by applying the criteria of English syllabuses for upper secondary school by the Swedish National Agency for Education to a revised version of Janice Bland’s list of what constitutes a good literary work for the classroom. The result is that The Fault in Our Stars covers difficult and relatable topics and emotions, which enables productive discussions that challenge students’ world views and help develop their interpretative skills. The findings also show that the novel bears literary complexity, with its prevalent use of metaphors and similes, as well as clear intertextuality with typically canonical works. The analysis also shows how the concept of gaps are an effective tool for interpretation in literary analysis. In conclusion, The Fault in Our Stars is a suitable and comprehensive choice of YA literature in the upper secondary school EFL classroom.

Film has since its inception been a potent storytelling tool, and the concept of illnesses and death havebeen a critical element in the stories mankind has told through cinema since the beginning. While theearly years of film saw few titles which directly named or featured diseases such as cancer, the 1980’sand 1990’s saw a vast increase in illness narratives being produced. By the beginning of the newmillennium, a new subgenre of film was beginning to emerge, specifically targeted at youngaudiences: Sick-Flicks.The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Sick-Flick subgenre, and scrutinize the films which the author has identified according to how they handle a variety of factors. These include the portrayal ofmale and female sufferers in accordance with the feminist theoretical observation of masculinity beingrepresented as active, while femininity is typically passive in nature. Beyond this, the essay alsoattempts to add to Susan Sontag’s essay Illness as Metaphor, exploring how the portrayal of illnessmay have shifted since the essay’s publication in 1978. Finally, this thesis also concerns itself with thereoccurring narrative trend of featuring talented adolescents as terminally ill sufferers and how thismay tie into neoliberalism and belief in the meritocracy.This thesis concludes that while there has been a shift in the metaphorical portrayal of diseases,especially as it pertains to cancer, which Susan Sontag concludes unsuitable for romanticization,overall, many of the criticisms and potentially problematic commonalities which both Sick-Flicks andtheir literary counterpart Sick-Lit have featured through the years remain. There is a remaining focuson heteronormative and racially homogenous victims, and innate talents and intelligence are present,arguably in order to make the eventual loss of the ill characters more tangibly tragic. The authorconcludes that while it is debatable whether or not filmmakers should feel any responsibility to portrayillnesses accurately, they should at least likely strive to reflect the current reality as far as survivalrates are concerned.

This essay examines how the past decade’s wave of young adult films portraying termi-nal illnesses compare and contrast with similar works from both film as well as literary works commonly referred to as “sick-lit”. By viewing three prominent films released be-tween 2014 and 2019 and applying both literature dealing with sick-lit as well as texts fo-cused on how cinema tends to portray serious illnesses such as cancer, I attempt to dis-cern whether significant change in the way which contemporary film handles severe ill-nesses has occurred.What this study reveals is that while certain narrative traits have been altered and various problematic elements addressed, film still vastly prefers portraying illnesses such as can-cer and cystic fibrosis as bleak, death sentences. The “sick-flicks” of modern-day cinema have also failed to address critique of the sub-genre as being both heteronormative and racially homogenous in nature.However, compared to films depicting terminal illnesses in teenagers from the 2000’s the recent wave of films in general dedicate more time to spotlighting their diseases. No longer relegating them to emotional revelations toward the end of the film.Overall, the findings are that most criticisms of cinema’s portrayal of terminal illnesses remain, yet progress has also been achieved in certain respects. Filmmakers more inter-ested in utilizing illnesses as a way to examine coming-of-age topics than the full experi-ence of terminal illness, notwithstanding.