An Analysis of 'Looking for Alaska' by John Green

The labyrinth to Alaska is "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying.” Alaska is silly, funny, and joyful on the outside, but she is deeply depressed in the inside. When her mom passed away right in front of her, without Alaska calling

Looking for Alaska by John Green is a novel about as boy who moves to a boarding school, called Culver Creek. He meets this girl named Alaska, and they become close. They go through multitudes of activities together such as many pranks and school. A tragedy hits and the main character, and his roommate start looking for answers about her untimely death. This novel presents numerous themes that are transposed in it which include themes such as friendship, lies, home, rules and order, and suffering. All of these themes are portrayed in every person's life.

“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books”, said Alaska Young in the book Looking for Alaska, no I don’t personally have a room filled with books but I sure do love them. The thing I find amazing about books is how they can change how you view things in life, or how they can make you discover a possible career for your future but sometimes they can make you do negative things. For me a couple of books have done this and it has almost been life changing. By life changing I mean it has changed some of my views on life and one even helped me find the career that I am planning on having in the future. There are two books in particular that really influenced some of my choices over the past couple years. Some in very positive good ways and one not in the best way. The first one is by John Green and no it’s not his more famous book The Fault in our Stars. It’s his less known book Looking for Alaska. The other book that helped me discover the career I would love to go into is a book that I first read back in seventh grade call Perfect by Natasha Friend. Which reading also lead to one bad thing though. So I’ll be telling how each of these books have changed some of my views on life and how one of them helped me figure out the career I’d like to go into.

It seems natural to think about novels in terms of dreams or psychoanalytical realities. Like dreams, novels are fictions, inventions of the mind that, though based on reality, are by definition not exactly and literally true. Conversely, dreams may have some truth to tell but like novels their truth must be interpreted before it can be grasped. Such is the case with John Green's young adult novel, Looking for Alaska. It holds many truths that are relevant to young adults, but to extract those lessons, one must first view the plot and characters through a lens of psychoanalytical theory.

While reading Looking for Alaska, Alaska talks a lot about “The Labyrinth”. The Labyrinth is based off of Alaska’s favorite last words from a biography of Simon Bolivar “Damn it how will I ever get out of this Labyrinth” While reading the book, you never really know exactly what the Labyrinth is, but Alaska says “It’s not life or death. It’s suffering, doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering”? (Green 82). I think the way that Alaska explains The Labyrinth is the most detailed and accurate. Pudge’s explanation of The Labyrinth is that you must forgive to survive The Labyrinth. The Colonel just says “After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out -- but I choose the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth blows, but I choose it” (Green 216). Out of the three ways that each person says it, I think Alaska’s was the most relevant. When I evaluate the Labyrinth, I feel as if it can work with both Alaska and Mile’s ideas. I believe that the Labyrinth is suffering, but I also think that the only way to get out of suffering is to forgive. I think the author showed both of their explanation because they both work together so

When my sister saw John Green’s Looking For Alaska sitting on our kitchen counter, she assumed it was about someone trying to find the state of Alaska, not a heartbreaking journey of a group of friends looking for answers after Alaska’s sudden death. Looking For Alaska has been both praised and banned since it was originally published in 2005. People do not understand what Green is trying to convey in the novel and write it off as inappropriate. Looking For Alaska is much too well written for it to cause these negative reactions.

Looking for Alaska, a novel by John Green about high schoolers who reside in a boarding school, houses a unique set of characters. Each of the main characters is built with traits specific to that character alone. The main characters in the novel are the new kid, Miles “Pudge”, his roommate, Chip “Colonel”, their friend, Takumi, and the girl down the hall, Alaska. Although Pudge is the new kid, he is a determined person, especially when it comes to learning about his school and the students it contains. Pudge’s best friend, the Colonel, is a very loyal and has a leader’s persona. Unlike the Colonel, Takumi is often resentful, but almost always is cheerful and is a positive person. Lastly, Alaska, the girl Pudge is mystified by, is rebellious

Looking For Alaska Exam When Simon Bolivar posed the question: “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!” (18 Green), while lying on his deathbed, there were probably very few people who thought twice about it. However, hundreds of years later, the book Looking for Alaska by John Green is all but revolving around this question. The quirky personalities of Alaska, Miles (“Pudge”), and The Colonel create the perfect setting for a book about the meaning of life and finding a way out of the labyrinth. The mystery of the labyrinth is a constant theme throughout the course of this book and no matter what shenanigans are happening to the teenagers, the labyrinth always comes back up.

John Michael Green was born on the 24th of August, 1977 in Indianapolis. He attended Indian Springs School outside Birmingham, Alabama the latter he used to set the scene of his first novel, Looking for Alaska. John graduated from Kenyon College in 2000, with a double major of Religious Studies and English. After graduating from college, Green worked at the National Children's college where his experiences with children with life-threatening diseases inspired him to write the book The Fault in Our Stars.

Looking for Alaska follows Miles Halter, the gawky teenager, who lives a boring life and obsesses over famous people's dying words. Miles moves to Culver Creek, a boarding school in Alabama, to follow the last words of François Rabelais and seek his ‘great perhaps.’ At The Creek, he realizes the importance of friendship and loyalty by meeting his bizarre group of friends including, "The Colonel" or Chip Martin his roommate, Takumi, Lara his first girlfriend, and Alaska Young the girl of his dreams. The Colonel nicknames Miles "Pudge" because he is scrawny. Pudge is truly happy because for the first time in his life he has real friends, who smoke, drink, and prank the Weekday Warriors, the rich kids who go home on the weekends. However, one night, The Colonel, Alaska, and Pudge drink and play truth or dare. Pudge and Alaska make out, and several hours after, in the early morning, she screams for The Colonel and Pudge to help her sneak off campus, which they hastily do. Pudge learns about death and mortality the next morning when there is a school assembly, and they learn that Alaska died in a car crash. Everyone is distraught, but no one more so than Pudge, who blames himself for helping her sneak off campus in the state she was is. Pudge and The Colonel isolate themselves and try to discover why she left that night. Eventually, Takumi

The idea of the Labyrinth is a reoccuring theme in Looking For Alaska. In the beginning, Alaska introduced the Labyrinth by reciting Simon Bolivar's last words which were, “Dammit, How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”. Since those were his last words I can almost guarantee that he left his labyrinth right after that.

Alaska had a childhood no one wishes, she watched her mother die right in front of her and didn’t do anything. She was scared and in shock, she just though after a while her mom was sleeping. She failed to call 911 and that guilt has haunted her her entire life.While spending the day pranking with Pudge and Colonel, forgets her mother's anniversary so in a desperate plea, she races to get to her grave to give her flowers, however she’s still drunk. She doesn’t brake or swerve she went straight and fast into the police officer's car and dies instantly.

Looking for Alaska, a novel by John Green, was banned in Sumner County, Tennessee because it contains an oral sex scene and another mildly-erotic passage. The book takes place at a boarding school in Alabama and tells the story of Miles “Pudge” Halter, a last words enthusiast. His safe and boring life is changed when he meets sexy and self-destructive Alaska Young. Pudge falls desperately in love with her. Catastrophe strikes and Pudge realizes the value of life and love. I disagree because though the book does contain sexual passages, it’s more important to look at the book as a whole, not to misinterpret individual scenes taken out of context. By focusing primarily on the few scenes in the book that are explicit, the meaning of the book gets

The novel Looking for Alaska by John Green is about the before and after story about Miles Halter aka Pudge, it introduces him by going to a private school called Culver Creek boarding school in Birmingham, Alabama that’s where he dad went when he was his age. He meets Chuck his roommate and Alaska when Alaska sees Pudge for the very first time she immediately decides to name him Pudge because of his skinny figure. He makes friends(Laura and Takumi) and falls in love with Alaska quickly. Pudge is trying to understand Alaska more. During the story, Pudge wants to know who he is. I was looking through Mr.Brubaker’s bookshelf and saw a John Green book and I immediately got it and I’ve never read Looking for Alaska.

Some may think that since Looking for Alaska is written from the first person perspective of the narrator, we would learn a lot about the narrator through his actions. However, this is not the case. Miles is the main character and the narrator of the book Looking for Alaska by John Green. This book follows the fictional story of when Miles goes off to boarding school, tries to discover his “Great Perhaps”, and tries to make the friends that he couldn’t at his previous school. When Miles first gets to boarding school, he immediately befriends his roommate and is introduced to his roommate 's friend group. He meets Alaska, who he thinks is beautiful and they become very good friends. The book then follows how Miles gets closer to Alaska and how he reacts and copes with her sudden death. We learn about who Miles really is through his inner thoughts. Through his thoughts we discover traits that Miles carries, that he is not proud of and that he doesn’t show or tell the other characters. Some of these traits include that Miles is self-conscious, that he is different than his friends, and that he is very loyal towards his friends. We can only detect that Miles carries these traits from learning his inner thoughts. John Green writes this book from the first person perspective of Miles and because of this we learn things about Miles through his thoughts that the other characters don’t.