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Symbolism In John Greene's 'Looking For Alaska'

Decent Essays

In John Greene’s fictional novel “Looking for Alaska” (2005), he symbolizes the way last words of people, and how it tells their life stories and experiences. Greene develops this symbolism by using his main character’s obsession with famous people’s last words to gain closure on their death, but without knowledge of a main supporting character’s death (Alaska’s death), Pudge gains no perspective of Alaska’s life and her experiences. Last quotes create a picture of how a person’s life was lived, he also makes it seem as if they create a sense that life can be taken away in a split second, so the closer that a person is with another, the less likely they’re to have closure when facing death. Despite Greene’s intended audience of older …show more content…

The setting has therefore developed characters, which allow for more action in the book that keeps the audience entertained.
Along with the setting of the book, Greene uses chronological order with minimal flashbacks to allow the reader to live through the same experiences as the main characters. The book itself tells the story and experiences of a young student. Instead of using chapters, Greene uses the days before and after Alaska’s death, to guide the audience along the journey. These rapidly slow paced chronological days such as, “ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, I woke up with a stuffy nose to an entirely new Alabama, a crisp and cold one.” allows the reader to feel what the character is feeling, this builds a closer type of relationship between reader and character. Greene also uses a unique type of flashback in that he uses a first person point of view to give the audience a flashback to the main character's life, allowing the reader to feel as if the character is still tied emotionally to a specific moment in their life. He uses it in situations such as, “I kept returning the conversation to those times when she would be mean and moody, when she didn’t feel like answering how, when, why, who, or what questions. “She could seem so angry,” I thought aloud.” which allows us as readers to realize how emotionally tied Miles is and was to Alaska.
One of the book's main themes is death, and the fact that it is inevitable makes

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