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Analysis of Looking For Alaska
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Recommended: Analysis of Looking For Alaska
Looking for Alaska
The author John Green, of the book, Looking for Alaska, thinks pessimistically about life. He says many things in the book to show his negative view on the world. Life is thought about as a labyrinth because it is like a maze. The protagonist, Pudge, has to go through his life in the book as a maze because many things go wrong for him. John Green thinks pessimistically of the book Looking for Alaska. One reason that John Green views the world as a labyrinth is that things never go right for Pudge, the protagonist. Pudge had a rough time transitioning to Culver Creek (a private High School). One negative thing that happened to Pudge when he got to Culver Creek is that he was judged by who his friends were. Pudge instantly became best friends with the Colonel, his room mate. The Weekday Warriors (the group of kids at Culver Creek who cause trouble to Pudge and his friends), beat up Pudge and threw him in the lake, and drown him, just because Pudge was friends with the Colonel. Kevin, one of the weekday warriors says, “This is for the Colonel. You shouldn’t hang out with that asshole.” That made Pudge realize how terrible the Weekday Warriors were. Although Pudge didn’t change his actions or friendship towards the
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Alaska’s death causes a main turning point in the book because she impacted so many people. She was the person who Pudge fell in love with, she was the Colonel and Takumi’s best friend, and the was the “cool girl” at Culver Creek. Some of the things Alaska said gave the friends a hint that she didn’t care to die. For example Alaska says this talking about why they smoke cigarettes, “Ya’ll smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.” This showed that Alaska didn’t care if she died from smoking cigarettes. Everyone was wondering why she had said this but she blatantly told them she didn’t care if she
The left door which they entered was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their way.They could hear something breathing heavily which didn't sound human. Tyson pushed the boulder blocking the place where they could hear the heavy breathing and soon Annabeth realized they were in Alcatraz so she told the group about it.
The movie the Labyrinth tells a story about a group of unlikely heroes trying to make their way though a maze in order to defeat the Goblin King. The story starts out with the main character Sarah whom, without even realizing it, wishes her baby brother to be taken way by Jareth the Goblin King. He tells her that if she wants her brother back she will have to make her way through the labyrinth and to the castle beyond the Goblin City. She only has 13 hours to complete the seemingly impossible task or her little brother Toby will be turned into a goblin. While making her way through the twisted and endless maze Sarah runs into many weird characters. The first person she encounters is Hoggle a very untrustworthy dwarf whom is under the influence of Jareth. He is selfish and does things only if there is something for him to gain. He betrays Sarah many times throughout the movie, but in the end he proves himself to be more than a traitorous coward. Ludo is a yeti and despite looking vicious is a gentle and caring monster. Ludo also has the power to control rocks. Sir Didymis is a loudmouthed, but noble knight who displays his valor throughout the movie. The four heroes manage to fight their way through the perilous labyrinth. The Goblin King Jareth is defeated and Sarah’s brother Toby is saved. Though the characters in this movie seemed to be nothing more than ordinary, and if not odd, they fought their way through labyrinth and conquered an entire army of evil goblins and their king. (Labyrinth 1986)
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardships into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
Primo Levi once said, " Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.." The memory of a human being is a fascinating matter, but it is not something that stays with us forever. Memories will often change or multiply with unnecessary information, but they are what define you as you.
If my life had no purpose, no individuality, and no happiness, I would not want to live. This book teaches the importance of self expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
One of the most important points in this book is that no matter what you’re going through you have to find your meaning to life. If you don’t have a meaning to life or something to live for then there’s no chance of you surviving whatever you may be going through. You have to find whatever positive thing in your life to make it through any time of your life. In the book, he wrote this, “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a
The “Allegory of the Cave” and Fahrenheit 451, both display the difficulty of a prisoner. If the prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave receive the chance for freedom, they will not take it. Instead, the prisoners fear any form of reality that lies beyond their seats, and prefer to stay in the cave. If they do become free, instead of leaving their world, they will, “turn away and run back to the things he could make out, and would take the truth of the matter to be that these things are clearer than what he was being shown.” The prisoners, accustomed to their routine of sitting and staring at a wall, liked watching shadows pass by every day. They would rather stay staring at the wall than undergo enlightenment, one of the scariest experiences
“Fear me,love me,do as I say,I’ll be your slave” says Jareth The Goblin King from the Labyrinth. By using irony, the author of a story can create a surprising events. Authors use multiple kinds of irony to make stories more surprising.
"Pan 's Labyrinth" is directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a magical realism drama. The screen shows the magical world of bizarre situations, a fictional out of Pluto 's daughter "Ophelia" to roam the world. To 1944 as the background, the fascist murder of guerrilla fighters as a real-world story. The whole film myth and reality are intertwined, is a complete metaphor and reflection on the Spanish civil war. One side is the little girl innocent fairy tale, while the Nazis are inhuman torture and slaughter. Two living scenes intertwined in a film, brings out a moral and human conflict. This is the child to see everything in the eyes, and what we see, it seems that the other world.
O. Henry once said, “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” The poem goes a lot a deeper than the words on the page, the items and decisions within it really make you see things differently. Three symbols really stuck out to me; adolescence, sadness, and timelessness.
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.
In Jorge Luis Borges' "Garden of Forking Paths", we find the protagonist as a Chinese English professor Yu Tsun who is a spy for the German army, obviously chased by his enemy, Richard Madden who is an Irishman at the service of the English army. At first glance, Yu Tsun may seem to be a "loyal" member of the German army but he manifests a characteristic throughout the story as being the oppressed member of the army. It seems that Yu Tsun shows a "desperate desire of the oppressed to be accepted by its oppressors." Yu Tsun doesn't care about Germany which imposed upon him the objection of being a spy. He even refers to the chief as a sick and hateful man and that he only needs to prove to him that a "yellow man" could save his armies. It's ironic because it clearly shows that Yu Tsun is oppressed because of his race (Yellow=Chinese) and yet he still serves the one oppressing him and even seeks its approval. He seems to be struggling in a Labyrinth of oppression, forever lost within its walls. This is just one of the Labyrinths that Yu Tsun is engaged/ trapped in. The story speaks about a certain Labyrinth, that which is related to Tsui Pen, a book which is composed of different chapters that seem to be diverging from a single path which also creates its own diverging paths. This particular part in the story challenges/ questions the common notion of time as being a linear process and instead raises a possibility of history branching out in an endless number of diverse directions at each spot in time; every space-time node as the midpoint of a system of branching or forking paths, an ever-recurring moment/place of selection with profound effects on and links to everything else. The book represents a Labyrinth of time "where all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings which sometimes converge" ( 22). Also, before going inside Albert's house, Yu Tsun got lost in the garden, which seemed like a maze. This is the result of his pondering over his ancestor's Labyrinth; Getting caught in this maze allowed the reader to reflect over a different perspective about real life. This maze represented the numerous paths that a person can travel and all of the outcomes from these paths. Thus, I can infer that the imagination is one of the representations of the Labyrinth.
Jorge Luis Borges’ thought provoking and fantastical literature stems from his philosophical mind. His stories, especially “Death and the Compass”, focus on labyrinths and identity. Borges fascinates his audience with his analysis of reality. He combines fact and fiction to create the perfect genre of mystery. His characters’ conquest for the unknown defines his use of detective fiction.
Additionally, the main character, Alaska, relates to the world because she is a girl that lives a hard life and is depressed on the inside, yet she still manages to have a smile on her face. Many people in the world are going through very hard times, however, they still manage to be happy or they try to give the appearance that they’re happy. Personally, I can relate to Alaska Young’s situation, after losing my grandma and uncle to illness a couple of months ago, I am faced with tremendous amounts of depression and deep sadness. However, on the outside, I tend to have a smile on my face and I don’t show others how I truly feel deep down on the inside. Alaska does this for a while and she slowly starts to feel as happy as she is on the outside, on the inside.
Within London’s stories, he presents a dark tone but life lessons throughout his pieces of work. One of London’s works that mirrors dark tones, and life lessons is “To Build a Fire”. This story is about a man who is traveling in extreme, miserable cold weather conditions with his dog. Though this man was advised by an older man not to travel in these harsh conditions, he does it anyway. In this story, the man’s destination is a faraway camp with people whom in which he is supposed to meet with. At the beginning of the story, he starts out with such optimism and courage that he is going to make it to his destination with no problem. As the story goes along, his health and optimism starts to deteriorate. I loved how London, throughout the story included the turmoil that this man was starting to comprehend. For example, a sign of trouble that the man was experiencing was when the “circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the harder.” (pg. 1052). At this point in the story, the stubborn man is now remembering the older man from Sulphur Creek who had warned him, and tried to give him advice. London has managed to present the downfall of the man’s well-being. As the man gets worse and his dog is no longer wanting to be in his company, the more the old man’s advice is brought up. Further in the story the man’s optimism is beginning to disperse, and he decides at one point after trying so hard will not make it to the camp. He later dies under a tree, and the dog later goes away from him, and heads to the camp alone. This story is a representation of regret and troubled events that this man endures because of his stubbornness. London was able to present a story with hope, optimism, doubt, regret, life lessons, and the reality. As a result, this is why I love this work by Jack London,