Looking For Alaska Analysis

John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska tells the story of Miles Halter, a shy teenager who transfers to Culver Creek Boarding School for his junior year of high school, in search of the “Great Perhaps”. His roommate, Chip Martin, “The Colonel” takes Miles under his wing and nicknames him Pudge. Miles introduces him to the erratic lifestyle of smoking, drinking, pranks, and Alaska Young. Alaska Young is, witty, moody, beautiful, and self-destructive, and Pudge is attracted to her. When a few of the weekday warriors drag Pudge out of his bed, cover him in ductape and throw him in a lake, and urinated in the Colonel shoes. The Colonel promised himself to have revenge on them. The weekday warriors violated Pudge and urinated in Colonel’s shoes because they believe that the Colonel squealed on problem students Paul and Marya. Alaska later admits to telling on Paul and Marya to avoid being expelled for sneaking off campus in the middle of the night and being in possession of alcohol (Green 73). Alaska, Pudge and the Colonel plot their revenge on the weekday warriors by putting blue hair dye in the weekday warriors’ shampoo and hair gel bottles and releasing fake progress reports to the weekday warriors’ parents, convincing them that they are failing. One night, after drinking with the Colonel and making out with Pudge, Alaska breaks down crying. She drives off campus and dies in a car accident. Alaska’s friends are overwhelmed with guilt and grief. They become obsessed with figuring out where she was driving with white flowers in her car in the middle of the night. Alaska’s friends must came to terms with their guilt and grief and accepted that they will never know if the wreck was intentional or unintentional.

There are several ...

... middle of paper ...

...by Pudge’s emotions and reflections. The way information is withheld, such as the nature of the Barn Night prank (99), entices the reader to keep turning the pages. The countdown to the unknown, critical event of Alaska’s death builds suspense, and the literary references of the labyrinth (19) and Frost’s poem (10) foreshadow Pudge and the Colonel’s subsequent struggle to rise above the tragedy. The setting provides the removal from parental influence, so that Alaska, Pudge and the Colonel are responsible for their own struggles, failures and achievements. These literary elements combine to create a coming-of-age story that will appeal to anyone who has ever struggled to escape a labyrinth, whether that labyrinth is grief, guilt, adolescence or high school. This ability to appeal to such a wide audience justifies the novel’s placement on the Printz Award list.