How will Alaska Young escape her labyrinth? Looking for Alaska, by John Green, writes a young adult realistic fiction novel accompanied with romance, death, grief, and loss. Green encompasses different themes throughout the novel. The most important theme Green embodies in Looking for Alaska is death. Looking for Alaska takes place on campus at Culver Creek Preparatory High School located in Birmingham, Alabama. Miles “Pudge” Halter moves to Culver Creek Boarding School in hopes of finding the “Great Perhaps.” Pudge is pulled into Alaska Young’s world, she hurls him into the Great Perhaps, and makes him fall in love with her. This succeeding review of Looking for Alaska will incorporate an observation of one of the main characters Alaska Young and the following theme death. Looking for Alaska is a novel about a boy named Miles “Pudge” …show more content…
Alaska Young is described as beautiful, clever, funny, self-destructive, screwed up, utterly fascinating, and deeply conflicted. Alaska says, “Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape—the world or the end of it” (19)? Alaska is convinced that she is suffering in misery and sorrow because of an incident that took place when she was younger. Alaska lives with guilt for not taking action and calling 911 when her mother had collapsed and was dying. She also has a fear of delaying action again which causes her to be impetuous. Alaska participates in self-destructive activities to distract herself from her overwhelming guilt. Alaska shows lack of interest towards her life. Alaska says, “Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die” (44). Alaska had written in her book to escape labyrinth was straight and fast. Due to her impulsiveness Alaska freaks out when she forgets to go put flowers at her mothers grave causing her to drive while she's drunk. Alaska crashes into a police car and dies. Consequently, Alaska escapes her labyrinth with
Karen Hasse’s novel is an attention grabber because of the way it is written. Moreover, it is very interesting and is broken up into four different seasons which are spring, summer, winter and fall. Many young adults reading the text and undergoing challenges in their lives can identify themselves with the character Billie. The story is told in first person point of view and narrated from the main character’s view who is Billie. Billie faced a lot of challenges in her life and she did her best in trying to overcome them. At Billie’s age, many young adults will always want to escape from their lives and look for a change just as she did but they will learn after reading her story that one needs to face her challenges because running away makes things worse than they were.
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
In John Krakauer’s novel Into The Wild, the reader follows the life of a young man who, upon learning of his father’s infidelity and bigamy, seems to go off the deep end, isolating himself by traveling into the wild country of Alaska, unprepared for survival, where he died of starvation at 67 pounds.
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
Chris McCandless was still just a young man when he decided to drastically alter his life through the form of a child’s foolishness. However, Chris had not known at the time just how powerful his testimony against his father’s authority, society, or maybe even his own lifestyle was going to be revolutionary throughout not only Alaska,not even the lower 48, but the world. The story of Chris McCandless is a much talked about debate on topics of safety and preparedness in the wild, these things forever associated with the boy who was a little too eager for a death wish. Today, Chris is remember as a fool or a hero. The fool, a boy who allowed himself to be drowned in a fictional world inspired by his readings,dying because he ignored he was just a normal human being or the hero who set out to become something more.
This is a story of a journey, the adventures on the road that creates disconcert. Having died while a son sawed her coffin beneath her window, Addie Bundren is carried away in the family wagon through the road of Yoknapatawpha. The family wanted to please her wish to be buried near her blood relatives in the Jefferson. Nothing goes well, their journey, like their spiritual life, is empty and confused. All the family members have their own reasons and motives for the journey, as they pass through unfortunate accidents both comic and terrible, fire and flood, suffering and stupidity, until at least, they reach the town.
Joyce Carol Oates intrigues readers in her fictional piece “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by examining the life of a fifteen year old girl. She is beautiful, and her name is Connie. Oates lets the reader know that “everything about her [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home, and one for anywhere but home (27). When Connie goes out, she acts and dresses more mature than she probably should. However, when she is at home, she spends the majority of her time absorbed with daydreams “about the boys she met”(28). This daydreaming behavior is observable to the reader throughout the story. From theories about dreams, theories about subconscious thought, and the clues that Oates provides, the reader is lead to believe that Connie’s experience with Arnold Friend is a nightmare used to awaken her to the consequences that her behavior could result in.
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Her novel ‘Lucy’ explored the characters Lucy’s life experience in flashback of growing up on a small island and her present life in the United States as well as the relationship between the mother and daughter. This portrayal echoes similarities to that of Kincaid life. Like Kincaid, the cha...
Alaska did not really have a name until she was seven years old, when she chose the name “Alaska.” She chose it because when she saw it on the globe, she decided she wanted to be like it when she grew up; big and far away from her home. She had a tragic childhood in which she felt overlooked. Taking “Alaska” as her name seemed like a way for her to redeem herself and turn her life around, shaping it around the meaning behind her name.
Defining the American character is quite difficult because American identity is vaguely founded on shared values and ideologies, more so than a particular creed, race, or culture. In order to describe the American character, we will consider the dominate and distinctive qualities of Americans as interpreted by J. Hector St. Jon De Crèvecoeur and Thomas Paine. First, we will examine how Crèvecoeur illustrates Americans as industrious, prideful, and political in “Letters from an American Farmer.” Then, we will analyze from Thomas Paine's “Common Sense” how he depicts the prevalent qualities of Americans to be driven by justice, liberty, emotions, and individualism. Also, because both authors consider the American character and culture different
A breathtaking saga of a young girl’s tragic memories of her childhood. As with Ellen, Gibbons’ parents both died before she was twelve-years-old, forming the family. basis of the plot and themes of this novel. The fond memories she possessed of her mother and the harsh ones of her father are reflected in the thoughts and actions of Ellen. The simplistic and humble attitude that both Gibbons and Ellen epitomizes in the novel is portrayed through diction and dialogue.
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.
Ethics is the moral behavior that guides our actions; it motivates us in our personal behavior and is relevant in a business setting as well. Many organizations have set forth a set of guidelines known as a “Code of Ethics”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, being one of these organizations, has set forth their code as a requirement for students and engineer members to adhere to. Heading towards a career in electrical engineering I choose this organization to elaborate on for my ethics project.