Looking For Alaska Quotes

When a death occurs, life can get very frantic and depressing, but when it is a dear friend that dies your life completely changes. In Looking for Alaska by John Green, Alaska, Pudge and The Colonel go through changes all throughout the book, but nothing can prepare them for the death of their dear friend Alaska. From a very young age, Alaska had to deal with her mother's death, which changed her life dramatically. The death of her mother did not hinder her love for boys and for books. She found a quote that changed her life in a book “How to escape the labyrinth?”, Pudge and Alaska friendship was based on this quote. Alaska’s fascination with how to exit the labyrinth and deeply regretting her mom’s death has led me to believe that her

death was a suicide.
Alaska’s mom's death was an event that changed her life forever.

Alaska went into depression and tried to drink her problems away. The night she died the boys believed her death was caused by her drinking but I believe she killed herself to be with her mother in heaven. The day before Alaska dies, Pudge and Alaska were talking about her drinking too much and Alaska says “Pudge, what you must understand is that I am deeply unhappy person”. This is the first time Alaska shares with Pudge that she is a “Deeply unhappy person”. Throughout the book, you could tell that she was a deeply troubled person because she drank a lot and when she did drink she got weird and talked about her mother. Being a very unhappy person can lead you to troubled thoughts and troubled thoughts can lead to suicide. Along with drinking Alaska likes to smoke a lot, multiple times in the book Alaska refers to one of her sayings “Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die”. This could definitely be a sign that she wants to speed up the process of death. The only thing that contradicts this is that she enjoyed life, she had good friends, she did what she wanted when she wanted and she was comfortable in her own skin. She never expressed her sadness until she told Pudge. We don’t know if she really loved life or her really actually loved her friends. Her smoking and drinking habit played a part in her death especially drinking because the night of her death Alaska and Colonel were playing a drinking

game. She proceeded to call her boyfriend and suddenly ran into boys room screaming “I have to get out of here!” and Pudge responded, “What’s wrong?”. She never quite answered his question, she just asked to “Just please distract the Eagle right now so I can go. Please.”. The boys distracted the Eagle and Alaska drove off to her certain death. After receiving the news of her death Pudge determined it was due to her drinking but they did tests and she was not drunk enough to swerve out of the way of the police officer. If she wasn’t drunk enough to swerve out of the way then what was it? When she left the dorm she was very emotional unstable because she missed her mom's death anniversary. Further proving that her death was not accidental but suicide due to her extreme emotions when it comes to her mom. She had another obsession other than drinking or smoking and it was how to escape the labyrinth.

Alaska obsessed over this quote, it played a big part in the book.

The quote might have lead to her death. "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?". These are Alaska’s favorite last words from her book The General in his Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez which is a biography of Simon Bolivar. This is a very open-ended question and we will never know what it means but Alaska thinks it’s about suffering. In a conversation between Alaska and Pudge she says "It's not life or death, the labyrinth." and Pudge responds “Um okay. So what is it” and she responds “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. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?”. In my eyes, the labyrinth of suffering is Alaska having to deal with her mother's death. It’s endless maze of emotions that Alaska would have to deal with for the rest of her life. Her mother’s death scared her to the point to where she couldn’t handle it anymore and she had to get out of the labyrinth. Alaska, Pudge, and the Colonel had different ways of viewing the labyrinth and pudge 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”. For Pudge, it’s not that he chooses the labyrinth, but he finds a way of dealing with and escaping the labyrinth in a personal way. Toward the end, Pudge found

forgiveness through the labyrinth saying “He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth.” What is the labyrinth no one will ever know what it is each of us has a different definition? Alaska’s Labyrinth is suffering and that's why I believe she committed suicide to get out of the labyrinth.