Good Looking For Alaska – Analysis Of The Alaska Character Book Review Example

Part 1

The Alaska Young character in Looking for Alaska emerges as first the friend and eventually the romantic interest to the main figure of the story Miles “Pudge” Halter who narrates the story of this alter protagonist to Miles. Both alluring and perplexing, Alaska Young is a connoisseur of wine drinking, digging for books at yard sales, and hoaxing the day students at the Culver Creek School with Mile’s roommate, the Colonel. Alaska has a wild and unpredictable disposition, and changes moods at any moment because she continues dealing with the psychological and emotional ramifications of the death of her mother from a seizure caused by an aneurism. In his horrible grief, Alaska’s father blames the young girl for her mother’s death and this continues haunting the young beauty.
Beautiful and rebellious, Alaska Young emits wit that makes her endearing to all who spend any time with her and consequently, the protagonist of Looking for Alaska, Miles immediately falls in love with and it is apparent to the reader, that both Takumi and the Colonel clearly have crushes on her despite the author never makes this a hard fact in the story
Amid this unfolding look into the psychological makeup of Alaska Young and how the driving force of her existence is the fundamental need for forgiveness. She cannot forgive herself and this alone makes the search for forgiveness a futile endeavor. Her overwhelming need for relief from the constant suffering she experiences on the emotional, psychological, and spiritual level continues as a constant reminder of the wrongful guilt her father laid on her young self with the death of her mother.

Part 2

The following ten quotes including who and what context reveal the character Alaska Young:
“She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, ‘Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die’” (27). Here is a comment that spews from the lovely mouth of Alaska Young and gives an insight into her tragic psychological and emotional state about her death wish. This is all the result of the soul destroying comment from her father when as a child her mother’s unstoppable death was all blamed on her (Bifulco 1998).
“Alaska swallowed a mouthful of french fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew smoke at Hank. ‘I may die young,’ she said. ‘But at least I’ll die smart. Now, back to tangents’” (32). [Sic] The scenario this statement arises connects with Alaska teaching one of the many subjects she excels – the world of higher math with tangents and cosines to the circle of cronies gathered around a shared pile of McDonalds fries. Attached to this statement is a clear connection to her cavalier attitude toward life and death. Her redemption from her guilt produces a gnawing on her psyche. “What the prophets call 'doing justice' means finding a way to restore (her freedom from guilt) " (Gorringe 59). Further, with the type of guilt Alaska must endure growing up without her mother or her father’s direct affection, her healing process from the loss of her mother becomes problematic because, "Young adolescents often need to be reassured that intense expressions of grief are episodic and relatively brief" (Christ 168) – clearly, something according to the story that Alaska never experiences.
“She was reading in bed” (59). Alaska remained consumed with reading throughout the story and this line is a reminder she takes every opportunity having time with a book. This tells a lot about her finding solace in the words, the places they take her mind, and make so much sense connected to her escapist nature escaping her the misery of her emotional and psychological state about the loss of her mother and the remarks of her father (Christ 2000).
“’You just use the future to escape the present’ - Alaska Young” (35). This is in reference to Alaska defining (her) life as being stuck in some kind of maze (labyrinth) her entire life and how she is always thinking about how she intends escaping – a thing tied to the hope of a future making it happen. But she is wiser than that about self and she realizes the future is not happening because she does not allow it. This is a sign of the acute depression she lives.
"’You never get me. That’s the whole point’- Alaska Young” (36). This is a clear statement of how Alaska sees herself in comparison to the people around her as never knowing her pain so she believes no one has the ability to understand her – a harsh truth perhaps (Johnson et al 2000). The point of the author using this as part of the dialogue makes the reader see the chasm existing between Alaska and even those supposedly the closest to her. It is what makes her an enigma to those around her.
“’I’m just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them’” (53). [Sic] This dialogue spoken by Alaska proves very transparent in light of the fact she finds the tragedy of losing her mother a part of the despair she feels when she thinks about being at home. This is a logical connection to the underlying despair and depression of this character (Katchadourian 2010).
“Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself—those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct” (147). This is dialogue inside the mind of Miles expressed about the demise of Alaska (Keen 2002). It shows how she remained an enigmatic figure even after she was no longer in the lives of those who cared about her and again, the framework of this story is about the mystery of Alaska and trying to find the real Alaska that never had a chance because of the tragedy of her mother dying and the profound tragedy her father laid on her with guilt, and the most sorrowful tragedy she never learned even in all those books about forgiveness. Forgiveness was her only salvation.
“’Did I help you toward a fate you didn’t want, Alaska, or did I just assist in your willful self-destruction” (141)? Miles is pondering the demise of Alaska and typical to the tragedy of a person believed taking their own life, so many people want to think they could have, should, and would have done something to stop it or in this case asking if there was something done to contribute to it (Mruk 2006; Klerman et al 1984;. The point of this attributed to the author seems a humanistic approach to understanding the Alaska character proves pivotal for all else happening in the story.
“I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose” (147). This is mindful of the story by Kate Chopin, The Awakening where she makes the reader wonder was the swim in the ocean a suicide or was it an accident just like the readers wonder if it was because she was drunk that made Alaska run into the cop car with the flashing lights or was it an “accident”. The point of the quote is that it shows that Alaska made a mark on those lives she touched with her presence.
“’Because I was fine before, Alaska. I was fine with just me and last words and school friends, and you can’t just make me different and then die’” (114). Miles saying this is the hub of the author’s intention with the character of Alaska. Her strength, her oddity, her mystery challenged those around her to look at the world differently from their oatmeal existence because it amuses her amid her guilt, pain (Rowe 2003; Reik 1957) and this statement clearly shows the impact she left after she was no longer in their lives.

Part 3

What makes you most afraid?
“Good question. I am most afraid of being stagnant. I do not like being inert physically. I need to be doing something all the time”

How would you describe the experience of drinking wine?

(Alaska laughs). “Well, wine is a wonderful, evolving, exiting, mind altering, numbing, and being able to change the channel of what is going on at the moment experience. Drinking wine connects me to all the characters who have ever lived since the dawn of human kind that have indulged in the drinking of wine. It makes me a part of the continuum of wine drinking”.

What is it about life that you find the most interesting?

“Hmm” (Alaska scrunches her brow) and answers, “Well, I like pranking people. I like disrupting their safe, orderly, seemingly in control circumstances. It is amazing to see their reactions, and makes me feel alive that I can have so much ‘power’ over the circumstances, of other peoples’ lives. Yes, that is the most interesting thing about life, next (she emphasizes the word next) to reading that is”.

Why do you make jokes about cigarettes smoking and dying?

(Alaska kind of smirks, and makes a funny chortle sound deep in her throat). “Because we are all living to die, period! So what? The joke is on anyone who thinks they are getting out of this (expletive) world alive! DUH! And double duh!!!”

What makes you feel the most alive?

(Alaska doesn’t skip a beat but jumps on the reply) “Reading!”

What is it that causes you to feel so obviously emotionally and physically homeless?

(This question seems to completely take Alaska off guard. Her intelligent face goes blank for a second and she gets a far off look in her eyes then) “Ghosts of Christmas past.” (I ask, “Can you elaborate?”) She answers rather flippant, “Just damn (expletive) no place that makes me feel at home except BOOKS! And face it, you can’t park your car in a book or take a shower, or use the bathroom!”

Of everything you understand about life what is it that you would like to do the most?

(Alaska looks at me like I have a piece of dog doo on my head – shakes her head and answers) “What I like to do the most is read. There are not enough minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a week, and blah blah blah! Reading is the most profoundly perfect thing I can ever do in my life. And do not ask me why because guess what? I will tell you. Reading is like breathing. I mean it is a necessary thing like breathing, and eating, and all that stuff our physical self must do to survive. I cannot survive – keep my sanity if you will without reading. And do not ask me what it is I find so important about reading because again, I will tell you. Reading is the only thing in life that makes any ‘sense’! Nothing else makes sense to me, and that is a question I cannot answer so do not ask please. There is so much comforting information in the books I read. I read books to find out about every subject I find interesting. I love math, science, books on theoretical anything. History is my absolute passion.”

What is your view and attitude toward intimacy?

(She throws her head back in an amused laugh). “I want to feel close to someone and that is my understanding of intimacy. However, I do not believe from what I have experienced in physical experiences with the opposite sex that intimacy is connecting body parts as such. I am still not sure what intimacy means and therefore I am interested most definitely in trying to figure that one out with ‘practice’”.

What do you find the most difficult part about forgiveness?

(She gives me along deep look). “I cannot fathom the concept of forgiveness no matter how much I try to find the answer in books – period!”

Does Miles have a specific importance to you?

“Miles amuses me for short spurts of time just like everyone else I come in contact.”

Works Cited

Bifulco, Antonia. Wednesday's Child: Research into Women's Experience of Neglect and Abuse in Childhood and Adult Depression. London: Routledge, 1998.
Christ, Grace Hyslop. Healing Children's Grief: Surviving a Parent's Death from Cancer. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
Gorringe, T. J. A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2002.
Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Speak An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © John Green, 2005 All rights reserved.
Johnson, Sheri L., Adele M. Hayes, Tiffany M. Field, Neil Schneiderman, and Philip M. McCabe, eds. Stress, Coping, and Depression. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.
Katchadourian, Herant. Guilt: The Bite of Conscience. Stanford, CA: Stanford General, 2010.
Keen, Ernest. Depression: Self-Consciousness, Pretending, and Guilt. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Klerman, Gerald L., Myrna M. Weissman, Bruce J. Rounsaville, and Eve S. M. S. Chevron. Interpersonal Psychotherapy of Depression. New York: Basic, 1984.
Reik, Theodor. Myth and Guilt: The Crime and Punishment of Mankind. New York: George Braziller, 1957.
Rowe, Dorothy. Depression: The Way out of Your Prison. 3rd ed. Hove, England: Brunner-Routledge, 2003.