In Looking for Alaska, John Green presents one of the most outstanding coming-of-age novels that explore profound existential questions about life, death, and the meaning of life. Green creates witty, well-drawn characters, full of individual quirks — to whom he affords the privilege of finding closure on their terms instead of resorting to the rather elusive happily ever after. In the book, the theme of death features prominently, and much of the plot is based on its events. Death shapes the lives of various characters, such as the protagonists, Miles, and Alaska. Alaska embodies the very nature through which death can change an individual’s life trajectory, as illustrated by her encounter with her mother’s death, and in more literal terms, by her death.
Popular critique of the novel emphasizes the inevitability of death, and how despite the starkness of this reality, people can never really come to terms with death. However, in this essay, a different contention is taken. While the importance of death in the book is fully appreciated, this essay argues for Green using death as a means rather than an end. Death is used as a sort of midpoint, a signaler towards more urgent thematic preoccupations of this text: how to live and die. In addition, it shall be argued that the mediating process between how to live and how to die is another process in itself of finding the meaning of life.
Death plays an instrumental role in this story, not only as a philosophical musing by the author and the characters but also as a midpoint that effectively separates the story into before and after. Death moves the story as much as it moves the readers in the way it propels the characters’ actions. The first death in the story, and arguably one from which much of the action is premised or proceeds, is Alaska’s mother’s death. Alaska witnessed this death and failed to act at that critical moment, something she eternally felt guilty about throughout the rest of the story. Thoyyibah asserts that through this encounter, Alaska was burdened with self-blame, as she watched her mother dying on the floor, yet did not attempt to help her in any way, and instead resorts to screaming and crying (34). This self-blame was exacerbated by the fact that her father seemed to blame her for her mother’s death, and she thought he was justified so, “…so I just sat there on the floor with her until my dad came home an hour later and he’s screaming ‘Why didn’t you call 911?’” (Green 120). Alaska’s disposition throughout the story can be attributed to this feeling of guilt.
The death of Alaska’s mother and the circumstances of her death changes Alaska completely, not only just her but the discourse of the life of those close to her. Thoyiba cites this event as the significant childhood trauma that shaped Alaska’s characterization as a coping mechanism (1). It influences her worldview, especially on the process of living. Alaska takes on a nihilistic approach to life as evidenced by her interpretation of the metaphor of labyrinth “… It’s not life or death, the labyrinth. /Um, okay. So what is it? /Suffering,” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem…” (Green 52). Her death, whether it was suicide or an accident, resulted from this impulsive worldview.
The death of Alaska was the midpoint of the stories of various characters in the book and both literal and metaphorical senses of the word. In the literal sense, since Alaska’s death reinforces the storyline, the first part of the book traces the events of her life, and the second, the aftermath of her death. In the metaphorical sense, death serves to cause a remarked change in the other characters and fuels the processes of living and finding the meaning of life. In addition, the reader benefits from this event’s lessons on the continuation of life after grief and the hope of overcoming sorrow (Logara 12). One of the most immediate changes in Alaska’s death effects is in leading other characters to introspect about the nature of death. Takumi and Miles have a candid discussion in which they seem to concur on death being natural, despite a certain sense of dread permeating their conversation. Takumi contends, “It’s natural. I mean, it must be natural” (Green 253). To this, Miles expresses to have given it earlier thought, asserting that despite its goriness, death was universal.
Apart from introspection on life and death, another effect that strongly comes out is the unbridled guilt that grasps those near Alaska. For one reason or the other, many characters felt they could have somehow prevented this death. In particular, the feeling of guilt drives Miles to investigate whether the death was a suicide—a process through which Miles ends up discovering a lot about himself. A new part of him filled with love, grief, regret, sadness, and bitterness gets revealed, and by this Miles gains a more profound understanding of himself by experiencing all these thoughts and feelings.
Despite death occupying a central role as a dominant theme in the book, it is inextricably tied to life and hope on the one hand and how to die on the other one. In the frequently asked questions page of his website, Green tackles this concern by properly contextualizing the role of death in this story. Green asserts that characters conventionally die in literature at the beginning or end. However, the book’s major death (that of Alaska) happens in the middle as he intended the readers to meet and get attached to Alaska and then lose her (“Looking For Alaska FAQ — John Green”). This, he says, would enable them to follow Pudge and Colonel make and the rest of the characters make in finding healing. Through journey would allow the readers to fight off nihilism that could accompany such loss and feelings of pointlessness and find hope amidst unresolved and unresolvable grief. Although an author’s interpretation of their text is in no way superior to a reader’s, a fact Green accedes to, these remarks by the author go a long way in supporting this essay’s thesis.
This essay contends that despite the instrumental role death plays in the text, it is merely meditating. The profoundness of death provides appropriate fodder for dialogue about other life’s phenomena. This is precisely how Green uses death in the novel. For instance, readers are opened to a discussion over profound societal concerns through the death of Alaska’s mother and the subsequent procession of Alaska. For example, Dunder subjects the book to postfeminist theory analysis and feminist criticism in her study. She posits that Alaska is a “Manic Pixie Dream Girls” character that perpetuates stereotypical gender roles and, in effect helps to preserve a glorified image of the muse (1). For example, Dunder cites Green’s representation of Alaska’s body through Miles’s distraction by her “sizeable cleavage” (p 53). This, she says, was Green choosing a stereotypical representation of female traits in conformity with the patriarchy and society by depicting Alaska as hot or pretty in the eyes of Miles.
Such analysis as Dunder’s became so rampant, creating a dialogue among the readers and the general public that the novel remains the most challenging novel of 2015 under the young adult category. The main concerns that occasioned a ban on the book include issues on sex and language, especially a description of oral sex performed on Miles (Coles). However, the contention surrounding the scene is not this essay’s preoccupation. Instead, such conversations that arose from the culmination of the death of a character underscore the relevance of the role death played in the text.
In addition, the ephemerality of the role of death in the text is epitomized by the renewed vigor Alaska’s death sparked in the several characters towards defining how to live or die. Alaska’s death stops time, especially for Miles, who splits events into a before and after Alaska’s death timeline. For Miles, reality only exists within two-time intervals, and the death demonstrates his love for Alaska, a girl he could never be with (Hatmoko 2). Alaska’s death Miles and his best friends are on a whole new mission, to investigate what happened if the death was Alaska’s final step towards escaping the labyrinth.
The novel is set in motion by two great philosophical pursuits by Miles and Alaska. The first pursuit is Miles’s search for “the great perhaps,” while the second is Alaska’s conviction in the “labyrinth.” The story is effectively set in motion by Miles’s decision to ask his parents to send him away for his junior year in Florida. He explains his decision as his way of seeking the great perhaps, quoting 15th-century French writer Francois Rabelais. While Miles interprets Rabelais’s quote as living rather than dying, initially, in seeking the great perhaps, Rabelais referred to the mystery surrounding what awaited him after death (Kinser 34). In this phrase, Miles intertwines the concepts of life and death, objectively setting the ground for the novel’s central theme: how to live and how to die. “That’s why I’m going…So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps,” Miles said to his parents (Green 5). And with those words, the story and the lives of many of the characters were set into motion.
Despite this fervent display of an adventurous spirit, Miles is, to a large extent, a studious, rule-following kid. Probably, Miles frequently fell victim to bullying back in Florida, and as a result, he remained laid back, not wanting to ruffle any feathers in school. Only two kids turned up at his sendoff party, and they were not attached to him. After a suggestion from his father about Culver Creek Academy in Alabama, Miles sees this as an opportunity to find who he is, reinvent himself, and create an alternative reality. Later, Miles achieves this by coming out of the quiet kid obsessed with other people’s final words cocoon and going on to become a bold prankster who asserts his existence.
At Culver Creek, Miles becomes submerged in the process of finding himself. Joining his newfound friends, the Colonel, Alaska, and Takumi, he takes up smoking and ebulliently participates in the grand schemes of pranking their classmates. Although Miles still does not play the leading role in all of these, he becomes accommodative to new possibilities. Mile character shapes up more in this process, as occasioned with indulgences in crazy drinking on the weekends with friends, spending thanksgiving over at Alaska’s, and wild days roaming empty schools. To Miles, this might have been the “Great Perhaps” he had been seeking in the first place. In his religion class, in perhaps a more critical discourse, Miles delves deeper into exploring the meaning of Rabelais’s words. In a midterm essay, the protagonist explores the religious take on the existential concern of dying. “I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear to,” Miles says (Green 65). Through the process of finding himself, Miles arises full consciousness about his existence and that of the reality surrounding him.
Still, Alaska is struggling with charting her path and finding the meaning of existence. Simon Bolivar’s question, “how will I ever get out of this labyrinth is one of her greatest preoccupations. Alaska equates labyrinths to suffering (Green 54). Later, we are given a glimpse into her labyrinth—its root cause being her witnessing her mother’s death and the accompanying guilt for her inaction, which might as well have driven her to get out of her labyrinth. If this is so, then the net effects of her actions pose far-reaching consequences for Miles. While death offers Alaska an escape from her labyrinth, it creates a new labyrinth for Miles (Rybakova 117). Miles gets submerged in a maze of grief, for which he strives to get answers while at a happenstance avoiding confronting. Although Miles harbors intense love for Alaska, ultimately, he realizes that she gave up, whether or not her death was intentional. The overwhelming guilt Alaska harbored sentenced her to a sad life. In seeking forgiveness—for Alaska, and more importantly for himself, Miles chooses to soldier on in his pursuit of his great perhaps. From Alaska’s mistakes, Miles realizes that the uncertainty of life makes it worth living in the first place. Alaska’s death renders a certain sense of urgency to such existential questions, especially to Miles, who stops viewing them as theoretical. Miles finally concedes to the limitless possibilities of the great perhaps, because, in some way, he believes in an afterlife. This is particularly imperative as these musings enable characters to explore the theme of how to die. Miles makes peace with mortality, a fact he claims teenagers take for granted.
In exploring how to live, there is an insistence on the value of living in the present, enjoying every minute of existence rather than anticipating future happiness. While admonishing Miles for not paying attention in class, Dr. Hyde succinctly delivers this lesson by reminding him of the Buddhist belief in being present at every moment of a person’s existence (Green 50). These words resonate with Miles, who largely detaches himself from the present instead of existing in a made-up world. Miles is constantly preoccupied with finding the great perhaps this pursuit robs him of an appreciation of the present, and a realization that his much sought great perhaps permeates the existence around him. Miles’s labyrinth is in his blatant refusal of engaging with the present, despite nudging to do so from Alaska and subtle recommendations such as Dr. Hyde’s. It takes the death of Alaska for Miles to confront the present fully, a fate that leads him to a fuller appreciation of existence and an acceptance of fate.
Similarly, the Colonel seems to be a victim of this malady too. Being one of the poorer students at Culver Creek, Colonel harbors strong ambitions too much up the wealth of the Weekday Warriors someday. Colonel opines that the best day of his life was yet to happen, and this day would be one when he buys his mother a huge fucking house (Green 116). Packard observes this to be a complex arising from the gaping income disparities among students in Culver Creek and cites it as the reason for Colonel’s aggressive behavior (45). For example, Colonel constantly fights with the wealthier students as a form of release for his pent-up resentment and anger. Although Colonel acts out of spite at times, his participation in pranks on the Weekday Warriors and his stellar academic performance can be attributed to endemic reasons beyond personal pride. Through Colonel’s exuberance and his focus on prospects, viewed along with Alaska’s sudden death, the readers get a sense of the importance of the “now.” Green successfully exemplifies the fickleness of life and that the future is never guaranteed.
The mystery surrounding Alaska’s death might be the most powerful lesson on how to live and die in the novel. Whether her death was a suicide or an accident should not entirely be the object of the matter as many points support either side. To properly contextualize the importance of this uncertainty, the author’s comments on the same can be instrumental. Asked to give a theory on whether the death was intentional or not, Green asserts that he left the matter ambiguous as it was for a purpose, “I made this conscious decision not to be in that car with her, and to force all of us—including me—to try to find a way to live hopefully even in the face of eternally unanswerable questions” (“Looking For Alaska FAQ — John Green”).
However, the heated debate that arose concerning this death among book circles and the general public was the depiction of suicide in young adults. Logara argues that Alaska’s death does not in any way encourage teenagers to suicide; on the contrary, it serves to open up a discussion on its prevalence in society (9). This discussion is critical as the death exposed the multiple alternatives to this course of action, not only from the consequences but even from the buildup events leading to it. Miles, a teenager himself, learns vital lessons about appreciating life after Alaska’s death, lessons he would not have learned otherwise. In essence, death solidified a life-embracing perspective rather than a nihilistic perspective of life.
That Green’s Looking for Alaska is a contemporary piece of literary genius is not under any doubt. Green fuses profound societal preoccupations of life and death—and still achieves a balance where life happens or has to happen. Through the existential struggles of various characters, their pursuit of life and meaning, and the preceding events from their teenage ebullience, many lessons are abounding for society. Green intended to prompt his readers into considering living positively even in the face of eternally unanswerable questions.
Works Cited
“Looking for Alaska FAQ — John Green”. John Green Books, 2021, Web.
Coles, Amy. “John Green Fights Back Against Banning of Looking for Alaska”. The Guardian, 2016, Web.
Dunder, Emma. “The Manic Pixie Dream Girls in John Green’s Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns.” (2017).
Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Penguin, 2015.
Hatmoko, Alinda Diah Yualita, and Titis Setyabudi. Character Changing of Miles Halter on Looking for Alaska Novel by John Green (2005): A Behaviorism Study. Diss. Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, 2019.
Kinser, Samuel. Rabelais’s Carnival. University of California Press, 2020.
Logara, Elin. “Hopeful or harmful literature? Teenage suicide as described in the YA novels Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, and Looking for Alaska, by John Green.” (2019).
Packard, Abigail. “Looking for Alaska.” Children’s Book and Media Review 39.10 (2018): 45.
Rybakova, Katie. “Dealing with Death through Dialogue: Existentialism and Looking for Alaska.” When Loss Gets Personal: Discussing Death through Literature in the Secondary ELA Classroom (2018): 117.
Thoyyibah, Wasilatut. Alaska Young Copes with Grief in John Green’s Looking for Alaska. Diss. UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, 2018.