Looking For Alaska Character Analysis Essay

In Looking For Alaska, Miles “Pudge” Halter struggles with coming to terms with, or accepting, a lot of things that happen in the novel. In the ‘After’ part of the novel, Miles matures the most and comes of age by accepting and coping with Alaska’s death, realizing that his relationship with Alaska wasn’t as personal as he thought it was, and by learning how to survive in the labyrinth. One of the first signs that Miles has come of age is that he accepts Alaska’s death. For instance the quote, “But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled too...There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed.” Through
“Because I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know now that she forgives me for being dumb and scared and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her.” At the end of the novel, after Alaska has died, and Miles sits down and writes his way out of the labyrinth, he faces reality and accepts everything that’s going on. In addition to facing reality, he forgives everyone and learns to let go. He discovers that forgiving is the only way to survive in the labyrinth because there were so many people who would have to live with things done and things left undone the day Alaska died. Acknowledging that the only way out of the labyrinth is to forgive, and then facing reality and letting things go, is the last and most definitive sign that Miles has come of age. Throughout Looking For Alaska, Miles has an extreme difference in his level of maturity from the start of the book to the finish. He comes to terms with Alaska’s death, faces reality by realizing they weren’t as close as he thought they were, and finally he lets go of things and forgives