Why Is John Green Looking For Alaska

“When adults say, ‘Teenagers think they are invincible’ with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.” John Green, Looking for Alaska. This is when Miles realizes and decides how he can accurately explain his friends and how he learns to understand Alaska’s behavior especially. In a way, he is somehow describing
Alaska, or how he thinks Alaska’s mentality of life was. In the book, Looking for Alaska, written by John Green, we are told a story of a young high school teenager going through life’s two most greatest challenges; love and loss.
This story is narrated by the main character, Miles. Miles has chosen on his own to go to a boarding school, Culver Creek, claiming that he is off to find his “ Great Perhaps”, what he didn’t know is that he will end up falling in love and experiencing a great loss. The author John Green is trying to teach us the importance of love and loss through Miles’ and Alaska’s relationship. Throughout this book, Miles falls in love with Alaska and ends up losing her.
John Green shows us how Miles deals with love and how he copes with loss. He learns to love Alaska. Even though she has already been through her great loss, by losing her mother. “Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” p.54. When Alaska says this we are see her perspective of life. Alaska is a live for the moment type of girl. She doesn’t hesitate to do whatever she wants.
“Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river.'Why do you smoke so damn fast?' I asked. She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”p.44. The way Miles describe Alaska’s smile is the way someone would describe their loved ones smile. In great detail and how it fit perfectly together with their other features. Also while viewing this quote Alaska’s sees life in a very different way than others. Very different from how Miles view life. Miles has hope for what is to come next, he is seeking his meaning of life. While on the other hand Alaska confessed to him that she isn’t afraid of death, as a matter of a fact she smokes with the intention of it killings her. She says it herself, she smokes to die. She seems very strong in many different ways, but when she says things like this she makes us the readers realizes that she may be a little suicidal. To tie this quote back to the first one I used in this paragraph, Alaska says “ we use the future to escape the present”, and now in the second quote she confesses that she smokes quickly to die. She wants the cigarette to eventually kill her. She doesn’t want a future she is looking forward to death, and that is how she currently escape her present.
In the beginning of this book, Miles is trying to convince his parents on letting him go to boarding school, he says “Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were ‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.”p.5. Miles states that he is going to boarding school in search of something so the he will be more complete when he dies. He never really says what the “Great Perhaps” is, but I assume it’s Alaska. Miles has always been the guy that would do anything to fit in. He sometimes usually follows what his friends do even though he thinks otherwise, for example smoking. But before his friends, I believe Miles followed his father. If it wasn’t for his father going to Culver Creek, boarding school, Miles wouldn’t have thought that he would find his ‘Great Perhaps’ there. Miles has learned plenty of things from his friends. And by teaching him and exposing Miles to all of these rebellious things they have changed him. The have taught him to learn how to stand up of himself. The most important lesson they taught him was how to live life to the fullest.
As a result of Alaska’s death, Miles goes back to square one.
He says "You can't just make me different and then leave," I said out loud to her. "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." For she had embodied the Great Perhaps—she had proved to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes, and now she was gone and with her my faith in perhaps.”p.172. Miles had trouble letting her go. He had trouble believing that she is dead. Like I had stated before in this essay, Miles is very hopeful he sees things in a positive nature. When something happened to him he felt like his whole world fall apart. This is the first time we know of that he has dealt with this great of a loss, and I find it very normal to blame the person for leaving you by yourself. Especially in Miles case, he had never gotten closure. He brings up how he doesn’t know her actual last words, and I believe that if he did he would have a better time
coping.
To summarize, this essay we go back to the thematic element of love and loss, and how it has affect the protagonist ,Miles, in Looking for Alaska. Love has affected Miles to a great extent. He has only realize that it has affected him this greatly when Alaska passed. When he lost Alaska he has lost his faith in finding his ‘Great Perhaps’. Falling in love with someone is very difficult especially when the girl you love is in a relationship. Miles is unfortunate that Alaska is in a relationship and that is part of the reason why he has never clearly confessed his love to her. Miles had a pretty rough time as a teenage. Most teens now are much more reckless and carefree. Some teens are confused with their definition of love thinking it means to be obsessed with someone. There is too many things going on in our society that messes up the definition of love to the teens. Like how love is portrayed in movies and on social media. Eventually everyone will end up being in love and going through loss. Everyone will face death and hopefully find their own ‘Great Perhaps’. Unfortunately Miles has been through love and loss very quickly, but it has taught his the importance of life and how easily it can be taken away.