Tuesday, October 22, 2013

How do I get out of this labyrinth? (Spoilers)

In the book Looking for Alaska, you notice patterns and one of them is Alaska Young constantly asking 'How do I get out of this labyrinth?'. Well, we find ourselves asking what this means. The chapters are labeled 'eighty four days before' and up to 'the day before'. The whole time you are left guessing what is it counting down to? That's one of the ways the book pulls you in. *SPOILER ALERT* But we find out that this actually leads to Alaska getting into a car accident and dying. Back to the big question though. How do you get out of the labyrinth? Well one theory Miles (Pudge) and Chip (the Colonel) have is suicide. They seem to think that Alaska, although highly intoxicated, drove off campus and purposefully killed herself, although they say it was unintentional. They also think that killing herself was the way out. The way out of all her troubles and worries, and furthermore the labyrinth. They try to figure out if this was her way out by asking the officer that saw the crash, "'I's still in mah cruiser and I seen out the corner a' my eye the headlights, and my lights was on and I turned the siren on, but the lights just kept comin' straight at me, son, and I got out quick and run off and she just barreled inta me. I seen plenty, but I ain't never seen that. She didn't tarn. SHe didn't brake, She jest hit it. I wa'n't more then ten feet from the cruiser when she hit it...'" (Green. 162) We have evidence from the police officer that she didn't hesitate or give it a second thought which lead them to think it was suicide but then there was evidence of it not being suicide, "Warning signs of suicide the COlonel and I found on the Web: Previous suicide attempts, Verbally threatening suicide, Giving away prized posseisions,...Writing, talking, reading, and drawing about death and or depression,...Rcent loss of a friend or family member through death or suicide..." and only two came up as postive out of the many, many signs. So there are mixed to reasoning as to if she did or did not commit suicide. But either way they were still devistated about their friend. Also still questioning whether this was her way of getting out of her labyrinth. 

Go to this website for more information on Simón Bolivar: http://www.biography.com/people/simon-bolivar-241196

Go to this website to get more information on what this symbolized and others' perspective on what it means: http://www.theliteraryanalyst.com/code%20/looking-for-alaska-character-analysis-and-the-labyrinth/

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