Almost Something, Almost Everything

Looking for Alaska-analysis

   "There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow—that, in short, we are all going," (Green, 120). Miles "Pudge" Halter thinks this after Alaska Young tells the story of her mother's death. This quote explains the theme of the story by showing that people encounter many unpredictable things in life, but everyone can count on one thing-- that we will die someday. The author accomplishes this by capturing the reader's attention with the thought that everyone can relate to one thing, death. In the novel "Looking for Alaska," author John Green uses imaginative and remorseful diction to enhance the message that everyone dies someday so we should just live our best life until then.
    Green uses imaginative diction at the beginning of the novel to reveal parts of the events that occur toward the end of the novel. For example, "If people were rain I was drizzle and she was a hurricane," (Green, 88). When Pudge thought this, he was referring to Alaska Young. He was explaining that he thinks of himself as a pointless drizzle compared to Alaska's ferocious hurricane. Hurricanes are memorable, as is Alaska. But most hurricanes just mesh together in terms of people they did not directly affect. But one can assume that Green's real purpose behind this quote was to make readers think. At the time in which one reads this quote, they may believe that both hurricanes and Alaska are memorable, and they are to an extent. The meaning one may also choose to see is that hurricanes are remembered for their destruction and the pain they caused. Just like the pain, Alaska's death caused Pudge.
Green uses remorseful diction to emphasize that we often blame ourselves for awful tragedies in order to provide closure. For example, "If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result in our smallest actions," (Green, 220). Pudge would like to blame himself for Alaska's death. He believes that because he let her drive away that night he is the reason she died. He even suggests he, "loaded the bullets and put the gun in her hand," (Green, 189). Pudge means that when he let Alaska leave campus, despite her drunken state, he practically gave her the weapon. As if he is as responsible for her death as a gun would be if she had died from a gunshot. He let her get in her car and drive away. He created a distraction for her to leave without the principal knowing, and she died because of him. This shows that after someone important in one's life dies and one is unable to find a true explanation for their death, one may result in blaming oneself in an attempt to find closure.