Lit Analysis Spring #1

FICTION ANALYSIS #1

1. In Looking For Alaska, Miles who is going to be starting as a junior in a new private school called Culver Creek, has an obsession with remembering people’s last words before they die. He becomes great friends with his new roommate and finds himself hanging out with whoever his roommate hangs out with. His newly made friend helps me understand how the school works. The school is known for its risqué students, prank pulling teens and its evil swan who swims in the lake. Never smoke near the lake. Miles is introduced to Chip’s (his roommate) group of friends. This is where Miles meets Alaska. Alaska’s power over Miles is strong the minute he lays eyes on her. Imagine finding a person who is everything you’ve ever wanted, but she isn’t interested in you the way you’d like for her to be. That’s Miles relationship with Alaska. He chases her, she giggles and flirts, but she has a boyfriend and he ends up heartbroken. Alaska is complicated and Pudge (Miles nickname) well Pudge is that adorable, naïve nerd who falls in love with a lost soul. Alaska, Pudge, Chip and Takumi all get themselves into huge trouble one night by drinking away all their problems. This same night Alaska calls her boyfriend and when she returns back to Pudge she is distraught and not herself. She asks everyone to help her pack because she needs to go. The group doesn’t know what’s going, and them being so intoxicated didn’t realize how unsafe it was for her to drive in the night drunk. She leaves and the next day Pudge and Chip are informed of the terrible accident. Alaska died in a car crash. Pudge takes it hard and can’t seem to move on. In the end the group decides to pull off one last prank in memory of Alaska. The Alaska Memoir Prank. This book was split up in befores and afters. Before meaning before the accident and after meaning after the accident. Before the accident Pudge knew everyones last words, after he wished he didn’t.

2. The themes in this novel are the concept of death, understanding life and death, more to someone’s life than what we see, loving someone endlessly, friendship and regret.

3. The author’s tone is always thoughtful, unsure and regretful. The tone is thoughtful because Pudge is always over analyzing everything, never wanting to get into too much trouble. The tone is unsure because Pudge never knows what choices to make, a lot of the time the choices he makes are because Chip or Alaska have told him to. The tone is regretful because a lot of the time Pudge regrets the things he does, one of those things being that he helped Alaska leave the night of her crash essentially leading to her death.

4.

·         Foreshadowing: When Alaska and Pudge first meet Alaska makes a comment about Pudge and Chip smoking, she says “You guys smoke to live, I smoke to die.” She makes a statement about not wanting to live and for the first month of Alaska’s death people had assumed she committed suicide because her boyfriend had dumped her, but she had actually just crashed and was on her way to visit her mother’s grave.

·         Foreshadowing: Alaska says “from a hundred miles an hour to asleep in a nanosecond” and this foreshadows the way she dies.

·         Metaphors: The swan and Alaska are similar in the sense that they both have had troubled pasts and have both hurt Pudge.

·         Figurative language: “If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane’”

CHARACTERIZATION

1.       Pudge is an example of direct characterization. The author tells us what we need to know about him as soon as the book starts. His roommate is another example of direct characterization because Pudge has all these thoughts on his roommates appearance and attitude. Alaska is an example of indirect characterization because she is so mysterious and you have to take the time to communicate with her to get a sense of what she is like. Even after the story ends there is still so much unknown about Alaska. The author does this to show how unfair it is for Pudge and the rest of Alaska’s friends to have lost her before they could fully understand and know her.

2. The author’s syntax and diction never change based on a character. He uses long detailed sentences to explain Pudge’s thoughts on everyone and everything.

3. The protagonist is very dynamic. He has an epiphany at least twice in this book and this has created the character to be very round. Pudge may seem average, but you can see him change as the story progresses, he matures and becomes more aware and less naïve.                                                                                            

4. After reading this book I felt like I walked away from meeting Pudge and the rest of his friends. I felt a personal connection with Alaska and when she passed away I almost had myself convinced I was dealing with a real death in my life. The ending of the story ends with a quote that had me feeling almost every emotion possible, the quote is “So I know she forgives me just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison’s last words were: ‘It’s beautiful over there’ I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful”