Labyrinth In Looking For Alaska

We all are looking for our own Great Perhaps whether it be in people, items, emotions, knowledge, or adventure. Sometimes we realize that with these things we like to claim as our Great Perhaps can let us down, rust away, or leave us for good. In the book Looking for Alaska, written by John Green in 2005, Miles, the main character happens to stumble upon this idea of a Great Perhaps. This book was not a favorite. The idea of it was a good one but it wasn’t presented in the best way.
Looking for Alaska is a book about a regular guy named Miles who wants to find his Great Perhaps. He moves to a boarding school where he meets short yet lovable Colonel, rap god Takumi, innocent Lara, and the amazing Alaska who will steals his heart. This book goes over first love, friendship, depression, and trying to find a way out of the labyrinth. The …show more content…
The labyrinth was one of the major symbols in this book that came up quite a bit. Throughout the book it showed what the different ideas meant to each of our three main characters. "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?" (82). Alaska is trying to to escape the labyrinth. "After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out—but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it" (216). For the Colonel it's not that he chooses the labyrinth, but he's found a personal way to escape it. “... that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth” (218). This was Miles realization after he read Takumi’s letter. So what is the labyrinth? Life? The end of life? Suffering? We don't know, and in the end we have to define it for ourselves in the same way the characters each struggle with their own definition of the