Structuralism Theory Analysis

STRUCTURALISM

Looking For Alaska (Novel)

By John Green

Synopsis:

Looking for Alaska opens with a brief perspective on the main character and narrator, Miles Halter’s, social status at his high school in Florida. His parents, unaware of his limited to no friends, throw him a thoroughly awkward and unattended goodbye party before he leaves his home in Florida to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year. When his parents ask him whether he is leaving because of his lack of friends, he denies that question and uses Francois Rabelais’s last words: "I go to seek a Great Perhaps" as his argument for leaving home at such a ripe age in order to seek said perhaps before he dies.

Soon after arriving at Culver Creek, Miles meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin. The Colonel soon provides Miles with his very own nickname: "Pudge," supposedly ironic as Miles is tall and slender. The friendship between the two roommates leads to an introduction to the Colonel’s friend, Alaska Young. Alaska is described as an attractive yet emotionally unstable girl. Pushing aside the moments of her rage, Pudge develops his first crush. The eve of his first day at Culver Creek, Pudge is grabbed out of his bed, duct-taped, and tossed into a nearby lake by the "Weekday Warriors," a group of rich, stuck up, Birmingham-area students of Culver Creek. The "Weekday Warriors" earned their title because during the weekdays they stay at the school, while over the weekends, they get to go back to their "perfect, air-conditioned lives in Birmingham." The tossing of new students into the school lake is a customary prank, the duct-taping, however, is not, leading the Colonel to understand that this was not just an ordinary prank. After taking part in a prank war with the weekday warriors, the Colonel and his friends become closer to one another. This leads to a brief relationship between Pudge and Alaska. Then, that same night, he finds himself woken to Alaska's troubled crying. Both the Colonel and Pudge aid her in her escape of Culver Creek. To where or why is still unknown to them. They then fall asleep.

The first chapter of the "After" shows, The Colonel and Pudge Found out that letting Alaska go resulted in her death. Devastated, the remainder of the book revolves around the Colonel and Pudge try to uncover the hidden mystery behind her disappearence and death as well as Pudge and his gang planning one last prank in Alaska's honor. In the end, they find out that she had gone to see her mother's grave, as Alaska felt responsible for her death and had visited the grave every year on the anniversary of her mother's death. As a result of her heavy intoxication, she then crashed into a patrol vehicle and died. The story ends with Pudge's religion final paper, a final goodbye to Alaska Young.

 

Analysis:

In this literary piece, I can say that it is under the structuralism approach for the story is content based. It also had a signifier and a signified. The signifier here is the female character named Alaska. It is because her name and her personality contradict each other. Though her name seems so cool, in contrast, she is an emotionally unstable girl. On the other hand, the signified here is that Alaska Young acted as an emotionally unstable towards others for she was ashamed of herself because she think that she was the one to blame for the death of her mother. Alaska here symbolizes darkness wherein everybody goes through in life.