“I don’t want a doctor’s death. I want to go by my own freedom.” said Rainer Rilke. This topic of going how one wants to is brought up within the novel Looking for Alaska. In the novel though dying is symbolized by getting out of a labyrinth to some. The idea of the labyrinth starts as a mystery then develops throughout the novel which causes the characters, especially Miles and Alaska, to identify what their labyrinth is and how to get out of it.
The idea of the labyrinth starts as mystery, then first develops into the labyrinth symbolizes life. This is first brought up as Miles and Alaska are talking about last words and the labyrinth is brought up and she says “That’s the mystery. Is the labyrinth life or death? Which was he trying to escape...?”. Then the labyrinth is soon recognized as being a symbol of life as Alaska talks about thinking of the future is a way out of the labyrinth of the
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Miles comes to the this conclusion because he wants the pain of Alaska’s death to go away and fade. He first thinks that she put him in this labyrinth and left his “Perhapsless” ,but he soon realizes this is his own labyrinth. He does not want to escape life or death but want to escapes suffering and endure through it. As the idea of the labyrinth developed, so did the ways of escaping it.
The different characters developed different ways out of their own labyrinth. Alaska’s and Chip’s labyrinth both seemed to be life. However, they both developed different ways out of it. Alaska’s way out was “Straight & Fast”, while Chip chose the labyrinth and accepted to live in it. Miles developed a different view of the labyrinth which was the labyrinth of suffering. His way out was to forgive people because everyone is going to make mistakes, so to be freed of the suffering that is caused he must forgive. This is seen as he is trying to find Takumi after he read Takumi’s