Symbolism In Looking For Alaska

Symbols in Looking for Alaska. In John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska there are many symbols ranging from cigarettes to flowers. The symbols in this novel play a major role in helping to better understand the novel and it’s meaning. The cigarettes, the white flowers, and the smoking hole all represent different things in this novel but all together they help to paint a picture of what this novel is really about. The first symbol in this novel is the cigarettes that the characters seem to always be smoking. At the very beginning of the novel when Miles, later renamed ‘Pudge’, meets his roommate Chip Martin or “The Colonel” began smoking with their other friends Takumi Hikohito and Alaska Young. They smoked together as a sort of social

Pudge is confused as to why she went through all the trouble just to get a flower but Alaska quickly explains that her parents used to put white flowers in her hair when she was younger. The next encounter with the white flowers is when Alaska has white tulips in her dorm room, those flowers are the same flowers Alaska had in her car when she passed away in the car accident. No one could figure out why she had the flowers in her car until the final time the reader hears about the flowers. The final time flowers are mentioned is when Pudge is on the phone with his mother and he sees little doodles of white flowers on the phone booth. This leads him to remember where and why Alaska was going on the night she died. The color white is associated with innocence and positivity, while flowers are typically placed in places as a memorial. The flowers represent innocent positivity Alaska had about her. She seemed to be troubled or dark but in the end the reader is able to see the real Alaska, the childlike and happy