Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alaska, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
How to Live and Die
Mystery and the Unknown
Loyalty and Forgiveness
Memory and Memorial
Identity
Mischief
Summary
Analysis
The school calls an assembly, where the Eagle announces that they are going to build a playground in Alaska’s honor. This does not strike Miles as something Alaska would have particularly liked, and Lara stands up and says that they should honor her with something funnier. The Colonel agrees, and later that day he decides that they need to pull a prank in her honor—The Alaska Young Memorial Prank. He tells them that Alaska had been saving up a prank called “Subverting the Patriarchal Paradigm” for her senior year, and that it is going to be the best prank of all time. Miles hopes that if he memorializes Alaska properly, she might send him a clue explaining what happened.
The Eagle’s memorial to Alaska is a sad one because it has nothing to do with Alaska’s life, and is simply a reminder of her death. The Alaska Young Memorial Prank is a much better way to memorialize Alaska. If it really is the best prank of all time, people will remember Alaska for many years to come, and when they remember her, they’ll remember how she lived—mischievously—rather than just the fact that she died while at school.
Themes
