You
will receive consequences! The book Looking For Alaska by John Green
is about a boy named Miles who is pulled into the madness of
Culver Creek.
Throughout the book many social issues are seen as well as
the results from them.
Based on evidence Looking For Alaska should not be banned
from schools because it
teaches teens the consequences of peer pressure social
issues.
The
book informs us how social issues can kill you. For example on page 139
it is stated that Alaska’s time on earth is terminated when
she dies from drunk
driving, “Last night, Alaska Young was in a terrible
accident, and she was killed.
Alaska has passed away.” What happened to Alaska
demonstrates what may happen
when you drink irresponsibly. Death was a consequence of drinking
and driving.
Also there is a scene in the book where Alaska says to Miles
“Y’all smoke to enjoy it, I
smoke to die.” This suggests that some social issues can
kill you, therefore death
being a consequence. This evidence illustrates that Looking
For Alaska shows teens
the terrible ending of social issues.
Throughout
the book it is easy to identify where something is taken too far
and becomes a social issue. An example of this is when Miles
(Pudge) almost dies
from being “pranked”. When he is duck taped and pushed into
a lake. It is written on
page 25 “they picked me up and hurled me into the water, I twisted
and turned as
best I could so the warm night air hit my nose first, and I
breathed. I wasn’t dead and
wasn’t going to die.” This exemplifies in the book what happens
when individuals
partake in bullying, another social issue. It just so
happened that in this case the
social issue can fall under bullying which is arguably the
most common social issue.
Pranking to this extent and hazing can be considered to be
bullying. Another
example on how social issues are taken too far in this book
is Alaska’s constant
stress throughout the book. There have been multiple
occasions where Alaska cries
to Pudge due to stress on how much she has messed up in her
life. There seems to
be one thing to blame for Alaska’s continuous despair and
that’s from her drinking
and taking drugs. All this evidence reveals that this book
does show the negative
aspects of these social issues.
It
must be said that Looking for Alaska can be of some concern to parents.
According to the article “Panel rejects parent request to
ban ‘Looking for Alaska’ ” a
parent requested to ban Looking for Alaska due to sexual
contact. It would seem
that when Alaska’s old roommate Myra got expelled from
Culver Creek for having
sex on campus this was part of this parents concern and
possibly the reason for
their request. When Myra got expelled it made it clear to
the reader that you
shouldn’t have sex in school. This book hasn’t glamorized
any of the social issues it
dealt with therefore it shouldn’t be banned. Through out
this book there have been
negative consequential outcomes.
Looking for Alaska must remain in
schools! The book makes teens aware of
social issues around us. By keeping this book in schools it
not only benefits the
reader but may also benefit those they share their findings
with. The sad outcomes
shown in Looking for Alaska teaches kids to not engage in
social issues. In
conclusion this book should not be banned because it deals
with some real life
teenage situations and the truth about some very unfortunate
consequences.
