Looking for Alaska

Two weeks later, the Colonel has formulated the plan and is outlining it to Miles, Takumi, and Lara. The first step is to find a stripper, and the second step is for Miles “to work some magic with his dad” (201).

Every spring, Culver Creek has a Speaker Day, in which members of the junior and senior classes choose two speakers to address the school. This event has a reputation for being boring, but the Colonel and his friends intend to spice things up. The plan hinges on convincing the Eagle to allow “Dr. William Morse”—a “scholar specializing in deviant sexuality in adolescents” and “a friend of Miles’s father”—to act as the junior class’s speaker.

Miles calls his father who, as a former pupil at Culver Creek, has first-hand experience of pranking. He agrees to pretend to be Dr. Morse on the telephone when the Eagle calls (though he cautions Miles never to tell his mother about this), and the call goes successfully. While the Eagle had been concerned about the nature of the subject matter, the “doctor” has managed to convince him that the talk will be interesting and educational.

The man playing the doctor in real life is a male stripper known as Maxx (real name Stan), hired from Bachelorette Parties R Us. The juniors all chip in with the money needed to pay the speaker’s fee, as the school clearly will not pay up after the prank is revealed, and everyone maintains the charade.

Miles has been reading the Culver Creek handbook closely and keeps telling himself that paying a stripper to dance at the school is not technically against the rules. Also, it cannot be proved that he was responsible. All that can be proved is that he brought someone who he thought was a scholar onto campus, only to find out that this visitor was not all that he seemed. Still, he is worried that the prank will not work because Alaska has not planned it.

After being introduced, “Dr. Morse” takes the stage and begins a speech about the tendency of male adolescents to objectify females’ bodies, while female adolescents see their male counterparts as people and recognize both their physical and emotional characteristics. At this moment, Lara shouts out that the speaker is “so hot!” and tells him to shut up and take off his clothes. The speaker says that he assumes she is making a joke based on male-female role reversal, but she says that she is not kidding. He replies that it is important to subvert the patriarchal paradigm, and announces, “This one’s for Alaska Young” (208).

Music then starts pumping from the loudspeakers and the crowd erupts with laughter and applause as Maxx proceeds to strip. The Eagle quickly puts a stop to the spectacle (though even he seems to be suppressing a smile), but the prank has been a success and Miles wants Alaska to get the credit. For this reason, he tells anyone who will listen that she was the mastermind.

Later, the Eagle says that he knows that Miles and his friends planned the prank. He warns them never to do such a thing again but smiles and admits that the “Subverting the Patriarchal Paradigm” script is exactly the sort of thing that Alaska would have written.

As Takumi points out, it is now the first anniversary of Alaska’s death: January 10th. However, when speaking to Miles, he adds that January 9th was the date that Alaska visited the zoo with her mother. When they tell the Colonel this, he formulates the best theory that any of them can come up with: Alaska spoke to Jake on the phone and, when doodling, looked at the flower that she had drawn. This made her think about how her mother used to put white flowers in her hair when she was a child, and she realized that she had forgotten the anniversary of her mother’s death. This is why she drove off in a frantic state; probably to put flowers on her mother’s grave.

Miles then takes up the story, speculating that Alaska had intended to do as the Colonel states but, in her drunkenness and frenzy to get to her destination, had mistakenly thought that she could squeeze past the police car.

Takumi suggests that, by the time Alaska remembered the anniversary late that night, it had already passed and she would have berated herself for failing her mother once again. This may have prompted her to take her own life upon seeing the truck and police car.

The Colonel’s concluding comment is, “That clears things up nicely” (211).

Alaska’s friends have now concluded that some mysteries are not meant to be solved. Miles still does not know Alaska as he would have liked to, but he realizes that he never will. Likewise, they will never know whether Alaska’s death was an accident or suicide, and Miles wonders whether he assisted her in her death wish or ushered her towards a fate she did not want. He is unsure whether to feel angry at himself for letting her go or angry at her for making him part of her suicide.

One effect of the investigation is that it has strengthened the bond between Miles and his friends. Miles also feels that, even though he cannot get to know Alaska any better, she has left him with enough to rediscover the idea of the Great Perhaps.

The Colonel says that there is one more thing that they must do, which is drive through the site where Alaska died. He and Miles ask Lara and Takumi to join them, but they need to study and are “tired of chasing ghosts” (212). The Colonel and Miles thus make the journey alone, and Miles tries to imagine what Alaska must have been thinking. They remain silent until Miles says that, sometimes, he has felt as though he liked it that Alaska was dead. It was not that it felt good but rather that it felt pure. The Colonel agrees with this sentiment, saying that it felt natural—it must be natural. Upon hearing this, Miles is shocked to find that he is not the only one who thinks “such strange and awful things” (213).

As they approach the crash site, Miles thinks that it would not be a bad way to go and that maybe Alaska made her decision at the last second. The next thing he knows, they have driven through the moment of her death.

After the next exit, they get out of the car and hug each other. They are both sobbing and Miles realizes that they must look silly to observers, but he does not care. He is just conscious of the fact that he is alive.