Primary Conflict in Looking For Alaska

In Looking For Alaska, Miles Halter leaves his home in Florida and heads to a boarding school called Culver Creek on a search for The Great Perhaps. One thing Green (the author) introduces to you right at the beginning of the novel is that Miles is OBSESSED with memorizing the last words of people, as well finding The Great Perhaps, whatever that is. After doing further research, I was able to piece together these things. 

At the beginning of the novel, we see Miles as a gawky, anti-social nerd who has little to no idea of who he is, and is looking to fulfill his life. As I said, Miles goes to Culver Creek in pursuit of finding The Great Perhaps. When Miles arrives, he meets his roommate Chip "Colonel" Martin, and his friend Alaska Young. Not long after Miles arrives, Colonel and Alaska give him the loving nickname "Pudge", ironically, because he is described to be very lanky. 

Soon after Pudge makes friends with Colonel and Alaska, he is doing something he has never done before and is completely out of his comfort zone- smoking. This was not the only time in the book that Pudge smoked, in fact, it was only the first of many, MANY, times that he would smoke. Not long after he smoked, he also drank cheap pink wine with Alaska, his first time drinking alcohol, and again, not his last by a long shot. 

Not only that, but before Pudge arrived at Culver Creek, he had barely ever talked to a girl before, let alone getting a girlfriend. A girl named Lara was not only his first girlfriend, but also his first kiss, and also the first person he had gone to third base with. In fact, he was so new to the whole sex thing, that he had to ask Alaska what oral sex actually was. 

Getting to the point, I feel like the primary conflict in LFA was man vs. self. My reasoning for this is that Miles started out as a shy, naive, and anti-social kid, who really had on idea about who he was. Miles decides to go to Culver Creek in pursuit of The Great Perhaps- what could be, and what the future could hold for him. The reason that he decides to go after The Great Perhaps so early in his life is because Francois Rabelais, whose last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps", died basically saying that he was going to find out one of humanities biggest questions- whether there was an afterlife or not. Of course, we can't find out his answer because, you know, he's dead. Miles wanted so seek The Great Perhaps before he died. 

Miles arrives at Culver Creek and becomes a different person. At Culver Creek Miles turns into Pudge. Pudge dates girls, he smokes, he drinks, and is fun-loving and adventurous. Miles/pudge is trying to discover himself. He's trying to figure out who he is within these two conflicting personalities that he has. Ultimately, he is Pudge, but the shy, anti-social Miles still resided within him. 

I think Miles/Pudges' pursuit of The Great Perhaps is summed up by "Thomas Edison's last words...: It's very beautiful over there. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful" (pg 221). 

5/12 entry

I had written this entry on time but it was saved as a draft instead of posted.

I feel like the over all theme/mood throughout the book has been growing up and maturing. The reason I think this is because the main charecter, Pudge, enters the novel as an anti social, naive nerd, who has never really had a proper friend, let alone one that was a girl, especially like the other main charecter, Alaska. When Pudge arrives at his new boarding school, Culver Creek, not only do him and Alaska become really close friends, he also falls in love with her, while she has an older boyfriend, and while she exposes him to all the "fun, teenage" things in life like smoking cigarettes, and drinking cheap pink wine on campus. 

When Alaska ends up getting in a car accident (which might or might not have been suicide) and passes, Pudge is dealing with many new emotions and situations, and to say the least, he's confused. He's very obviously sad, I mean the girl he as in love with basically killed herlself, but he's also mad at Alaska for leaving him. He feels like Alaska came into his life and taught him how to drink and smoke and got him a girlfriend and all these experiences that were once (and still are) completely foreign to him, and then left. She left him on his own in the dark to deal with all of these things alone, when she had gotten him in these situations in the first place. Him made do his best friend, Colonel, were also just plain confused. Colonel was sad because his girlfriend broke up with him. Pudge was sad because his parents were starting to enjoy life with out him. But in their eyes, Alaska didn't have anything to be sad about. She had a boyfriend she was in love with, and friends, and a car and her dad. 

I feel like overall, Pudge dealing with different experiences like drinking and smoking and with situation with Alaska killing herself diminishes all the naïveness Pudge had when he first arrived at Culver Creek. Throughout the book, by introducing him to new things and new situations, Alaska is the colloid for Pudge's growing up and maturity. 

CVS shopping

This eyeshadow, from the brand Physicians Formula, caught my eye. It was obvious they were going for the sex appeal, after all, it was from their "Sexy" line, and was named Sexy Booster Oh So Sexy Eye Shadow Quad. The overall idea marketers were probably going for when putting this on the market was that by wearing their eye shadow, you would become totally sexy. As if the name doesn't make that obvious enough, each of the four eyeshadow colors has a different design on them. The first has a corset, the second has lips, the third a tight dress, and the fourth; shoes. All of these connote sex or parting, which is exactly what the brand is telling you you'll be great at when you get this eye shadow. The marketers of this eye shadow seemed to be trying to appeal to pathos, by trying to make the targeted audience, teens and young adults females, feel not only that they need to have sex appeal, but that this will give it to them. They also employ logical fallacies like false cause, because even if someone uses this eye shadow, that most likely won't transform them into a sex goddess. They also use black and white, by implying that sexy people use this product, and if you don't use it, you aren't sexy. There is no in between. 

Feed over all

Feed was a really interesting novel in that it gave me a different perspective on our society and how the media and television and ads affect not only the society as a whole, but us individually as well.

What really hit home for me though, is when I started to realize what the feed actually represented and I realized how we are actually programmed by media and public figures to think one way, and that we are robbed of a level of our individuality. We allow these influences to set the status quo for us and we are becoming puppeted by the media, all just by living in society.

What frustrated me about reading Feed was that Anderson wrote the novel in such simple language and that so many words were abbreviated. The book became almost frustrating to read because of the level of simplicity and basicity of the wording and language, although I did understand that it was an exaggeration of our society.

2/24 journal entry

I think Shylock is a comedic character because i believe that Shakespeare put him in the play to be the laughing stock of the people who were going to see the play performed. Even though now a days, we see pity and sympathize with Shylock because we feel bad for him, but he was actually meant to be laughed at. I think that's pretty obvious to the fact the he was Jewish, and even though it's harsh, the reality is the people wanted to laugh at the Jews despite their hardships.    

blog due 2/17

I think that Shakespeare gave Shylock the huge heartfelt speech in the Merchant of Venice because the persecution of Jews was so common at that time that it was a huge risk to write that speech in to the play without him getting in trouble. I think he wrote it in the Merchant of Venice specifically because it IS supposed to be light-hearted comedy, and he could get away with writing such a controversial speech against society because it would not be taken as seriously as if it were in a tragedy, or could be taken as a joke. I do believe that Shakespeare wrote it because he truly believed that Jews and Christians were equals, but was not allowed to say it publicly, due to the possibility that he could be punished, or possibly killed. His only other option to express his views on the matter was to sneak it in to this play, and write it off as a joke or no big deal.

Belmont vs. Venice

In the Merchant of Venice, I think it is obvious that Shakespeare separates the cities of Belmont and Venice into different "worlds". I thing that Belmont is the "Green World" and Venice is the "City World". Reasons for this is that like Belmont, the "Green World" is (for lack of a better word) ruled by women. So far, the only characters we have seen in Belmont are two female charecters (Portia and Narissa). In the city world, the "rulers" are the men, and so far we have seen Shylock, Bassanio, and Antonio in Venice, which are all men. Although the women and the men rule their respective areas, in the end, the men rule over "their women". An example of this is that although Narissa is the ruler of the Green World, her deceased father is ulitimetely the one who choses how her husband will be picked, and essentially gives her no choice. Her husband is chosen by a "lottery that [her father] hath devised in... three chests of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who choses [her father's] meaning choses [Narissa]".