Characterization in "Looking for Alaska"

John Green is known for his writing.  He has some fantastic one-liners in all the books I've read by him and I constantly find myself highlighting golden lines that I may use in my blog posts.  And today will be no different!   I loved the way John Green organized the book.  The first vignettes were labeled things such as "one-hundred seventeen days before" and "ninety days before" and the later vignettes were labeled "one day after," "seventeen days after" and so on.  Great organizational structure and he also builds suspense because you are not sure what major event he is discussing in his "before" and "after."  

But I'm getting off track.  Today, I want to focus on John Green's amazing ability to create round characters.  To start, we'll look at Dr. Hyde, one of the professors at the boarding school Miles, the main character, attends.  Here is Dr. Hyde's introduction to the class: "'My name,' he said, 'is Dr. Hyde. I have a first name of course.  So far as you are concerned, it is Doctor.  Your parents pay a great deal of money so that you can attend school here, and I expect that you will offer them some return on their investment by reading what I tell you to read when I tell you to read it and consistently attending this class.  And when you are here, you will listen to what I say.'"  A few paragraphs later, he continues, "'And in my classes, I will talk most of the time, and you will listen most of the time.  Because you may be smart, but I've been smarter longer.'"  What an introduction, right?  Would you like a teacher like this?

He may come off as mean and demanding, but I think that is how John Green wanted the character of Dr. Hyde to be.  And I think he pulled it off fabulously.  I can't imagine introducing myself to a class that way, but then again, mean and demanding is not my personality.  I can tell you one thing - if he had been one of my teachers in high school, I would have been scared to death!

Miles was the narrator of the novel, though he was nicknamed and called "Pudge" most of the book, even though he is skinny.  Towards the end of the book, this line was in his inner thoughts (which is one of the methods of characterization we discussed in the 1A trimester), "When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.” I think this quote says a lot about Miles and how he feels throughout the novel.  And I think John Green is trying to make Miles "Pudge" relatable to most teenagers, especially teenage boys.  I think most teens do go through a period where they think they are invincible and that adults don't know anything.  And I think that is just a phase of life.  I was the same way when I was in high school and thought my parents were clueless.  Turns out, I was wrong and they were right.  But you can't tell teenagers that...