The death of Alaska’s mother and the circumstances of her death changes Alaska completely, not only just her but the discourse of the life of those close to her. Alaska’s disposition throughout the story can be attributed to this feeling of guilt. This self-blame was exacerbated by the fact that her father seemed to blame her for her mother’s death, and she thought he was justified so, “…so I just sat there on the floor with her until my dad came home an hour later and he’s screaming ‘Why didn’t you call 911?’” (Green 120). Thoyyibah asserts that through this encounter, Alaska was burdened with self-blame, as she watched her mother dying on the floor, yet did not attempt to help her in any way, and instead resorts to screaming and crying (34). Alaska witnessed this death and failed to act at that critical moment, something she eternally felt guilty about throughout the rest of the story. The first death in the story, and arguably one from which much of the action is premised or proceeds, is Alaska’s mother’s death. Death moves the story as much as it moves the readers in the way it propels the characters’ actions. In addition, it shall be argued that the mediating process between how to live and how to die is another process in itself of finding the meaning of life.ĭeath plays an instrumental role in this story, not only as a philosophical musing by the author and the characters but also as a midpoint that effectively separates the story into before and after. Death is used as a sort of midpoint, a signaler towards more urgent thematic preoccupations of this text: how to live and die. While the importance of death in the book is fully appreciated, this essay argues for Green using death as a means rather than an end.
However, in this essay, a different contention is taken. Popular critique of the novel emphasizes the inevitability of death, and how despite the starkness of this reality, people can never really come to terms with death.
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