Schirtzinger 2
Taylor Schirtzinger
Mrs. O’Reilly
Honors English 10
7 December 2018
The Benefits in Looking for Alaska
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” That was a quote once said
by Potter Stewart that shows books, like Looking for Alaska, reflect on how our society works
today. Removing it from our schools would take away our ability to learn about how the world is
in real life. In society’s attempt to guard our youth, we limit the comprehension and lessons to be
learned from important literary classics.
In the book there are many important morals and lessons that are taught and if the book is
bad we lose this opportunity. The lessons taught in the book include how to get through life,
being present, not settling for just average and dealing with loss. One of the most important
lessons taught were friendships. “"But we will deal with those bastards, Pudge. I promise you.
They will regret messing with one of my friends." And if the Colonel thought that calling me his
friend would make me stand by him, well, he was right” (Green 44). Another important lesson
that is taught in the book is “She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth." "Um, okay. So what
is it?" "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the
problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out
of the labyrinth of suffering?"” (Green 52). The book may have some bad messages, but that is
just to show how life really is in the real world.
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Another point the book shows is that dealing with controversy helps us grow as people.
We avoid topics like suicide, depression, death and sex with our youth because it is believed to
be too “taboo”. In reality people face these problems all the time and without learning about
them when people are younger, t...
