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20. Fifty-One Days Before
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alaska, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
How to Live and Die
Mystery and the Unknown
Loyalty and Forgiveness
Memory and Memorial
Identity
Mischief
Summary
Analysis
Alaska decides that she and Miles should go “porn hunting” in their fellow students’ rooms. Alaska is particularly skilled at finding people’s secret hiding spots. The two drink all the alcohol that they find. Finally, they find a video called “The Bitches of Madison County” in the room of two boys from Mississippi, and they watch it. Miles has not watched much porn before, and he makes mental notes about what he observes the men doing in the tape, even though Alaska warns him not to try anything he sees. Alaska falls asleep, and Miles thinks about how much he wants to lie down next to her.
Although Miles has started drinking and smoking, his lack of experience with pornography shows how innocent he still is in many ways. Part of Alaska’s appeal is that she exposes Miles to whole realms of activity that were otherwise unknown or unavailable to him. She seems to have the answers to the things he finds mysterious.
Themes
