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Rodrigo Beltran
Professor Lewis
English 114B
March 19, 2014
Identity
Alices Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, enjoys an unrivalled
amount of popularity among readers across the world. It is the story of a young girl who
falls down into in a fantastical world where madness is the rule and not an exception. It is
a world in which nonsense is ripe: rabbits can talk, cats can easily vanish and drowning in
ones own tears is a possibility. However, at the end of the book, readers, who are starved
for normalcy, are glad to understand that Wonderland is not a reality but just a figment of
Alices imagination running wild during a dream. Lewis Carroll wrote in his diary on 9
February 1856: when we are dreaming, and as often happens, have a dim consciousness
of the fact and try to wake, do we not say things, which in waking life would be insane?
I believe that the story of Alice is a novel about Carroll, himself in which explains to
readers how he had difficulty with his identity.
The definition of insanity, it can be said that it is inability to distinguish which is
waking and which is the sleeping life. We often dream without the least suspicion on
unreality: sleep hath its own world, and it is often as lifelike the other. It is through the
lens of a dream world, a place where anything is possible that Lewis Carroll showcases
Alices conflict, both internal and external. Alices struggle with her identity in
Wonderland parallels the struggle that children face when they reach adolescence. During
their formative years, children not only strive to discern who they actually are, they are
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also mistaken to be someone else by a presumptuous society and often fail to explain
themselves to others. But it is only when they develop the necessary faculties to gauge
the characters of others do adolescents realize there full potential.
The deeper underlying theme that Carroll wanted to incorporates into his story of
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, in my opinion, was not his
psychological or sexual desire for Alice Liddell. What he expressed by writing these
stories is an innermost desire to escape from reality in which a relationship between he
and Liddell was not allowed to a fantasy land where everything is backwards and
nonsensical, and he did exactly that in the guise of childrens literature. He uses notions
of dreams and their significance to real life to symbolize his own dream sequence in his
real life: as an interlude from his normal life as many worthy professions to his newly
discovered hobby as a photographer of little girls.
Carroll first incorporated the notion of dreams and the riddle of life in Alice in
Wonderland, where Alice meets the Cheshire cat for the first time. Upon receiving
Alices comments about the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat gives her a
rather puzzling response, were all mad here. Im mad. Youre mad (66). The
annotation for this quote was interesting to look at, because it explains exactly the dream
sequence that Carroll wanted his readers to understand as a part of his life. The
annotation basically states that insane things can happen in dreams, and they are
perceived as quite real, and therefore, dreams are just as real as the actual reality that one
accepts as the standard reality. Then, what is a dream and what differentiates a dream
from reality? This is what Carroll wished to convey to his readers about himself; the
Wonderland that Alice stumbles into is as real to the author.
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When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she finds herself on an unfamiliar territory
all alone. After drinking the liquid out of a little bottle, she grows increasingly large,
opening out like the largest telescope that ever was(89). Once the female protagonist
grows up, a term that Carroll uses quite literally, she acknowledges something that she
never knew before. She finds out that the rabbit was some how her guide in the new
world that she just fell into. In a way, he is a sort of guide, though he is too worried about
himself to really be guiding anyone. The White Rabbit may be a parallel to Carroll
himself because Carroll may think of himself as a guide to Alice Liddell as he takes her
on special outings and bonds with her. Also, the Rabbit loses his gloves in the first
chapter and it has been noted that Carroll was obsessed with carrying gloves with him
while outdoors.
The most obvious parallel between Carrolls life and his writing of Alice is the
cherished relationship between him and Alice Liddell. She was the inspiration for his
writing and for the sequel to the novel, Through the Looking Glass. A closer analysis of
the character of Alice in the novel is her fluctuating sense of self. This is introduced in
the first chapter when she is deciding whether to drink the bottle, which makes her small,
or eat the cake, which makes her big. Alice, meant to be a girl of about eleven or so, is on
the cusp of adolescence. But what does she want to be? If she shrinks to a child-like size
to get through the doorway into what seems to be the garden of childhood, then she is too
small to reach the key to open that door. She is trapped in a kind of paradox. Throughout
the chapter Alice is "trying on" her adult self. She speaks in a learned manner, even when
she isn't quite sure what she is speaking about, and she often creates in her own mind an
adult personality to check her childish impulses. This split personality can be seen as a
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parallel to Lewis Carroll himself. In his life he had two selves: Charles Dodgson; being a
proper and serious Victorian gentleman and then Lewis Carroll; a character of more
humor and mystifying nature where he related best with children.
Alice's identity crisis in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reoccurs many times
throughout the novel and is one of the main themes that is portrayed. Certain aspects of
religion comes into play throughout this young girl's journey, a journey symbolic of
universal growth and self-discovery. As Alice learns a great deal about herself with each
new encounter in Wonderland, she begins to realize that these experiences weaken and
even distort her previously stable self-image. The Caterpillar is one character that cannot
accept Alice's lack of self-awareness, or at least what he considers self-awareness to
indicate. When he asks Alice Who are you? She is unable to respond with a clear
answer. Alice is struggling to find herself, which is an import part of religious life,
connecting with your inner self. Carroll was influenced heavily by his fathers teachings
of religious faith and Carroll incorporates the importance of it into the novel.
One last link between Carrolls life and the novel is the use of many puzzles,
mathematics, games, and riddles throughout Alices experiences in Wonderland. Like
Carroll, trying to work out mathematical puzzles when he was falling asleep, Alice
attempts to calculate how many miles she has fallen down the rabbits hole into
Wonderland. At the Mad Hatters tea party, there are many riddles, to which there are no
answers, but his unique humor is exposed. While in the Queens garden, Alice plays a
game of croquet with her. Carroll and Alice Liddell would often play croquet together
during the time they spent with each other. The novel is filled with play on words and
different anagrams such as the way Carroll came up with his pen name.
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In conclusion, the novel Alices Adventures in Wonderland written by Lewis
Carroll were greatly influenced by Carrolls life experiences and unique character. His
biggest stimulus in his life was Alice Liddell, the inspiration for the novel and reason it
was recorded, which is accompanied by many other smaller influences such as his family,
personal qualities, and education. In the words of the critic Derek Hudson, the most
remarkable think about Alice is that, though it springs from the very heart of the
Victorian period, it is timeless in its appeal. This is a characteristic that it shares with
other classics-a small band- that have similarly conquered the world












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Works Cited
"Lewis Carroll Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2 June 2010. Web. 31
Mar. 2014.
The Alice Books and the Professional Literature of Psychology and Psychiatry." Were
All Mad Here. I'm Mad. You're Mad. The Alice Books and the Professional
Literature of Psychology and Psychiatry. N.p., 25 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
Williams, Charles. "Resources." - Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site. N.p., 2 Aug. 2012.
Web. 01 Apr. 2014.