Her Own Worst Enemy: Identity Crisis in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Little girls are often portrayed in novels as dreamers who wish themselves into other identities. Usually they imagine themselves as princesses or heroines, creating elaborate fantasies to escape the reality they live in. In Louis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the small heroine is faced with a nearly opposite situation. She is thrown into a fantasy at the beginning and forced to create an identity in order to cope with her new situation. Because the quest is psychological, Alice can only battle herself in the struggle for her own identity. By portraying Alice in the middle of an identity crisis, Carroll makes her both the protagonist and the antagonist.

This division of self into two is first seen directly after Alice falls down the rabbit hole. She begins to cry and then quickly reprimands herself out loud. Although the text is quick to mention that this is an old habit, she falls into it a second time almost immediately after. Her tones seem surprisingly harsh and, perhaps even more surprisingly, she does not follow her own advice. Here one can see that this stronger, outer-ego is the more dominant and the Alice who fell down the rabbit hole is easily overwhelmed.

Her original sense of self is, in fact, so overwhelmed that she quickly decides she must be someone else. Unlike the fanciful dreams of princesses and heroines, she comes to the realization that she must be Mabel, someone she finds dreadful and ignorant. This false sense of self begins to antagonize her with doubt and hopelessness. Her readiness to accept an identity so beneath the one she arrived in Wonderland with is alarming and a greater indication of her ever weakening original identity.

There is a slight reaction from the protagonist, her original self, in defense against this loss of hope. Dismayed at the prospect of being Mabel, she decides to stay in the rabbit hole until someone else can tell her who she is, on the condition that the identity they give her is acceptable. At this point one can see that Alice has completely given up identity. Neither the original self, the protagonist, nor the false self, the antagonist is present.

This "empty identity" stage lasts throughout many of Alice's encounters. She cannot seem to find herself anywhere and is unable to answer the Caterpillar's questions about her identity, replying, "I - I hardly know, Sir, just at present - at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." (83-4) It is noticeable that she does not use the phrase "I changed" but rather "I must have been changed," which suggests complete loss of control over her own identity.

As the novel progresses Alice doesn't necessarily find herself in her adventures. Instead, she learns to identify with what she is not. She argues with the characters as a way to cope with her surroundings, asserting that she is not mad and not subject to the commands of the king and queen. In fact, she finally finds her release from Wonderland when she exclaims that the things around her are nothing but a pack of cards. This separation between herself and those around her has the effect of jarring her back into reality.

This division between self and those around her doesn't necessarily provide a resolution for Alice's identity crisis, however. After all, at no point in the novel is she confused into thinking that she herself is a playing card. So, at the end of her dream, the reader is left without a clear picture of the identity Alice woke up with. Carroll solves this problem by tacking on a reflection of Alice by her older sister. As Alice runs into the house, her sister muses about Alice's future and sees her growing older into a joyful woman who can share her fanciful stories with her own children. This view of Alice has the effect of weighing her down into an identity that is identifiable for the reader.

Of course, there is the matter that this viewpoint of Alice is both imaginary and outside of Alice's own psyche. There can be no resolution inside of her head because Carroll does not allow it. Perhaps he could not decide who Alice ought to be upon waking, or perhaps the very duality of her identity appealed to him. Her ambiguity is the very thing that sets her apart from the other characters in the novel. Although they are ridiculous and insane, they can be easily outlined because they do not fight their own insanity. By forcing Alice's mind to battle itself, Carroll successfully turns Alice's identity crisis into an intriguing and multi-dimensional tale.