Identity Essay 4y2xe

Casillas 1 Kenny Casillas Professor Lewis English 114-B 8 May 2014 Dream Vs. Reality Many characters in stories end up losing there identity to identify there real one. They go through an identity crisis and usually end up figuring why they went through it until the end of the story. The young girl Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, ends up losing her identity because of the time spent in Wonderland; it makes her question everything, from how she got there, to the characters, to even herself. At the end of her journey she ends up waking up from this dream that she was in but was it just a dream? Or was it reality? The way identity plays out in Alice in Wonderland can be difficult to understand, these weird encounters with characters and places she goes throughout the story gives the impression that maybe she never finds out who her real identity is. Alice does not really know how she really is as a person. In Wonderland she discover the way she acts around other bizarre people or creatures. Wonderland was a big issue for Alice, not only personal but also her image. She did not know if she was just this weird girl or she actually knew what she was going through and controlling herself. As the story develops she encounters a Caterpillar that smokes Hookah and asks her a very peculiar question: “ Who are you? said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I-I hardly know, Sir, just at

Casillas 2 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.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I ca’n’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” (pg. 55) Alice at this point does not know her own Identity; she realizes that after she falls into Wonderland she no longer knows whom she really is, this is what the scene means. She knows that she is not some normal girl anymore. What is normal? A normal life for a young girl consists of her playing with her dolls in the evenings, playing outside with her friends, and going to school like any other normal kid would do. Alice lives the complete opposite of a normal life for a girl her age. No normal girl goes to a mysterious world by following a rabbit down his rabbit hole. She does not know who she is because of this adventure she goes through. If some other little girl went though the same thing as Alice they would have gone crazy a long time ago. Her whole identity crisis revolves around her adventure in Wonderland. Is Alice even thinking herself as a young girl anymore? “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.”(55) You can not picture Alice as this little girl anymore after what she has been going through. In the book Human Communication In Society it explains about what is age identity and how you feel about your age: Age identity is a combination of how you feel about your age as well what others understand that age to mean. How old is “old”? How young is “young”? Have you noticed how your own notions of age have changed

Casillas 3 over the years? When you were in first grade, did high school students seem old to you? (73) This quote relates to Alice’s situation because she feels like she is so lost after coming to Wonderland that she does not even know who she is, how old she is suppose to feel, or how many changes she has to feel to be herself again. Not only did Wonderland change her mentally but it also changed her physically through out the story. In chapter five “Advice from a Caterpillar she explains how some of her adventures through wonderland are already affecting her. “I’m afraid I can’n’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied politely, “for I can’n’t understand it myself, to being with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing”. (55) She can not understand herself because she does not understand how she changes sizes just because of something she eats in this weird this weird adventure land she is in. Chapter One “Down The Rabbit hole”is where she encounters these foods and drinks that make her change sizes: However, this bottle was not marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to taste it, and, finding it very nice, she very soon finished it off. “What a curious feeling!” said Alice. “I must be shutting up like a telescope!” And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. This quote explains clearly how one weird event after another starts changing Alice’s own identity.

Casillas 4 Throughout the story Alice questions herself consistently about who she really is. These questions started coming up as soon as she realized what she has been encountering in Wonderland. In Chapter Two “The Pool of Tears” Alice starts realizing that she is something different and if she had the chance to change to a different kid would she do it? “But if I’m not the same, the next question is “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle! And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.”(pg.25). She felt like everything she use to think was her life and her identity was a complete lie. It is like everything that she was going through was reality, or was it only a dream? The constant questioning made her seem uncertain of what her identity really was. When someone questions a belief or an event you know they have an uncertainty with a situation they are not familiar with. Just like Alice seems to be not familiar with herself anymore like she did in the morning previous to her discovery of Wonderland. During the story Alice makes it seem like Wonderland is a real place. There is this scene in chapter twelve were Alice’s sister wakes her up and makes her realize maybe it was just a dream: “Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister. “ Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’ “Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream! Said Alice. And she told her sister, as well she could them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have been reading about; and, when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said “it was a curious dream, dear, certainly; but now run in to your tea: it’s getting late. “ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

Casillas 5 Was it just a dream? Maybe at the end of it all maybe she still has her identity with her, she just snaps out of it, but how can this be? There is this article were it explains how dreams can effect you psychological and in many ways: The processes by which dreaming aids in the ongoing integration of affects into the mind are approached here from complementary psychoanalytic and nonpsychoanalytic perspectives. One relevant notion is that the dream provides a psychological space wherein overwhelming, contradictory, or highly complex affects that under waking conditions are subject to dissociation, splitting, or disavowal may be brought together for observation by the dreaming ego. This process serves the need for psychological balance and equilibrium. A brief discussion of how the mind processes information during dreaming is followed by a consideration of four component aspects of the integrative process: the nature and use of the dream-space, the oscillating “me / not me” quality of the dream, the apparent reality of the dream, and the use of nonpathological projective identification in dreaming. This ties into what exactly could have happened to Alice. The dream could have been so deep to her that it seemed so real. It was a dream so real that it was changing her own beliefs of her own Identity in the dream. Being in this Wonderland maybe did not only make her change the way she thought of herself but maybe also change the way she viewed her real life and the real meaning of identity.

Casillas 6 What is identity? Many people do not realize how many events in a person’s lifetime can impact a person’s identity. Encounters with new people, how you behave socially, and how you react to certain situation, that all builds that unique identity that each human being has. In Human Communication in Society it describes a little about what identity really is: Identity is tied closely to identification; it refers to who you are and the specific characteristics that make you different from other individuals. Identity includes not only who you are but also the social categories you identify yourself with and the categories that others Identify with you. Society creates a social category such as middle aged or college student, but they only become part of one’s identity when one identifies with them or others identify you in these categories. Identity plays out a key role in Alice’s adventure through Wonderland but also made her realize that she still does not know who she really is. This excerpt really describes in depth what identity really means. Alice lost her identity throughout her journey and all the events she had to go through. Maybe losing her identity in this dream was not such a bad thing. Out of all the children in the world she had to be the one to witness going through this mysterious place. She loses her identity because of Wonderland but maybe it was for a purpose so she can grow and refigure her Identity. Her dream was actually her own little reality.

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Work Cited Alberts, Jess K, Thomas K. Nakayama, and Judith N. Martin. Human Communication in Society. New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. Print. Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: Fine, 2004. Print Robbins, M. "Primary mental expression: Freud, Klein, and beyond." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 56.1 (2008): 177-202. Web.

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