Who In The World Am I?

An interesting scholarly book. It covers how how Alice and others in Wonderland use language to establish their identities. Alice was thrown into a situation where she was not exactly sure how to peak to the various beings she met in Wonderland. She thus loses confidence in her identity, at least at first, such as when she messes up a poem early on and wonders if she's someone named Mabel.

The use of language at times is almost like a game with unusual rules that she has to figure out. At the same time she's undergoing changes in her physical size. The caterpillar addresses the issue straight on when he simply asks her who she is. He's not referring to just her name, he's referring to who she really is inside in all the things that make up her very being. It's really a spiritual approach to self-examination.

Then there's the Humpty Dumpty discussion in which he says a word means exactly what he says it means, this just serving to complicate communication. I remember from a sociology class in college where the professor was talking about two people talking but they both needed to have the same definitions and meanings of what they were talking about. Otherwise, there would not actually be any real communication.

The book also goes into how Alice grows more confident in herself as she goes on and how she learns to make language work for her.

The whole thing is very interesting and, in my opinion, could be used in a class in high school or higher to help teach students about what effective communication really is.

Main Index

Main Alice in Wonderland index page