School of Humanities and Media Studies

English Department

Bachelor Degree Thesis in Literature, 15 hp

Course code: EN2028

Supervisor: Dr. David Gray

The Tripartite role

of the Psyche in
Alice in
Wonderland

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Dalarna University
English Department
Degree Thesis
Spring 2016
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1

The Creatures of Wonderland, Tenniel’s Illustrations and the Structural

Mode of the Psyche.................................................................................................... 8

The Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar as the Super ego ........................................... 13

The Queen as the Id ................................................................................................. 20

The Ego Ideal: Alice ................................................................................................ 23

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 27

References ................................................................................................................ 28
 1

Introduction

While talking animals are not a new phenomenon in stories, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in

Wonderland (1865) with its anthropomorphic creatures is said to have inaugurated a new

era in children’s books by breaking free from didacticism. (Elick 24) Literary scholar,

Robert M. Polhemus praised Carroll highly when he said “out of the rabbit-hole and

looking glass world come not only such major figures as Joyce, Waugh, Nabokov,

Beckett, and Borges but also much of the character and mood of the twentieth century

humor and life”. (Polhemus 245) The continued relevance of Alice in Wonderland and its

sequel Through the Looking Glass (1871) in popular culture today, suggests that

Polhemus’ adulatory praise for Carroll was well deserved. Both these novels have been

adapted for various modes of entertainment, like ballet, opera, film and television.

Consequently, Morton Cohen, one of Carroll’s biographers, calls this franchise “The

Alice industry” and he asserts that it continues to generate countless Alice inspired

paraphernalia-collectibles ranging from tee-shirts, figurines, post-cards and chess sets.

(Sigler xiii)

It is now 150 years since Carroll published his book and popular culture today is still

just as fond of Alice in Wonderland, as it was when he first released copies of his book.

For instance, the famous director, Tim Burton has yet another remake of the Alice in

Wonderland series in his new movie Alice Through the Looking Glass. (27’th May, 2016)

The continued relevance of this phenomenal work can be attributed to several things and

literary scholars have attributed this popularity to many factors. Nevertheless, it is the

dream narrative of the book that continues to influence scholars and readers alike and as
 2

Carolyn Sigler asserts, it is the dream structure and playful use of symbolic nonsense that

generates multiple and contradictory readings. More importantly, like dreams

themselves, the books signify any number of things to the reader (Sigler xiv) and this

universal nature of the book appeals to the child in the adult and the adult in the child.

Consequently, Will Brooker asserts that every generation collectively interprets this

novel in a way that is reflective of their contemporary culture. Brooker states that the

1930s subjected the text to a psychoanalytic reading, the 1960s did a psychedelic reading

and the 1990s saw increased attention to aspects of pedophilia in the text. (Silverman)

Like his books, Carroll himself remains an important figure in literary history. His

real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and he was the eldest boy in a family of 11

children. He was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on January 27, 1832. He was

a child prodigy as an inventor and he was adept at entertaining his young siblings. He

went on to become an accomplished mathematician and a photographer, and he loved

puzzles and logic games. The character of the White Knight in Through the Looking

Glass and What Alice found there is said to be a self-depiction as “he like the white

knight, was an inventor –of gadgets, of puzzles, riddles, games, and conundrums, as well

as many mnemonic devices” (Phillips) He was also interested in the dynamics of time

and lectured on the subject “Where does the day begin” several times. Accordingly, his

interest in time is reflected in the Mad Hatter’s tea party, where it is always tea-time.

That said, it is true that Carroll’s intense preoccupation with the dream state dominate

the existing themes in Alice in Wonderland and the following diary entry from his

journals suggests that he had similar questions about the dream state as his child

protagonist:
 3

Question: when we are dreaming and, as often happens, have a dim consciousness
of the fact and try to wake, do we not say and do things which in waking life
would be insane? May we not then sometimes define insanity as an inability to
distinguish which is the waking and which the sleeping life? We often dream
without the least suspicion of unreality: ‘‘sleep hast its own world,’’ and it is
often as lifelike as the other. (Carroll)

The ambiguity between the dream state and reality cannot be ignored in his Alice

books. For instance, in Alice in Wonderland, when Alice first meets the White Rabbit, we

are told that Alice is already half asleep. However, as the dream state merges with reality

here, there is no clear distinction. Similarly, when Alice wakes up from her dream, her

sister is gently brushing away some “dead leaves” from her face and these are the very

dead leaves that prompts Alice into thinking that the Queen’s guards were attacking her.

(Schatz 106)

Given the centrality of the dream narrative in Alice in Wonderland, it was somewhat

inevitable that it would greatly pique the attentions of psychoanalysts. Like Sigmund

Freud, many of his followers saw the inherent relationship between psychoanalysis and

dreams and this theoretical framework is reflected in the works of early critiques of Alice

in Wonderland. Some of the pioneer members who psychoanalyzed Alice are A.M.E

Goldschmidt, Paul Schilder, John Skinner, Martin Grotjahn, Phyllis Greenacre, Geza

Roheim, Kenneth Burke and William Empson. (Phillips)

While the bulk of the aforementioned critics subject Alice in Wonderland to a severe

Freudian reading, later critics abstain from doing so. For instance, A.M.E Goldschmidt,

who belonged to the former category of Freudian believers, asserts that the text is rife

with sexual symbolism,

 4

in his essay “Alice in Wonderland Psychoanalysed”. He states that:

The symbolism begins almost at once. Alice runs down the rabbit-hole after the
White Rabbit and suddenly finds herself falling down “what seemed to be a very
deep well”. Here we have what is perhaps the best-known symbol of coitus. Next,
the dreamer (who identifies himself with Alice throughout) is seen pursuing the
White Rabbit down a series of passages, and it is worth noting that Stekel
interprets the pursuit in dreams of something we are unable to catch as
representing an attempt to make up for a disparity in age. Now the dreamer enters
a “long low hall”, round which are a number of doors, all locked” (Phillips 330)

Here, it would seem as though the sexual symbolism is rather forced and

Goldschmidt himself admits that “no critic upon whom the Freudian theory has made

even the slightest impression can refrain from recognizing sexual symbolism in any

medium, when it is clearly manifested.” (Phillips 329) Lisa Ede addresses this issue in the

book Explorations in the Field of Nonsense and asserts that this is a “basic difficulty”

when psychoanalysis is applied rigidly to a text like Alice in Wonderland, when nonsense

is the basis of the narration. (Tigges 55) She goes on to say that:

Psychological critics have achieved some interesting insights concerning

nonsense, but too often they base assertions about a work on the interpretations of
Lear’s and Carroll’s lives, only to turn around and then make judgements about
Lear’s and Carrol’s lives by interpreting their work. The only constant frame of
reference is clearly the critics’ own interpretations, not the works themselves.
Such analysis, which is, as Rackin describes, “simple (in its practice and results)
and attractive, and within its own self-defined system rather foolproof- like plane
geometry, often fails to do justice to the complexity of either the work or the man.
(Tigges 56)

We see a similar pattern in “Symbolization of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland”,

by Martin Grotjahn. He seems to follow Goldschmidt’s line of thought in his psycho-

sexual analysis and compares Alice to a phallic symbol:

 5

At the opening of ch.2 is a picture of Alice which is almost too obvious for words,
and which could be easily misinterpreted as obscene: Alice is elongated to the
extreme, has a small head, a long neck, a trunk without shoulders or hips, which is
continued without curves into the pillar-like legs. The arms are small and practically
non-existent, the dress emphasizes the phallic appearance of the girl, asking almost
teasingly: Who in the world am I? The illustrating artist, John Tenniel, betrays here
his secret, intuitive understanding of Carroll’s symbolism and gives it perfectly visual
expression. (Phillips 365)

However, this seems to be an overly simplified Freudian analysis of the text. By

reducing Alice to a mere phallic symbol, Grotjahn takes away the subtler nuances of the

illustration. Nonetheless, he concludes his essay by emphasizing that a book like Alice in

Wonderland can “lead to an artistic and testing regression”, and in order to fully

experience the merits of such works it is important to keep the “creative unconscious”

alive, free and open. (Phillips 368)

Modern day critics, in contrast, have tended to move away from narrow Freudian

readings of the text, and the “creative unconscious” as Grotjahn puts it is exercised more

actively. For instance, in her essay, “Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender and

Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll's Alice Texts” Carina Garland argues that Carroll uses food

and drinks to manipulate his young protagonist. As she says: “Food is eaten constantly

and results in bodily changes but is consumed without any explicit hunger (or desire)

being expressed. Alice is continually following (the male author’s) instruction”. (Garland

32)

Apart from analyzing the overwhelming presence of food in the text, Freudian

scholars have focused on the gothic elements within the text as well. For instance, Chloé

Germaine Buckley, in her essay “Psychoanalysis, “Gothic” Children’s Literature, and the
 6

Canonization of Coraline” (2015), compares Alice to the eponymous heroine of the book

Coraline (2002) by Neil Gaiman and comes to the conclusion that Coraline is a playful

reworking of Alice in Wonderland in opposition to Freud’s theories. (Buckley 74) Her

primary contention in making this argument is that “Critics want Alice to be gothic;

Coraline obliges.” (Buckley 68) Having said this, she does not abstain from using Alice in

Wonderland as a key to understanding the gothic elements in Coraline. Consequently, her

essay demonstrates that Alice in Wonderland can be subjected to a Freudian study which

would enable us to discover the uncanny in the text.

Like Buckley’s analysis, several studies have been devoted to the varied

representations of Alice in Wonderland. As mentioned before, because of its popularity,

Alice in Wonderland has been reproduced in several ways. Some of the prominent

remakes of this text are Tim Burton’s movie Alice in Wonderland and American McGee’s

Alice, the video game adaption of the novel. This game has macabre overtones and the

storyline here is that Alice’s parents are killed because her pet cat Dinah, knocks over a

lamp and the house catches fire. Alice escapes by jumping out of a window and this is the

transformative stage in the game where she is now a teenager in a lunatic asylum. (Nicols

166) Another interesting retelling is seen in the graphic novel Lost Girls (2012) by Alan

Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Here, it is seen that Alice is “a worldly wise devotee of

debauchery who utilizes her trauma as a looking glass, reflecting upon the nature of

childhood and fantasy and thus, herself.” (Hollingsworth 176)

According to Helen Pilinovsky, most of the Alice retellings follow three primary

paths- “those that continue Alice’s original adventures in their Victorian setting, those

that update her still childish situation into more contemporary circumstances and those
 7

that diverge from their surroundings to focus on her maturation.” (Hollingsworth 176) It

will be observed that both the criticism and the readaptations of Alice in Wonderland

focus their attentions on the female protagonist. However, the world of Wonderland and

its many creatures are an inherent part of Alice’s personality. Little attention has been

given to the psychological implications of the representations of the Wonderland

creatures.

This dissertation subscribes to the predominant notion that Alice unconsciously

devised Wonderland and its creatures to solve her identity crisis. Going by this, the thesis

attempts to analyze the representations of important characters like the Cheshire Cat, the

Caterpillar, the Queen and Alice in her dream self. It will be seen that Carroll cleverly

characterized the creatures of Wonderland to symbolize the parts of the structural mode

of the psyche (in his own terms as Freud was yet to design the structural mode of the

psyche) and this representation is further enriched by Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations. By

examining these characters from a psychoanalytical perspective and paying close

attention to Tenniel’s illustrations, the thesis argues that the creatures in her dream can be

classified as the Id, ego or the superego.

This thesis focuses on four main characters: Alice, The Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire

Cat, and the Caterpillar specifically as they influence Alice’s psyche more strongly than

the other creatures in Wonderland. In accordance to this, the thesis asserts that the Queen

is the supreme ruler in Wonderland and hence, can be compared to the Id. The Cheshire

Cat and the Caterpillar constantly remind Alice of her true self as the Cheshire Cat

provides her with a frame of reference to the real world, where she has a pet cat Dinah

and thus, creates a distinction between her unconscious mind and the reality. As for the
 8

caterpillar, his hookah gives him an oriental motif, thus suggesting that he did not belong

to Wonderland. This is true of Alice as well. Symbolically, both the caterpillar and the

Cheshire Cat constantly remind Alice that she is the orchestrator of the dream and not the

dream itself. The Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar then, represent the superego. Finally,

Alice in her dream self, acts as the ego by making sense of a nonsensical world.

The Creatures of Wonderland, Tenniel’s Illustrations and the Structural

Mode of the Psyche

‘The interpretation of dreams is in fact the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious;
it is the securest foundation of psychoanalysis...’ (Freud)

This chapter will examine some of Tenniel’s illustrations in Alice in Wonderland,

paying close attention to the psychoanalytical implications of the sketches. In lieu of this,

it will also discuss the theoretical framework of Sigmund Freud’s structural mode of the

psyche.

The Interpretation of Dreams was published by Freud in 1899. Here, he argues that

dreams are essentially a product of the battles between the conscious and the unconscious

mind. (Rennison 44) He goes on to say that in dreams, the unconscious evades censorship

and manifests its desires and wishes in the dream state. (Rennison 44) As mentioned in

the previous chapter, it is clear that the many Freudian critics who analyzed Alice in

Wonderland interpret Wonderland as a representation of her unconscious mind.

While the theoretical structure of Interpretation of Dreams will give us an

understanding of her unconscious, it will be more prudent to use Freud’s structural model
 9

of the psyche to understand the various functions of the creatures in Wonderland. Freud

formulated the general theory of the structure of the mind in the early 1920s and laid out

the foundations for the tripartite division into the Id, Ego and the Superego. (Rennison

29) It should be noted that he initially made a bipartite division of the mind- into the

conscious and the unconscious. However, he began to understand the flaws behind so

simple a division and consequently, extended this to a tripartite division. (Rennison 38)

Freud derives the Id from the Latin word “it and this according to Freud, is a

representation of the oldest and most primitive part of the mind. He defines the Id as:

The dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have
learned from our study of the Dreamwork and of course the construction of
neurotic symptoms and most of that is of a negative character and can be
described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call
it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. [...] It is filled with energy
reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective
will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs
subject to the observance of the pleasure principles. (Freud 105-6)

This primal force can be observed in many of the creatures in the landscape of

Wonderland. For instance, the Duchess, the Cook and the Queen are excellent examples

of the representation of the Id. These three women can be described, going by Freud’s

description as being like “a cauldron full of seething excitations” and consequently, they

constantly seek instant wish fulfillment. To illustrate, all three women derive their

immediate pleasure by ingesting copious amounts of food and this is seen as a metaphor

for overtly concealed sexuality. This is explained by the popular theory that in most

Victorian works, food “always acted as a veiled metaphor for sexuality, most improper in

the respectable Victorian woman.” (Talairach-Vielmas 54) In Alice in Wonderland, only

 10

the Queen, the Duchess and the Cook have the agency to choose what to eat and also,

when to eat. Alice on the other hand, is forced to ingest food in order to manipulate her

bodily shape to ascribe to her current situation. In connection to this, Helena Michie

suggests that “delicate appetites match proper and chaste femininity, while gluttony

signals monstrosity.” (Talairach-Vielmas 54) This sentiment is easily observed in Alice in

Wonderland as the illustrations of Alice signify that she is a delicate little waif whereas

the older women, the Queen, the Cook and the Duchess are seen as grotesque beings,

both in the written and the pictorial form.

To explore this idea further, it will be seen that Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations of the

Duchess convey her eccentricities as well. For instance, Lois Rauch Gibson delineates

her “cavernous mouth” (Gibson 178) and most scholars agree that the Duchess is

portrayed in a rather monstrous form. This representation once again points out that the

Id represents the dark and uncanny force within the human psyche.

Like the Duchess, all the characters in Wonderland are a parodied version of Alice’s

unconscious. It could therefore be argued that her many character traits are individualized

in each of the Wonderland creatures. As Nina Auerbach states: “The sea that almost

drowns her is composed of her own tears, and the dream that nearly obliterates her is

composed of fragments of her own personality.” (Auerbach 34) Lois Rauch Gibson takes

this argument further and asserts that “each character is individualized by having one

physical or personality trait exaggerated (for example, the Duchess’s mouth)”. (Gibson

178)
 11

Similarly, it is worth looking into the illustrations of the Cheshire Cat as well as he

is one of the few characters, like the White Rabbit who appears several times in the book.

In these reappearances, it is seen that the Cheshire Cat is on a plane higher than all the

Wonderland creatures and this trend is established in the book when he first meets Alice.

She finds him outside the Duchess’ house, sitting atop a tree. (Tenniel 23) In another

scene, when the King orders the Cheshire Cat’s execution, his head looms over all the

creatures and this literally implies that he is above everybody, even the King and the

Queen. (Tenniel 31) Both, the Cheshire Cat’s elevation pictorially and the ubiquitous

presence in Wonderland can be related to the traits of the superego. Like the Superego,

the Cheshire Cat reminds Alice of her earliest caregivers and here, the Cheshire Cat

represents her pet cat, Dinah.

The Superego is also the moralizing aspect of the psyche. Here, the looming head of

the Cheshire Cat can be seen as the presence that often takes over the Wonderland folk

when they go wrong, since the Cheshire Cat has an almost godlike aspect in the picture,

where his execution is supposed to take place. (Tenniel 31) While he does not really

interfere with the other creatures of Wonderland, he plays a major role in defining Alice’s

personality within the dreamscape.

Unlike the Id which seeks instant gratification, the Superego works in contradiction

to the Id by controlling an individual’s sense of right and wrong. The Superego aspires

for the ideal ethical and moral conduct. To this end, Freud theorizes that the Superego

forms its impressions and sensibilities during an individual’s childhood and is shaped by

influential figures like parents, teachers and nurses and these values define the superego.

Freud defines the superego as follows:

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…. now that we have embarked upon the analysis of the ego we can give
answer to all those whose moral sense has been shocked and who have
complained that there must surely be a higher nature in man. “Very true, we
can say, “and here we have that higher nature, in this ego ideal or super-
ego, the representative of our relation to our parents. When we were little
children we knew these higher natures, we admired them and feared them,
and later we took them into ourselves.” (Harold 45)

It is seen that the Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar become the “higher nature” when they

take up advisory roles and thus, in Wonderland, it is the Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar

who become her allies. The Cheshire Cat reminds Alice of her cat Dinah, at home, and

the Caterpillar gives her the power to control her growth spurts.

Like the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar is positioned above Alice physically. When

she first meets the Caterpillar, he is seated on top of a mushroom, smoking from a hookah

pipe. His face isn’t seen clearly and we’re merely presented with something that passes

for a silhouette of a face. In this illustration, Alice is barely as tall as the mushroom on

which the Caterpillar is seated and here, we don’t see her complete face either. Instead,

we see only her eyes and they almost have a cartoon like aspect as they are quite large.

(Tenniel 15) Here, Alice is literally looking up at him, as though she is certain that she

will help him.

Finally, the Ego is in tandem with the reality principle. As Freud states, the ego –

…is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of
the external world…Moreover, the ego seeks to bring the influence of the
external world to bear upon the id and its tendencies, and endeavors to
substitute the reality principle for the pleasure principle which resigns
unrestrictedly in the id…The ego represents what may be called reason and
common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions. (Storey
28)
 13

As Freud asserts, it is essentially the balancing force between the Id and the Superego as

they are two contradictory forces. Freud asserts that the ego “serves three severe masters

[...] the external world, the super-ego and the id.” (Freud 196) Going by this, it will be

seen that in most of Tenniel’s illustrations Alice adopts a submissive stance. More often

than not, Alice is always shorter than or on par with the creatures she is depicted with.

For instance, in the scene with the Mock Turtle, in the chapter The Lobster Quadrille,

both the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon are seen to be towering over her. (Tenniel 35)

There are several instances in the narration where Alice cannot distinguish between

food and animals, as she did eat lobsters and eggs in real life. (Jaques 50) She struggles

with a similar dilemma here and when the Lobster says- “perhaps you were never even

introduced to a lobster” (Carrol 87) Alice begins to say that she once tasted a lobster. She

eventually learns to keep these rather awkward remarks to herself. However, her

expressions in these situations suggest that she is somewhat abashed and therefore, Alice

in her dream self is constantly warring between the creatures of Wonderland in forms of

the Superego and the Id. It is then evident that she plays the role of the ego in

Wonderland. The following sections will analyze the roles of the Queen (id), the

Cheshire cat and the Caterpillar (super-ego) and Alice (ego) in greater detail.

The Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar as the Super ego

As has been mentioned before the Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar help Alice form

her identity and act as the Superego. This section will focus on the role of the Caterpillar
 14

first before examining the Cheshire Cat. Alice meets the Caterpillar after her tryst with

the White Rabbit and the lizard Bill. Incidentally, this chapter is called Advice from a

Caterpillar, signifying that the Caterpillar did indeed serve as an advisory figure. In this

whole chapter, the Caterpillar urges Alice to examine her identity, thus reminding her of

who she really is. This is seen in the conversation they have from their very first meeting:

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the
Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid,
sleepy voice.

“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 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” (Carrol 37)

Here, it must be noted that Alice is rather timid and shy, and that the Caterpillar is

as contemptuous and ill-mannered as the Queen. The Caterpillar and Alice have a very

short conversation and yet, in this small interlude, the Caterpillar questions Alice about

her identity on three occasions. Justifiably, she cannot answer him as her physical form

has been subjected to several changes and thus, her personality was mutable. Alice is

hopeful that the Caterpillar would understand her identity crisis as he is a creature of

metamorphosis himself. However, the Caterpillar is further incensed by the implications

that he would understand and empathize with the predicaments of Alice, a stranger in

Wonderland:

Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; 'but when you have to turn
into a chrysalis—you will someday, you know—and then after that into a
butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'
 15

'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know is, it would
feel very queer to ME.'
'You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are YOU?” (Carrol 37-38)

On the surface, it would seem as though the Caterpillar is being uncooperative

on purpose. Nevertheless, by refusing to give Alice the sympathy that she so desperately

wanted, he constantly directs her to examine the nature of her dream self. Secondly, by

blatantly denying her the smallest iota of a connection between himself and Alice, he

clearly demarcates her from the creatures of Wonderland. By doing this, he ensures that

Alice does not lose her identity in her dreamland. However, as Alice does not understand

the dynamics of his role within the landscape of her psyche, she interprets his demeanor

to be contemptuous and begins to tire of it. Instead of answering the Caterpillar’s irate

question, “Who are you”, she gravely subverts his authority and questions him on the

nature of his identity. Yet again, the Caterpillar ignores her question and now instead of

asking her to examine her conflicted self, directs her to inspect her changing physique.

He asks her:

“What size do you want to be?” it asked.

“Oh, I’m not so particular as to size” Alice hastily replied; “only one doesn’t like
changing so often, you know”
“I don’t know,” said the Caterpillar.
Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in all her life before,
and she felt that she was losing her temper.
“Are you content now?” Said the Caterpillar.
“Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Alice: three
inches is such a wretched height to be”
 16

“It is a very good height indeed” said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright
as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high)
“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought to
herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!” (Carrol 40)

In this conversation, in connection to the Superego, the Caterpillar insistently takes on

a critical stance when he forces her to reorient her perspectives. Firstly, when he asks her

about the size that would be ideal to her, she does not have an answer for him. Thus, he

seems to be telling her that her size does not define her. Secondly, by getting incensed

when she says that three inches is a wretched height to be, his caustic reaction suggests

that she should not anger the creatures of Wonderland. By drawing himself up to his full

height (which was exactly three inches), he draws attention to her lack of empathy and

also points out that Wonderland creatures are capable of violence when they are

offended. Yet, when the Caterpillar takes offence, she believes it was because the

Caterpillar was sensitive and “easily offended”.

We are also given a glimpse of Alice’s dominant short tempered personality as we are

told that she has never been “so much contradicted”, which suggests that Alice is usually

used to getting her own way; like the Queen. When Alice fails to understand most of his

indirect comments, he advises her: “Keep your temper”. And this is perhaps the most

intelligible thing the Caterpillar tells her as she is prone to losing her temper and thus,

affects the sensibilities of the Wonderland folk. In doing so, she alienates herself from her

unconscious mind and the Caterpillar strongly advises her against it.

As an aside, it is interesting to examine the symbolism behind the Caterpillar’s

characterization as Carroll chose him to guide Alice, amongst the many creatures in
 17

Wonderland. Celia Brown addresses this issue in her research and seeks to examine the

allegorical implications behind the characterization of the animals in Wonderland. She

asserts that the magic in Wonderland is implicitly Egyptian as it deals with shape

shifting, as it is the Caterpillar, in the guise of the Deity Thoth who give her the agency of

control over the magic in Wonderland- the mushroom on which he is enthroned has that

power. (Brown 281)

The Cheshire Cat

Unlike the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat assumes a friendly stance and as has been

mentioned before, he is seen as a reminder of her pet cat, Dinah. Since the superego is

also comprised of childhood memories from authority figures and caretakers, it can be

conjectured that her pet cat, Dinah can be seen as an association of childhood authority.

Pertinently, it is also her pet that she misses the most, from the real world, and since

animals cannot talk in the real world, Alice then has long since had the habit of having

one-sided conversations with herself, and with her pet cat Dinah as the grave listener.

Alice herself imagines a situation where her pet cat plays a nourishing role wherein it is

seen that her pet cat takes the role of a nurse: '"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get

ready for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see that the mouse

doesn't get out.” (Carrol 29)

Like her memories of Dinah, the Cheshire Cat’s head continues to appear and vanish

intermittently in Wonderland. When Alice first meets the Cheshire Cat, she is very aware

of his “very long claws and great many teeth” and instantly regards him to be someone
 18

who ought to be treated respectfully because he had the means to harm her. She

approaches him carefully and politely, when she asks him for directions-

“Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it
would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it's pleased so
far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought
to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much
care where—' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you're sure
to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.' Alice (Carrol 51-52)

By asking the Cheshire Cat for directions, she instantly assigns him the role of an

authority figure or the Superego, as it the Superego that guides an individual when he or

she is lost. It is pertinent to note that Alice does not ask the Cat for directions to a specific

place, as she is happy to let the Cat/superego decide for her. By delineating that she wants

to get “SOMEWHERE”, we begin to understand that reaching the garden was no longer

her primary goal. As reaching the garden was a way for her to regain her identity, it can

be assumed that she has already begun to acquire a sense of herself.

While the Caterpillar addressed issues of identity and her physical form, the Cheshire

cat deals with her mental state and calls her mad:

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.' (Carrol 52)
 19

Alice does not agree with the Cheshire Cat and assumes the aspect of humoring him

when she asks him, “How do you know that you’re mad?” (Carrol 52) His brand of

absurdity does not appeal to Alice and makes her rather uncomfortable. Elizabeth. L.

Auchincloss, in her book, The Psychoanalytical Model of the Mind suggests that the

Superego makes it impossible for a mind to feel good about oneself. Similarly, Freud

suggests that the Superego and the Id are closely related to each other and the Superego is

fueled by the aggressions of the Id. This is clearly seen in the roles of the Caterpillar and

the Cheshire Cat, as they constantly make Alice uncomfortable and they force her to

adopt a contemplative stance.

To this effect, David Rudd argues that the Cheshire Cat plays the role of the analyst,

where Alice is the unwilling object of analysis. (Buckley 72) The Cheshire cat makes

another appearance at the croquet ground, where Alice is extremely uneasy because of the

Queen’s penchant for decapitation. As the Cheshire Cat slowly looms up in the air, Alice

is visibly more assured as she tells herself “now I shall have somebody to talk to” (Carrol

69) and begins to complain about the Croquet game:

I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, 'and
they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak—and they don't seem to
have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and
you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there's the
arch I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground—and I
should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it
saw mine coming! (Carrol 69)

Here Alice demonstrates a surprising lack of empathy for creatures that were alive

and breathing. Instead of trying to avoid the hedgehogs, as a conscientious child, she tries

to nab it anyway and thus, she imitates the Queen in her cruelty. Not surprisingly, the
 20

Cheshire Cat ignores her complaint entirely and asks her- “How do you like the Queen?”

By redirecting her attention to the Queen, he seems to point out that her mannerisms are

similar to that of the cantankerous woman and it was time for her to change.

Finally, in the scene where the Cheshire Cat last appears, it will be observed that the

King and Queen are trying to have it killed. Here, the executioner refuses to behead it as

it has no body as he rightfully says “you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body

to cut it off from”. (Carrol 72) Like the superego, the Cheshire Cat has no master and

makes his own rules. As Stowell explains, the Cheshire Cat is:

a second manifestation of the Trickster, an expert in appearance and disappearance

who contains significant opposites: he is "good-natured" but he has "very long
claws and a great many teeth." Illusive and ambivalent, he is a guiding spirit whose
most important information for Alice is that "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're
mad." This "mad" of course means both angry and irrational. Alice does not want to
be among mad people, but the Trickster-Cat points out with a leer that everybody's
quite irrational and capable of crazy emotions and thoughts. He is also a
transformation of Dinah, symbolic perhaps of some trait personally hers, such as a
cat-like illusiveness, introversion, cleverness or invulnerability. (Stowell 7)

Thus, while the Caterpillar counsels Alice on her size and temper, the Cheshire Cat

helps Alice by merely listening to her and by appearing at moments that frustrate her the

most, he reminds her of her real home and in doing so, ensures that her personality is not

trapped within Wonderland.

The Queen as the Id

According to Freud, the Id functions because of the pleasure principle- “the psychic

force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse.”
 21

(Daniel L. Schacter 503) He goes on to say that the Id is comprised of the most primal

instincts in our personality - emotions such as lust, anger and aggression and pleasure-

seeking urges. Most of these urges are seldom realized. Instead they are pushed back

(repressed), diverted into cultural activities (sublimation), acted out (temporary

satisfaction) or are expressed in dreams. Henk de Berg continues in this vein and defines

the Id as pure craving, a force that is always repressed and consequentially concludes that

a part of our personality always remains suppressed. (Berg 50) Going by this hypothesis,

the Queen’s persona represents the primal side of Alice’s character.

Interestingly, when Alice confronts the Queen in the garden, she is no longer the

trembling girl who once hid from the White rabbit. Instead she is a confident young

woman who refuses to acknowledge the Queen’s hierarchy by bowing down to her, like

everybody in the procession awaiting her. In this scene, the Queen spots Alice and invites

her to play a game of croquet. This game, like the caucus race is governed by absurdity

and has no rules. The players merely tried to keep out of the Queen’s way, in order to

avoid execution. Alice on the other hand, is a different person here. Instead of merely

playing the game in order to please the creatures of Wonderland, she plays with the intent

to win. Perhaps, when Alice in her role as the ego ideal is confronted with the Queen, she

has no option but to match up to her aggressive stance and quickly adapt her personality

in order to face a standoff with her.

Consequently, it will be observed that Alice resembles the Queen to a great extent

after their first meeting in the garden. Alice, like the Queen seeks instant gratification.

Both the Queen and Alice use food for reasons other than nourishment and sustenance.

To demonstrate, Alice uses food as a means to get into the garden and the Queen uses
 22

food as an excuse to entice people into disobeying her, by stealing her tarts, and then, she

uses this simplistic disobedience to decapitate people. Another glaring resemblance is

portrayed in the way they impose their understanding of the world unto people around

them. For instance, Alice assumes that the Caterpillar would understand her plight. She

almost demands understanding and empathy from him and thus imposes her sensibilities

on him. Similarly, the Queen has her own brand of logic, which incidentally pivots on

absurd feelings of rage. Finally, both Alice and the Queen want complete supremacy.

This is the singular trait that makes the Queen a foil to Alice’s character. While the Queen

is unreasonable in her way of issuing decapitations (“Sentence first — verdict

afterwards”), Alice tries to impose her supremacy in a land in which she is a mere

stranger. She tries to enter places that are clearly off limits, as she barges into the mad

hatter’s tea party even when she is vehemently told that there is no room for her. She

ignores the creatures of the tea-party and when they are rude to her, she takes a

moralizing stand and tries to teach them manners, all the while forgetting that it is she

herself who breaches the rules of etiquette.

Nevertheless, parallels between the Queen and Alice end here, since it is the Queen

who is the ruler of Wonderland and therefore the representation of the Id. Carroll himself

describes her as a “sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion - a blind and aimless

Fury”. (Lovett 282) Scholars have repeatedly speculated on this representation of the

Queen and one popular interpretation is that the Queen of Hearts is a parodied version of

Queen Victoria. While this might be true, it is important to note that the phrase “blind and

aimless fury” can be used to describe the functions of the Id in the subconscious mind as

well.
 23

Not only Carroll’s description of the Queen but her representation in the book

seems to suggest that Carroll had a basic understanding of the mind’s psyche. By

portraying her as a grotesque and absurd character, whose desire is firmly rooted in abject

selfishness and instant wish fulfillment, Carroll makes sure that her character is but a

parodied representation. Nonetheless, her presence in Wonderland cannot be ignored as it

is eventually the Queen who is the supreme ruler here and quite fittingly, her favorite

catchphrase is “Off with their heads”. More often than not, it would seem as though she

takes delight in issuing this command. That said, the mild mannered King silently

pardons the executions and takes away the agency of control from her and eventually,

none of the unfortunate offenders get beheaded. Her representation is then intriguing to

say the least. It would seem as though her only purpose in Wonderland was to confront

the dream-child Alice and then restore her to the real world.

The Ego Ideal: Alice

Of the ego, Freud once said that it is “not the master in its own house”. (Royal 59)

This is all too clear in Alice in Wonderland as Alice is constantly trying to please the

many forces of her psyche, in her dream self. The Queen as the Id is the strongest force of

her psyche and the Ego ideal in Alice’s persona undoubtedly has a hard time coping with

a strong personality like the Queen. Despite this, it is because of the Ego and the

Superego that she conducts herself in a manner that is socially acceptable.

Unlike the Id and the Superego which work antithetically, the Ego ideal balances

these two strong forces. Alice, then in her dream self is forced to please the many

creatures of Wonderland and they are all quite strong-willed. From the very instant she
 24

meets the creatures of her unconscious mind, it is clear that all of them are either

exceedingly rude or indifferent to her existence. She is seen as an intruder in her own

mind. On top of this, the creatures ask her to explain her identity and when she is slightly

rude, they lash out at her. She is then forced to adopt a submissive stand and serve the

creatures of Wonderland. For instance, when she is trapped in the White Rabbit’s house,

he assumes that she is his servant Mary Ann and orders her to look for his fan and gloves.

Similarly, in the Caucus race, she is forced to take part in an absurd game with no

rules and more importantly, it is a game devoid of a framework that defines it.

Nonetheless, she passively accepts her role and plays her part. In the above mentioned

examples, Alice in her dream self appears to play the part of the ego ideal.

In order to cope with two very strong dominating forces, the ego ideal sometimes

blocks and distorts the impulses of the Superego and the Id. Freud calls this a defence

mechanism and they are of three types: moral conflict, neurotic conflict and the realistic

conflict. According to him, one experiences a moral conflict when there is a strong

impulse to do something wrong and the superego resists. Neurotic conflicts arise when

the ego is afraid of being overwhelmed by the Id. Finally, realistic conflicts take place

between the ego and reality where dangerous situations provoke emotions of fear and

anxiety.

We see that Alice goes through similar conflicts in the narrative. The predominant

moral conflict in the narrative structure occurs when she consumes the savories in

Wonderland. Part of her is aware that this can have serious consequences but she has

them anyway, in order to make her way to the garden. Later on, as has been said earlier,
 25

the Caterpillar gives her the agency to control her growth spurts and in doing so, the

superego solves this dilemma for her. Neurotic conflicts take place in the Croquet garden

where Alice is extremely uneasy because of the Queen’s inordinate fury. To quote from

the text:

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with
the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, 'and then,' thought she,
'what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the
great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!’ (Carrol 46)

There are several occasions in Wonderland where Alice faces complete

obliteration. Despite this, she does not display this sense of self-preservation in earlier

situations and is happy to venture into unfamiliar grounds with an abandon that is both

commendable and reckless. On the contrary, in the croquet ground, she is constantly

afraid of being killed by the Queen and continues to remain wary in the garden. Finally, a

realistic conflict arises when the Queen orders her execution.

In order to resolve the above mentioned conflicts the ego employs strategies like

repression, denial, isolation, projection and rejection, among others. Most of these

defence mechanisms were discovered by Freud and a few others were developed by his

daughter, Anna Freud. According to Sigmund Freud, repression occurs when the ego

forces impulses and memories out of conscious awareness. He says “the essence of

repression lies simply in turning something away and keeping it at a distance from the

conscious [mind]. (Idema 84) Alice is clearly trying to escape from something on the hot

summer day when Wonderland was created and the very act of falling down the rabbit
 26

hole is an act of repression. Here it can be conjectured that she escapes the boredom of a

hot sunny afternoon and the didactism of a book without “pictures or conversations”.

On the other hand, Freud states that projection occurs when “an internal perception is

suppressed, and instead, its content, after undergoing a certain kind of distortion, enters

consciousness in the form of an external perception.” (Chabot 36) Wonderland seems to

have the theme of “eat or be eaten” throughout its narrative where, its protagonist has to

continually eat or drink something in order to survive; it is not very surprising that Alice

assumes that most of the creatures possess the cannibalistic drives that she herself does.

Projection then, is the act of reading the ego’s desires in other people/characters and this

is seen in the scene where Alice is playing with a dog and is quite afraid that it will eat

her up.

Denial takes place when Alice refuses to accept that she is mad in the scene with the

ubiquitous Cheshire Cat. When she asks him for directions, the conversation takes a

philosophical turn wherein the Cheshire Cat gravely asserts that everybody is mad in

Wonderland. Here, Alice staunchly refuses to accept the Cheshire cat’s argument.

Remaining loyal to her role of the ego ideal, Alice looks for ways to distract him from his

original point and in doing so, enable herself to forget his original contention that she was

mad. In order to do so, she asks him: “How do you know that you’re mad?” (Carrol 52)

In the conversation that ensues, the Cheshire cat gives her his own subverted logic, which

surprisingly makes sense:

“To begin with”, said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice
 27

“Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its
tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m
angry. Therefore I’m mad.” (Carrol 52)

Rather than assure herself of her sanity, Alice focuses on the Cat’s mental state and thus,

enables her unconscious to forget the possibility that she could be mad.

Conclusion

As mentioned previously, just as Alice confronts the Queen in her dream state, she is

fully aware of who she is. So in a sense, her identity crisis is solved here. Nonetheless,

she still ascribes to the rules of Wonderland and continues to attend the trial scene. Yet, it

will be noticed that she finds the incongruities of Wonderland to be absurd after she

meets the Queen and not before that.

That said, both the Ego Ideal and the Superego help her in finding her identity as

well. When Alice emerges from Wonderland we see that she is more in control of the

situation and her personality as well. Only by finding her identity could Alice reject the

world of Wonderland and she does so by recognizing the supreme rulers there to be a

mere pack of card.

This dire contrast in her personality is easily observed when we examine her former

self. In the beginning her character is rather complicated as she is at once, polite and

rude; gentle and cruel; intelligent and stupid. Her subconscious mind brings out a volley

of characters who are individually equipped with a distinctive quality at various times.

For instance, when Alice meets the Duchess in chapter 9, The Mock Turtle’s Story, she is
 28

most affectionate and tells her, “You can’t think how glad I am to see you, you dear old

thing!” (Carrol 73) and walks with Alice, hand in hand. Likewise, her dream-self

constantly changes her personality as well. She is sometimes as timid and anxious as the

White Rabbit or alternatively displays the temerity of the Caterpillar. Her character

evolves with each creature she meets.

Thus the polite child, who is happy to keep her opinions to herself and finds the

need to curtsy even as she is falling down, which can be attributed to the strict adherence

to politeness, imposed by Victorian Society transforms into a balanced young Woman

who can destabilize an entire land by merely rising forth and swatting away at the

creatures there with her bare hands. Indeed, towards the end, Alice reduces them to mere

playing cards. By rejecting Wonderland, Alice solves her identity crisis.

It is now evident that the roles of the Id, Ego and the Superego represented by the

Queen, Alice and the Cheshire Cat & Caterpillar respectively help Alice transform her

conflicted self into a collective whole. Furthermore, it is seen that both Lewis Carroll’s

characterizations and Tenniel’s illustrations of the creatures in Wonderland bear a

remarkable significance to the tripartite role of the psyche.

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