Alice
Do you know Alice?
The character in Go Ask Alice is a fifteen years old girl who became addicted to drugs and unfortunately dies because of it. She is from a high middle class family. Her father is college professor and her mother stays home and takes care of the kids. The girl thinks she is stupid and cannot measure up with her parent’s expectations, she is not happy with herself. The way that she looks or thinks and feels She is not confident. The girl in this book suffers from low self-esteem.
The girl in Go Ask Alice is very confused. In a way she knows what is right and what is wrong for her, but on the other hand, she feels that she is mixed up. When she, without her knowledge, became addicted, she was suffering from low self-esteem that is why she felt so good about using drugs She became addicted when her friends gave her some LSD laced Coca Cola at a party. She describes it as “beautiful”. Many times she decided to give it up but unfortunately there were always something like friends, family and her low self-esteem that brought her back to the drugs.
There are many reasons why the girl in this story takes drugs. First of all, and most important one, is her low self-esteem. She uses drugs because by using it, she forgets who she is and what weaknesses she has. Second, her parents especially her mother is nagging constantly at her. She can’t accept her for who she is, and she always compares her with her siblings. The father is more caring but he is always busy and doesn’t have enough time to spend with her. Her siblings aren’t friendly; at least that is what she thinks.
Another reason is that she tries to fit in, so when one of the girls, the one who she was wishing to be friends with invites her to the party, she jumps on the invitation and that is where she used drugs for the first time The friend was from a rich family, and during the school years didn’t pay attention to the girl in this story, but now she wants to go to that university where the girls father works, so by inviting the girl in Go Ask Alice she tries to make connection
Unfortunately, today lots of kids in their early age become addicted to the drugs.
An important section of the novel that was missing from the movie, was the introduction into Alice’s life. The director, Beatrice Sparks, had decided to ignore the preamble of Alice and skip to when she was first introduced to drugs. An explanation on who Alice is and how she lived her life without drugs would have helped the viewers understand why Alice turned to drugs. Alice was a sad and quiet girl who never seemed to fit in with any crowd. In the following quote, Alice explains her first week of school.
When Alice enters Wonderland, everything she knows (or rather she thinks she knows) is completely turned upside down. As a result, when Alice is first confronted with the nonsensical ways of this dream world, she loses her sense of identity as she continually asks herself, “Who in the world am I?” (18). However, in confronting and challenging the adults in Wonderland she is
This promise to herself is soon broken as she takes more drugs because she is curious and turned on by her first trip. This leads to her having sex with one of her peers while on a trip and thereby loses her virginity. She always swore to lose her virginity to her crush Roger, who suddenly appears at her doorstep with his parents, because they want to visit Alice’s grandfather who suffered a slight heart attack. Even though she is very delighted to see Roger, she is plagued by the fact that she has recently los...
Women’s history in the United States has always been represented as a struggle for rights. Wealth and status were tied to either their fathers or husbands. In the early 1900s, women were afforded the traditional roles of society. The majority of women worked in the home. If they were of the 18% young or poor women, they also worked in factories as laborers, manufacturing items for the booming industrial revolution (U.S. Department of Labor, 1980). During this time period the workplace was not in compliance with current safety standards. There was no minimum wage yet, work conditions were horrible and they worked long hours, “In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was 53 hours,” (Fisk, 2003). Women took “pink collared jobs” or “woman’s work” that paid less than men’s wages. These jobs such as secretaries, waitresses, garment workers and housekeepers are still significantly underpaid today. Many widows and mothers were not able to make ends meet and often had to have their children work as well to support the family. Women had no rights to change these conditions or their circumstances. The inability to partake in the democratic process was something many women were angry with; Alice Paul was one of them.
She kind of abused the substance to the point where she used prostitution to get the drugs and later died of a drug overdose. This book was published in the form of a diary in entry form of a girl’s drug addiction. The characters in this novel are introduced to drugs, sexual activities and abuse.
Alice is a committed, curious teen who ran away from home and began a new start. She was influenced on how beautiful drugs were. Finally, she committed on staying off of drugs. The main points of this essay are that, being an adult is much more difficult than it really seems. You barely have the time to yourselves and enjoy life. In Alice case drugs was a stress reliever and after a while she realized that it is very difficult to her to quit it; as a result of her surroundings. Alice changes in every way throughout the story. She is a self-conscious teen, who is having troubles finding out who she really is and where she belongs, just like any other teen.
Alice’s interactions with the characters of Wonderland reflect her struggles with adults in real life. Naturally curious as she is, Alice asks questions to learn from the adults. Since they understand the subject at hand well, they do not need to express their thoughts in order for them to understand themselves. However, Alice does not see this internal
In society, many kids are exposed to drugs at a very young age such as Baby. Since Baby’s father is a heroin addiction, she would always experience Jules under the influence of drugs. Jules influenced Baby the most by exposing her to drugs which made her lose her childhood innocence. “I was very firm on the idea that I would become a drug addict too now. I didn’t care what drug I was going to be addicted too” (O’ Neill 72). Baby does not have any knowledge about drugs. She believes that her knowledge of drugs comes from her father and her father’s friends; majority of them were “junkies”. Jules’ addiction eventually got worse and he began to release his problems by abusing Baby; the relationship between her father and her becomes more distant. She feels that if she tries heroin, she will be able to become closer to her dad. At this point in time Baby is very vulnerable because she’s basically raising herself on her own; her dad is not there for her which leaves Baby with no choice but to let go of her innocence, due to adult temptation.
This extremity of emotion brings her to downfall. Her tendency to limit her own abilities by her nature of fixed habits or unmovable convictions isolates Alice from her community and distorts her features. She had once been a beautiful girl but grows into a woman with a head too large for her body. This is symbolic of her self-consumption, loneliness, and illusions. “I am becoming old and queer. If Ned comes he will not want me.” (Anderson 117). She grows to support the theme of life in death, living within her own imagination and memory to the point that her head is nearly expanding under the stress. She denies herself the reality of life by narrowing the experience to a dream world. By making absolute convictions and believing her own lies, Alice refuses to meld her worlds of dream and reality together. For example, Will Hurley, the man who walks her home from Church meetings, is an impostor into her narrowly constructed universe and thus she does not want to...
With many speculations as to what the story is about, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a tale that still entices readers. Written in 1865, Charles Dodgson created a tale under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Within that tale Carroll inevitably created a character of ambition within the little girl, Alice. From the beginning of the tale, she is displayed as being adventurous, leaving her sister’s side to follow a white rabbit down a mysterious hole; complacent until she finds herself in a predicament. New ideas about the story revolve mainly around drugs, speaking as if it were some psychedelic LSD trip. Another theory also led to the belief that its’ author was nothing more than a pedophilic gentleman who had too close of a relationship with
A major conflict is focusing on after Alice’s brain operation, she perceives to everyone and herself she’s the same girl she used to be. Unfortunately, her friends and family don’t agree that she is the same person. “You’re always saying that you are still you because you have the same brain, but who is to say that your whole personality is in your head?” (pg.5) Jenny argues that Alice is a completely different person than who she used to be. Their mother stands up for Alice but secretly does not agree with her, she does not see Alice as the daughter she used to have. “Sometimes I think my sister is dead.” (pg.5) This similar quote is showing how powerful Jenny feels about the new Alice and her failure to see how Alice is truly seeking self reflection. “Alice stared at her mother, but again her mother avoided her eyes.” (pg.5) This final quote impacts the reader 's empathetically and Alice immeasurably knowing that her own mother doesn’t accept her for who she is now. These quotes show the frustration from Alice and her family, skillfully building apprehensive conflict in the rising
Although the novel is notorious for its satire and parodies, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland main theme is the transition between childhood and adulthood. Moreover, Alice’s adventures illustrate the perplexing struggle between child and adult mentalities as she explores the curious world of development know as Wonderland. From the beginning in the hallway of doors, Alice stands at an awkward disposition. The hallway contains dozens of doors that are all locked. Alice’s pre-adolescent stage parallels with her position in the hallway. Alice’s position in the hallway represents that she is at a stage stuck between being a child and a young woman. She posses a small golden key to ...
In the opening scene, Alice desires something beyond orthodox. This is showed by her lack of interest in her studies and longing for a world in which everything would be “nonsense.” She is a curious child. Deborah Ross argues that Alice expresses the usual idealistic desires: “to escape boredom (with lessons), to satisfy curiosity (about the white rabbit), and above all, to exert power” (Ross 57). However Alice does not know exerting power is difficult when the world is consumed of “nonsense”. Thus she has different qualities that contributes to her vague identity. She believes life would be different in her world. Also Disney strives to reveal Alice’s incentive of Wonderland by introducing pictorial wonders such as singing flowers and surrealistic insect, making it seem as a dream. The movie progresses in the same route as Lewis Carroll’s book by focusing on her immature thinking of Wonderland.
At the beginning of the story Alice is a little girl who is very curious, but also quite scared of being alone. First of all, she has an inquiring mind that brings her down the rabbit hole and, even if her way of thinking could remind the adult kind of thoughts, she still acts like a child. A clear example of this kind of behavior is when she finds a bottle with the words “DRINK ME” labeled on. Before drinking f...
Each day drugs make a huge impact on our generation. Throughout this topic I would like to know what causes teenagers to try illegal drugs and how impacts their lives. Drugs can affect a person in different parts of their lives. For example their education, work, personal life, and can affect the relationship with their family and friends.