Go Ask Alice

“It’s a completely new world I’m exploring, and you can’t even conceive the wide new doors that are opening up before me. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe Lewis G. Carroll was on drugs too.”

Go Ask Alice takes its title from the song “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, which alludes to Lewis Carroll’s character, Alice, eating and drinking substances that cause her to grow and shrink in size. Both “White Rabbit” and the protagonist in this novel use Alice in Wonderland as a metaphor for the experience of using drugs.

“I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you, but I really have been busy with my new job and school starting and all, and you still are my very dearest friend and closest confidant, even though I am really tuned in and receive well with Chris.”

Alice personifies her diary, feeling guilty for ignoring her writing habit. Her turning to Chris instead of her diary thematically demonstrates The Need for Connection and Empathy in Adolescence. While Alice’s diary is a suitable stand-in for a close friend, she needs to feel understood by other people living through similar experiences.

“I bet the pill is harder to get than drugs—which shows you how screwed up this world really is!”

Chronicling a time during the feminist movement’s second wave, Alice occasionally mentions relevant 1970s social issues. Alice notes that free love and sexual experimentation aren’t without consequences, particularly for women.

“When I look around here at all the ass draggers, I really think that we are a bunch of gutless wonders. We get pissed off when someone tells us what to do, but we don’t know what to do unless some fat bastard tells us. Let somebody else think for us and do for us and act for us. Let them build the roads and the cars and the houses, run the lights and the gas and the water and the sewers. We’ll just sit here on our blistered tails with our minds exploding and our hands out. God, I sound like a goddamn Establishmentarian, and I haven’t even got a pill to take the taste out of my mouth or drive the bull shit thoughts away.”

Alice dives into ideologies and political beliefs relevant to 1970s counterculture. Even while away from home, Alice’s beliefs align more with her conservative parents than with the company she keeps. Alice’s mood alters significantly, becoming more cynical and pessimistic when she has recently used drugs.

“In the car on the way home Gramps scratched my back like he used to do when I was a little girl and whispered to me that I had only to forgive myself.”

Alice’s close, supportive relationship with her grandparents underscores The Significance of Family Support to Kids and Teens as a theme. Her grandfather’s kind, familiar gesture of scratching Alice’s back demonstrates his profound love for his granddaughter. Alice’s record of this moment in her diary shows how essential and meaningful she finds her family’s care and concern.

“I think I’ll set my hair the way Mom likes it for tomorrow. That should make her happy.”

Hair symbolizes the generational divide between Alice and her mother. When Alice wears her hair long and straight, as typical of 1970s counterculture style, her mother worries about her behavior and friendships. Alice often alters her style to adhere to the social norms her parents prefer.

“I must forgive and forget but I just can’t. I simply can’t! When I’m having the very nicest thoughts, the black ugly past comes flooding in like a nightmare. And it’s ruined my whole day already.”

Alice uses simile (like “a nightmare”) and metaphor (“black ugly past”) to describe how she feels about her substance use. Her visual imagery in this moment is reflected on one of the more popular book covers for Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal, another book by Beatrice Sparks. By describing Alice’s experiences as frightening, Sparks uses fear to caution kids away from drugs and counterculture.

“It’s strange how much sex I’ve had and yet I don’t feel as though I’ve had any. I still want somebody to be nice and just kiss me goodnight at the door.”

Alice articulates the difference between sex and intimacy. She spends considerable time thinking about losing her virginity, which is another relatable issue for many teen girls. After having sex, Alice realizes that she enjoys how she feels while using drugs more than she finds sex pleasurable. Alice craves an emotional connection with a romantic partner.

“It’s terrible not to have a friend. I’m so lonely and so alone. I think it’s worse on weekends than during the week, but I don’t know. It’s pretty bad all the time.”

For much of her diary, Alice ties her self-worth directly to meaningful friendships. Alice needs someone with whom she can relate and who can help her navigate her complex emotions and questions about sex and drugs. As helpful as her diary and family may be, Alice is desperate for a peer.

“It’s a good thing most people bleed on the inside or this would really be a gory, blood-smeared earth.”

Alice has this thought soon after her grandfather’s stroke, indicating how she’s beginning to think about the emotional well-being of others. As she develops into a more mature, empathetic person, her thoughts simultaneously devolve into dark and gory imaginings, setting an ominous tone for the novel’s rising action.

“Precious, strong Gran, even during the long, long, long, long, long funeral she didn’t cry. She just sat there with her head bowed.”

Alice frequently uses repetition to highlight how she feels about things. She admires her grandmother’s emotional strength, though she thoroughly considers how heartbroken she must feel. Alice’s demonstration of outward concern for others is a change in her character. She grows into a more considerate young woman as the novel nears its climax.

“This morning I looked out the window and saw new green popping through the soil and I started crying uncontrollably again.”

Alice has a hard time accepting the continuation of life after a loved one’s death. She dislikes how the world carries on without Gramps. In a moment of foreshadowing, Alice feels fearful of the world carrying on without her.

“He said the whole family is behind me. But what good does that do when the whole world is against me? It’s like Gramps’ dying. Everybody feels really terrible about it, but nobody can do anything, including me!”

Alice dreads unwanted change and uncontrollable circumstances. She lives in fear of school bullies pushing her back toward drugs, and she feels that this outcome is as inevitable as her grandfather’s death. Even though Alice’s family supports her, she thinks her life is entirely out of control.

“On the way home, Mom commented about my being so quiet. Then she asked me why I didn’t get nice Marcie Green to fix me up every now and then. Nice Marcie Green, ha! Maybe I am losing my mind. Maybe these things really aren’t happening.”

Alice’s mom assumes that well-groomed, modestly dressed girls will make safe, desirable friends for Alice; her lack of understanding frustrates Alice while highlighting the generational divide between mother and daughter. While Alice can more accurately divide her school acquaintances into “square” and “groovy” categories, she resists judging kids for their appearance, actions, and association with certain social groups.

“He’s also a very spiritual kind of person, not really religious but spiritual, and he feels very deeply. I think most kids in our generation do. Even on drug trips, many kids think they see God or that they are communing with heavenly things.”

Alice and Joel discuss their religious beliefs, highlighting the spiritual ideology common in 1970s counterculture. Alice admires Joel for his more modern way of thinking. While Alice admits that psychedelic drugs enhance spiritual ideas, she recognizes her generation’s way of thinking freely as legitimate.

“Gramps was there to help me, but his body was dripping with blazing multicolored worms and maggots which fell on the floor behind him.”

Worms and maggots symbolize Alice’s resistance to unwanted change. Having been drugged against her will, Alice feels a loss of control over her body. She hallucinates maggots and worms because she dislikes the idea of the creatures on her body after she dies, unable to remove them as they eat her flesh. Alice uses visually descriptive imagery to describe the maggots and worms, adding to her story’s frightening, unsettling elements.

“Mother and Dad believe that somebody tripped me! They do, they do! They believe me!”

Illustrating The Significance of Family Support to Kids and Teens as a theme, Alice experiences euphoria in knowing that her parents trust her and will back her story. Repetition emphasizes her heightened sense of joy and appreciation.

“I wanted to ask God to help me but I could utter only words, dark, useless words which fell on the floor beside me and rolled off into the corners and underneath the bed.”

Alice’s relationship with God and religion varies throughout the book. She often speaks to God similarly to how she addresses her diary, indicating her faith that God understands her challenges.

“Verbal rantings, useless, groping, unimportant, with no power and no glory. Sometimes I think death is the only way out of this room.”

Alice sets a sinister mood while writing about the psychiatric hospital. Her desperation to flee the institution becomes apparent as her writing turns darker and often incoherent.

“Joel’s letter was great. I was really afraid to read it but now I’m happy that I did. He is the most warm, compassionate, forgiving, loving, most understanding person in the world, and I can’t wait for fall when we can be together again.”

Alice’s relationship with Joel builds around empathy, trust, and respect. For the first time, Alice has a supportive romantic partner who is interested in her well-being. Her previous life experiences prevent her from taking Joel’s considerate demeanor for granted.

“Mother is dashing around the house chipper as a little bird, but I guess that is because she’s HOME, HOME, HOME. Oh what a beautiful, wonderful, divinely lovely word.”

Using simile to describe her mother’s conduct, Alice reiterates how safe and comfortable she feels with her family at home. Again, she uses repetition to strengthen the emphasis on her heightened emotions. Having met other challenged teens, Alice no longer takes her family and home for granted, knowing that many kids have no family or home to which they can return.

“[K]ids who aren’t allowed to make any decisions for themselves never grow up, and kids who have to make all the decisions before they’re ready never grow either. I don’t think I fall into either category.”

Alice thinks about maturity, adulthood, and what it means to grow up. In recognizing all that she learned while striking out on her own, though still adhering to her parent’s guidance, Alice acknowledges that she’s nearing adulthood. This moment of self-recognition marks a conclusion to Alice’s coming-of-age journey.

“I know it’s going to be all right because I have Joel and my new super straight friends and they’ll help me. Besides I’m much stronger than I used to be. I know I am.”

Compared to the novel’s exposition, Alice demonstrates a significant change in her self-worth and self-awareness. Finally experiencing confidence and resolve, Alice’s death shortly after this diary entry proves all the more mysterious.