Character Analysis: Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice is a journalistic narrative that describes a young girl whose one mistake lead her into a world of battles with self-confidence, stressors, and health. Though the initial trip that caused the series of unfortunate events was not of her own volition, Alice made many irresponsible decisions throughout the novel which altered the course of her life. Though the source of these decisions may have been due to her Many of the decisions she made were a result of her struggles with self-confidence. Right from the beginning of the novel, Alice discusses her thoughts about her weight and her desperation to become skinner. The reader can assume through her dieting and sudden binging that Alice most likely suffers from Bulimia or a similar

However, most of these instances occur due to her poor taste in friends. The first time Alice tried drugs wasn’t really her own fault, but afterwards, she continued associating herself with people also involved in drugs, including Chris and Richie. These types of friends not only didn’t care to stop Alice from making bad decisions, but instead projected their bad habits onto her. In addition, the divided social system in the school was split into the “square” kids and the stoners. As soon as she began drugs, she was automatically considered a member of the latter, making it incredibly difficult for her to try to better herself. The environment Alice was forced to live in was an unnecessary stressor that only made her efforts to fix her habits more

During her very first trip at Jill’s party, Alice was given LSD by pure chance through a game that she didn’t understand until afterwards. If this event hadn’t happened, it’s likely that all of her problems with drugs never would’ve happened, and her suffering would have been avoided. Even after all of her stages of quitting and becoming addicted again, Alice was eventually set on staying clean, which she managed to keep up for several months even with the constant harassment from her peers. The only reason she was sent to the institution was because of her lowly classmate, Jan, forcing acid on Alice without her even knowing. Worst of all, this caused Alice to suffer from extreme torture for weeks until the drugs were completely out of her system, and was all blamed on Alice for a period of time. The course of her life may have been because of Alice constantly succumbing to the pressure, however it is unfair for her to be blamed as completely at