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Like many of the other creatures that populate Wonderland, the Caterpillar is absurd in terms of both physical appearance and speech pattern. Alice discovers it sitting atop a large mushroom, and with its strange blue color and out-of-place hookah, it takes her by surprise. The anthropomorphic Caterpillar also has a rather stuck-up attitude, talking down to Alice in a way that makes her feel insecure. Introducing this effect, however, is the Caterpillar’s primary function in the novel. Its imposing question of “Who are you?” challenges Alice to evaluate who she truly is, suggesting that she has not yet discovered her most authentic self. Instead, Carroll implies that, until she arrived in Wonderland, Alice was merely performing the role that her Victorian society expected of her. She may struggle to articulate her thoughts at this moment in the novel, but the fact that she is engaging with the Caterpillar at all hints at the beginnings of her personal development.
As a creature destined to experience its own metamorphosis, the Caterpillar seems to have an innate understanding of what Alice is going through and ultimately offers her some insight into how she can begin finding herself. It quietly remarks that eating from one side of the mushroom will make her grow while the other side will make her shrink, leaving Alice to figure out the best course of action. These vague instructions reflect the Caterpillar’s slow and indirect way of speaking, and Carroll uses this characteristic as another means of reinforcing the challenge it poses to Alice. By languidly posing questions and refusing to give up information easily, the Caterpillar forces her to stop and face her situation head on. She must become more self-reliant in order to navigate a world as nonsensical as Wonderland, and this peculiar scene with the Caterpillar sets her up to do so.
