Symbolism of American McGee's Alice, Part Two

Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to American McGee’s Alice, released in 2011, continuing the story of Alice Liddell’s dark journey back down the rabbit hole and through a shattered looking glass. The game balances Alice venturing through the realms of Victorian London and Wonderland, uncovering a murder mystery and a much dark, grimmer reality behind the house fire that killed her family. The game has many themes related to Alice’s mindset, but also the world and culture around her during one of the most progressive but miserable of times for British citizens.

Please note this essay contains content of a graphic nature in relation to this video game’s plot. Reader discretion is advised.

The game takes place a year after the first. Alice Liddell lost her family to a housefire, and fell into a ten-year long catatonic state from the trauma. In Rutledge Asylum, Alice eventually stirred, going on a battle through her subconscious to liberate Wonderland from the Queen of Hearts’ corruption, overcoming her madness and guilt. Whilst the first game ended on a high note, it turns out Alice had a relapse. Now downtrodden and teetering on the edge of sanity, Alice stays in a London orphanage. She has daily sessions with Dr. Angus Bumby, a child therapist who uses hypnosis to help deal with traumatic memories.

Alice comes to the conclusion that the house fire wasn’t an accident, and may have been orchestrated to cover up another crime. Meanwhile, Wonderland faces existential destruction by the Infernal Train, a hellish locomotive built by the March Hare and the Dormouse. The train churns out the Ruin, monstrous, oily, doll-faced abominations, corrupting Wonderland.

Through fragmented memories and prodding from the characters in her mind, Alice realises Dr. Bumby is the mastermind behind the fire, in a long-winded crime spree of murder, rape, and child abuse. As a young man, Bumby was infatuated with Alice’s sister Lizzie, but wasn’t subtle in what he wanted. Bumby stalked Lizzie, and tried using his hypnotherapy sessions with her to get away with assaulting her. He was rejected, prompting Dr. Bumby to break into Alice’s house, rape Lizzie, lock her in her room using a key given to him by Alice’s father for his therapy sessions, and then burnt the house down to cover up his crimes. Alice survived, actually seeing Bumby in her house and then outside, but the memory was forgotten.

We later learn that Dr. Bumby began pimping orphaned children, erasing their memories, and turning them into prostitutes, claiming he is simply serving “all appetites” in the Industrial Era-London. Yeah, this is a pretty dark, disturbing video game. Alice sensed something was wrong, though she was too wrapped in her own trauma to notice. As such, the Infernal Train was created by weakened parts of her mind and set loose through Alice’s sessions with Dr. Bumby. It could be speculated that a part of Alice’s psyche wanted her traumatic memories to be removed, allowing Dr. Bumby to start erasing her mind. But, Alice eventually realises something is wrong and begins a journey through Wonderland and London to uncover the truth.

The game’s story begins with the rather nasty death of the White Rabbit, who warns Alice that something is amiss, specifically that she has dormant memories regarding the fire, but that she has noticed the prostitution of her fellow orphans. Alice wanders the streets of London, stalked by spectres of the Jabberwock, the personification of her guilt. She winds up back in Wonderland where her journey truly begins.

 

Her first stop is the Vale of Tears, a lingering, lush vestige of her old, innocent Wonderland, filled with giant toys, weird critters, and a giant crying statue of Alice – a subtle nod that her subconscious knows the truth and is sobbing over her own ignorance. The Cheshire Cat, Alice’s conscience, guides her to the Vorpal Blade, left in the bones of the dead Jabberwock, symbolising how Alice overcame her guilt.

This is where we meet both the Insane Children and the Ruin, two sides of the same coin. The Insane Children represent the orphans and how they are suffering at Dr. Bumby’s hands. The children are put through the Infernal Train, coming out as the Ruin. By-products of the train, the Ruin are oily, mechanical, doll-faced monsters, in constant pain, and stripped of their humanity, representing the pimped children. They are “fed” to London, the Infernal Train resembling a neverending, hellish convoy of gothic city buildings. The Insane Children hide away, leaving invisible messages for Alice to find.

There are ongoing themes of abuse throughout Wonderland that hint at what Dr. Bumby has been doing to the children; in the dodos in the Hatter’s Domain, plugged into machinery to never stop working, the paper ants in the Oriental Grove who are murdered by wasps, and the oysters/fish in the Deluded Depths, who are eaten by the Walrus.

Alice reaches the Mad Hatter’s domain, now ruled by the March Hare and Dormouse, who have turned the place into an industrial factory to build the Infernal Train. This whole levels represents the dark side of the Industrial Revolution, with an army of Dodos being used as a workmen without any care for their welfare. The March Hare and Dormouse represent the parts of Alice’s mind influenced by Dr. Bumby to erase her memories. The Mad Hatter, Alice’s self-preservation, has been taken apart and scattered around the factory to let Alice’s mind be infiltrated by Dr. Bumby’s influence. Alice repairs him to start taking back control of her subconscious. Though Alice beats the March Hare and Dormouse, the Infernal Train is let loose.

The next portion of Alice’s journey occurs in the frozen sea of Tundraland, created when Alice is knocked “out cold” by a pimp named Jack Splatter. Though beautiful, it is also cold and dangerous, with Splatter symbolising a frozen sun, a cold, unfeeling, influential presence. Alice finds the Mock Turtle, formerly in charge of the Looking Glass Railway, now captain of the HMS Gryphon. They flee underwater, but sharks wreck the ship. The Mock Turtle still represents Alice’s sorrow, but also her empathy, scolding Alice for ignoring the sufferings of others around her.

The Deluded Depths is an underwater community built by the Carpenter, but is truly a place of depravity and madness, literally symbolising Alice’s descent into madness. The Walrus and the Carpenter own a theatre and put on macabre shows, referencing freakshows and how the handicapped were treated in the Victoria era. The Walrus represents the brutality behind these shows, the voyeurism of Victorian-era society, and again, alluding to the cruelty of the prostitution going on behind Alice’s back.

The Carpenter is a theatrical, easily distracted fool with a flair for dramatics, but is shrewd and devious. He sends Alice on a wild goose chase to assemble the pieces for his upcoming play, though this is a distraction so he and the Walrus can gorge themselves silly on fish through gruesome means. Alice soon realises she has been tricked, learning the devious duo sank ships and killed sailors to build the Deluded Depths. The Carpenter symbolises Alice’s ignorance, more interested in his show and theatrics, using the illusion of the stage to distract Alice. However, when Alice confronts the Carpenter, she learns he is more of a well-intentioned figure.

He sends her on the wild goose chase, hoping to deter her curiosity but to also avoid drawing in the Infernal Train by murdering fish to go along with the destructive effects on Alice’s mind. He created the Deluded Depths to save a part of her mind, appeasing the Walrus’ gluttony and trying to look like he was involved in the destruction of Alice’s mind to evade the notice of the train. The Carpenter pushes Alice to safety when the train arrives, freeing her from her ignorance, opening her mind to the idea that she has been deceived and someone is trying to erase her memories.

Alice speaks with her family solicitor, Mr. Radcliffe, retrieving her toy rabbit. She returns to the Vale of Tears, now an apocalyptic wasteland destroyed by the train. She follows the voice of the Caterpillar, her personified logic, wisdom, and common sense. She follows it to a large insect mount, shrinking down to scale it to find the dormant Caterpillar. The Oriental Grove is based on Radcliffe’s taste for all things oriental, where the Caterpillar is worshipped as a god by the victimised ants.

Alice finds the Caterpillar in a cocoon. He advises her to find the Queen of Hearts, who hides the secret truth related to the fire. He then hatches out of the cocoon, now a butterfly. Butterflies are a recurring motif in the game, using in a specific gameplay move that lets Alice move around quickly, and she bursts into a flock of them when she dies in-game. Butterflies can signify transformation, change, life, and hope. The Caterpillar becoming a butterfly symbolises Alice changing herself, opening her eyes to the bigger world around her.

Our journey takes us to Queensland, the former seat of the Queen of Hearts, and the centre of Alice’s mind. Alice’s mind is crumbling and the Queen’s influence as the centre of the mind is dying. Alice is stalked by the Executioner, a scythe-wielding guard who is unstoppable and invulnerable to harm. He symbolises Alice’s rage and a desire for death, or to be punished. However, Alice finds an “Eat Me” cake and grows to the size of a giant, symbolising her newfound confidence and empowerment, and squishes the Executioner beneath her foot.

The Queen of Hearts hides at the “heart” of her crumbling empire, formerly the source of Alice’s madness and rage, but now serves another purpose, hiding her childhood memories of the fire. She is the dark side of Alice’s mind; the perfect place to hide subconscious knowledge. The Queen resembles either a young Alice, or her sister Lizzie, both being the first victims of Dr. Bumby. Lizzie was raped by Dr. Bumby and then locked in her room to die, though it is possible she was murdered beforehand. The Queen is locked away, angry that Alice allowed Dr. Bumby’s alter ego, the Dollmaker, to succeed her in the role of Alice’s mirror image.

When Alice expresses her relief of being rid of the Queen, the latter responds by devouring Alice, drawing her into what I assume is an illusionary scenario where Alice has had a relapse and returned to Rutledge Asylum, but is beyond help. Tweedledum and Tweedledee appear, performing medieval practices on Alice to try and cure her mind (i.e. using leeches, drilling into the brain, etc.) The likely symbolise Alice’s memories of her time in Rutledge, and her fear of being tormented again, but also of her own current torment at the hands of Dr. Bumby. She also meets visions of other characters, including Dr. Bumby, who pretty much states he has been manipulating Alice, opening the girl to realising what has happened.

Alice escapes her hallucination, eventually winding up in the Dollhouse, a place likely created by the Dollmaker, symbolising the true nature of his orphanage. It looks innocent enough, with giant dollhouses filled with toys, fences made of giant pencils, and huge dolls everywhere. However, it is actual quite dreadful. The houses contain furniture made from doll parts, and the giant dolls have entrances to other parts of the land through their mouths or where their private parts would be, revealing the horrific abuse behind the orphanage’s doors.

Within the depths of the Dollhouse, Alice finds the nightmarish workshop of the Dollmaker, who is how she personifies Dr. Bumby’s cruelty and true self – a manipulative, unfeeling, lecherous monster, with enormous grasping hands like those of a puppeteer, and bleeding oil from his eyes, representing the constant misery he consumes others in. We see the Dollmaker capturing the Insane Children, turning them into mindless dolls, and feeding them to the Infernal Train, which spits them out as the Ruin, symbolising the cycle of prostitution the children go through.

 

Alice now knows most of the secrets her Wonderland friends were trying to guide her too. The Dollmaker transforms Alice into a doll, but she is marked with the Greek symbol of Omega, which is associated with great power. This symbolises Alice’s true power over her own mind, allowing her to break free from her doll form.

In the real world, Alice confronts Dr. Bumby, who is waiting in a train station for his next patient. He proudly boasts of his crimes, keeping the key to Lizzie’s bedroom a momentum of his first victim. In Wonderland, Alice boards the Infernal Train, encountering her friends along the way, who scold her for her ignorance, but now personify different parts of her guilt.

The Mad Hatter blames Alice for not realising that Dr. Bumby was trying to erase her memories. This further points to the Hatter being Alice’s self-preservation, which, if not in pieces, would have known something was wrong (“I’d like to forget what you did. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”) The Caterpillar instils Alice’s guilt for not recognising the suffering of the orphans, and how bystanders, who do nothing to intervene in a crime, can be just as guilty as the culprits. Finally, the Queen of Hearts reveals to Alice that Lizzie was raped, which young Alice didn’t understand was going on at the time of the fire. Alice then confronts the Dollmaker in the train’s engine, and is able to destroy him. The engine also features the Omega symbol again, representing the battle for dominance within Alice’s mind.

In the real world, Dr. Bumby dismisses Alice as a madwoman with little evidence to vilify him. Alice goes to leave, but steals back her sister’s key. She then turns around, and from Dr. Bumby’s point of view, we see Alice has become her idealised Wonderland self. This could be interpreted as Dr. Bumby either going mad, or “seeing” Alice’s true self, overcoming his control to defy him. Alice then pushes Dr. Bumby onto the tracks and he is killed by a timely, karmic train.

In the closing scene, Alice steps out of the train station and finds herself in a strange fusion of London and Wonderland, referred to as “Londerland”. This implies her mind is, for now, at rest, and she can live both in reality and her dream world. The Cheshire Cat gives a closing speech, commenting that Alice has overcome her pain, learning to endure and face it, rather than conveniently forget it. As he puts it, “Wonderland is safe…for now.”

A third game called Alice: Otherlands was meant to be released, but was reworked into a couple of short animated films, where Alice crosses paths with famous 19^th century historical figures. It is revealed that Londerland is a dreamscape that has granted Alice a superpower of some kind that lets her traverse the subconscious of other people…somehow. I suppose this is meant to show that Alice has overcome her trauma and madness, forming a type of lucidity.

Nowadays, American McGee is using Patreon to plan out a prequel called Alice Asylum, featuring a traumatised young Alice dealing with the fallout of her family’s death, getting to a point where her mind will be ready to confront her madness.

Symbolism of American McGee's Alice, Part One

American McGee’s Alice is a 2000 video game, created by American McGee, popular for its dark, creepy storyline, and fantastic visuals used to create a nightmarish version of Wonderland. Exploring the fractured subconscious mind of Alice Liddell, the game presents a darker, twisted version of Alice’s world, as goes on a journey to overcome her fears, guilt, and madness. This particular version of Alice in Wonderland has gained quite the following, and one of the best “grimmifications” of iconic fairy tale/children’s books. The game gained a sequel, Alice: Madness Returns in 2011, a small collection of short animated films, Alice Otherlands, and may gain a prequel called Alice Asylum, if things go well and interest is high.

  

In the game, Alice Liddell is thrown into a trauma-induced comatose state when her family die in a house fire. We see in the opening scene that Alice’s cat Dinah may have caused the fire, though this is later retconned in the second game. Alice is institutionalised in Rutledge Asylum, where she remains for ten years in her unresponsive state. She is cared for by her psychiatrist Dr. Wilson, the original game released with a fictional case file written by Wilson. Events and characters in the asylum imprint upon Alice’s psyche.

A nurse reunites Alice with her lost toy rabbit, stirring Alice’s mind, leading her subconscious self to appear within a ruined Wonderland, ruled by the tyrannical, monstrous Queen of Hearts. Alice’s journey involves her acknowledging and overcoming her self-imposed survivor’s guilt and belief she is responsible for the fire.

Let’s talk about Alice herself before we follow her down the rabbit hole. Her subconscious self resembles her physical appearance, sporting her iconic blue dress and white pinafore. Her pockets have astrological symbols on them – the symbol of Jupiter, the Roman king of gods, and Eris, goddess of chaos and strife. Jupiter’s symbol represents Alice’s power and being the true ruler of Wonderland, whilst Eris represents Alice’s madness, and the chaotic nature of Wonderland. She also wears a necklace shaped like the Greek letter Omega, which can relate to great power.

 

Alice’s journey has heavy themes of loss. She collects a number of weapons to kill her enemies, but these tools are actually exaggerated toys, representing her lost childhood, and how she has yet to mature psychologically, thus her toys are now weapons. Her iconic weapon is the Vorpal Blade, a legendary sword that killed the Jabberwock, reimagined as a kitchen knife.

Upon landing in Wonderland, Alice reunites with two of her friends, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat. Both have seen better days, being quite skinny, withered, and creepy. The White Rabbit represents Alice’s toy rabbit, her innocence/childhood, and connects her to her family. He scolds Alice for being late, hinting at how Alice has wanted to wake up from her coma for so long.

The Cheshire Cat serves as Alice’s companion throughout the story, often giving advice through his macabre humour, and knows many secrets that Alice must recognise herself. He likely represents Alice’s conscience or inner self, the voice that she has been unable to hear for so long. This explains why the cat looks so emaciated and bony, and his habit of phasing in and out of existence. Every character in Wonderland appears to have a counterpart in the asylum. In the Cheshire Cat’s case, it is a mangy stray cat Dr. Wilson catches multiple times tending to Alice, hinted to be a surviving Dinah.

An early level in the game involves Alice going to a twisted school to create a “drink me” shrinking potion, representing her lost education and another part of her life gone. Alice travels to the Vale of Tears, once a pool she made by crying, now a large flowing river, her sorrow and grief overflowing. She meets the Mock Turtle, whose shell was stolen by the cannibalistic Duchess. The Turtle represents Alice’s sense of loss, sorrow, and depression. Alice agrees to retrieve the stolen shell, in order to learn the location of the Caterpillar.

After travelling upriver, Alice comes to the Duchess’ house, formerly owned by Bill the Lizard, who is now a cowardly, alcoholic chameleon. His changing shade of colour represents Alice’s changing, unpredictable mind, and a portion of her fears. Alice is sucked into the house and fights the gluttonous, cannibalistic ogre of a Duchess. The Duchess is addicted to black pepper, perhaps symbolising Alice’s own subconscious addiction to remaining on medication and staying in her induced state. The Duchess ends up sneezing so much that her head explodes.

Alice finds the White Rabbit again who escorts her to meet the Caterpillar, who is the revered wiseman and leader of the resistance against the Queen. However, a giant, actually the Mad Hatter, deliberately steps on the White Rabbit. The Hatter, partially representing Alice’s trauma in the asylum, is literally trying to stomp out her stirring mind, keeping her docile. The Rabbit’s death symbolises the loss of Alice’s last connection to her family, and she curses how everyone she loves dies “violent and unnaturally”. All the characters who die in Wonderland perish in such a manner.

We meet the Caterpillar next, who is more straightforward with Alice rather than speaking in riddles as usual. He tells Alice she must defeat the Jabberwock, the Queen’s champion, using a weapon called the Jabberwock’s Eye Staff. Afterward, he sends her to find a large mushroom which will restore her to her full size, and expand her mind’s lucidity. The mushroom is guarded by the Voracious Centipede, an aggressive, warmongering brute who sports a German war helmet. This character serves as another obstacle in her mind, a personified desire to be punished with violence.

The next destination is the Pale Realm, an enormous chessboard where the white and red chess pieces are at war. The revered White Queen is taken prisoner, and beheaded by the Red King using a guillotine. This may be a reference to Marie Antoinette, executed during the Reign of Terror, symbolised as what was wrong with the old regime of 19^th century France. In Alice’s case, the White Queen represents her maternity, femininity, and empowerment. The Red King is one shade of Alice’s guilt, blaming her past actions, and sense of prior self-assertion. Alice believes she was selfish and ignorant as a child, lost in her dreams where she could be a queen. Luckily, Alice is able to overcome the Red King, and by the rules of chess, resurrects the White Queen – once again finding empowerment within her own mind.

Alice then gets knocked out and captured by the Mad Hatter, once an ally, now an enemy. The Hatter now runs a mockery of Rutledge Asylum, where his old friends, and several insane children (who play a larger role in the second game), are tortured and transformed into automatons. The Dormouse in particular remains oblivious to his own suffering, and is constantly drowsy, symbolising Alice's unwillingness to wake up and face her trauma. These torturous methods likely represent Alice’s treatment in the asylum, especially the unpleasant methods of the 19^th century. The state of being turned into automatons symbolises Alice’s fear of being locked in her coma forever, unable to think, move, or feel.

The Hatter is aided by the Tweedles, who represent the cruelty of the asylum’s abusive orderlies. In Dr. Wilson’s casebook, he mentions multiple times that Alice is mistreated by two bungling orderlies, who happen to be brothers, and are related to the asylum’s snobbish superintendent, who is the Hatter’s inspiration.

The Hatter is obsessed with time, stealing the White Rabbit’s pocket watch, which allows him to freeze or slow down time. His laboratory/asylum is shaped like a large domed clock. The Mad Hatter ultimately represents Alice’s fears and self-preservation, terrified of running out of time and dying, or remaining trapped in her comatose state. The Mad Hatter is revealed to be mechanical in nature, representing Alice’s loss of self, unable to escape her trauma in either world. Alice overcomes her fears by defeating the Hatter.

At this point, Alice’s subconscious begins to remember the night of the fire, creating the volcanic Land of Fire and Brimstone. She finds a burnt out replica of her house, where the Jabberwock waits for her. The Jabberwock is bio-mechanical, implied to have been rebuilt by the Mad Hatter, representing Alice’s dominating survivor’s guilt. She has placed this monster in her path to come to terms with, confront, defeat, or give in to the guilt. The Jabberwock is very blunt and damning towards Alice, unforgiving in his words towards her for “letting” her family die. He is trying to convince Alice that it is her fault and to surrender to her trauma. He is a part of Alice that hates herself, and believes she should be punished.

You selfish, misbegotten, and unnatural child! You smelt the smoke, but you were in dream land taking tea with your friends. You couldn't be bothered. Your room was protected and spared, while your family upstairs roasted in incredible and unimaginable horror!

The heroic Gryphon, freed by Alice from the Hatter’s asylum, rescues her and rips out one of the Jabberwock’s eyes, completing the Eye Staff. The Gryphon represents Alice’s courage and willpower, becoming her champion to defeat the Jabberwock. Prior to going into battle, Alice can meet Humpty Dumpty, who gives her the powerful blunderbuss. Though his head is fractured and his wall is ruined, Humpty Dumpty appears rather relaxed, giving Alice the strongest weapon in the game, perhaps a sign of her recovering mind.

Alice leads the army of resistance into Queensland, the hellish domain of the Queen of the Hearts. The Queen’s red, inhuman tentacles stretch across the whole of Wonderland, corrupting Alice’s mind, symbolising her lingering madness. The Queen is at the heart of Alice’s mind, serving as the source or host of her trauma and a majority of her negative emotions. Her tentacles are like the arteries of her heart. 

The Gryphon and the Jabberwock have a skyward battle, battling for dominance of Alice’s mind – guilt versus willpower. Unfortunately, the Jabberwock wins and kills the Gryphon, scoffing at Alice for believing she could overcome her guilt so quickly. However, he is proven wrong when Alice uses newfound willpower to fight back and slay the Jabberwock. While this doesn’t eliminate her trauma and guilt, it allows Alice to banish such desires for self-destruction and punishment from her mind.

Alice and the Cheshire Cat traverse the Queen’s castle before coming to the throne room. Outside, the cat warns Alice that she and the Queen of Hearts cannot both survive in Wonderland, being two parts of the same mind. He isn’t stating that Alice could die, but rather her mind cannot heal if she is at war with herself. The Queen assassinates the Cheshire Cat, banishing Alice’s conscience so she can face her madness alone.

The Queen of Hearts is a nightmarish abomination, a blood red monster made entirely of tentacles, who can levitate and has psychic powers, symbolising her rule over Alice’s mind. But, her mask-like face slides off during the battle, hinting that the Queen is merely a puppet for another entity. Alice defeats the Queen of Hearts, whose body is sucked through a wall, revealing a purely demonic creature within. This is technically still the Queen of Hearts, but actually personifies Alice’s madness. This monster opens her mouth, revealing the Hatter’s face inside, symbolising how Alice is preserving her madness to keep herself suffering. The Hatter then opens his mouth, revealing Alice’s own face – her true traumatised self revealed.

The Queen chastises Alice, warning her that Wonderland “is for grown ups”, and that “self-pitying dreamers” cannot survive, threatening to destroy Alice should she linger. This is effectively Alice’s traumatised mind screaming at her childish, virtuous, idealistic avatar to accept their loss, to give up, and wallow in her madness. The source of her despair, rage, misery, and trauma personified as a huge, fleshy abomination, a Lovecraftian-esque creation of Alice that has built up power over time and one she must overcome.

But, Alice’s journey has been fruitful, and she is able to destroy the Queen of Hearts and overcome her madness. As the Cheshire Cat mentioned, Alice could not survive whilst psychologically at war with herself, which turned out to be a literal statement. The game ends with Wonderland and all of her dead friends being restored, and Alice is seen departing Rutledge Asylum with suitcase and cat in hand, freed from her fractured mind, and her guilt and trauma at least suppressed for now.

Our journey down the rabbit hole isn’t over yet, as seen in the game’s sequel, Alice: Madness Returns...