PlotOverview

AbouttheAuthor

Briefly,butusingtheentirespace,discusstheplot,
conflict,andrisingactiontosummarizetheplot.
Useyourownwords.

The protagonist, whose name is never revealed, is

thrown into a spiral of tragedies, one after
another, after her trips with drugs. The first time,
she was drugged with an LSD, but the times
afterwards caused her to sink into a hole that was
nearly impossible to climb out of. Her family is of
no help either. Her parents constantly stress her
out, her siblings always seem to do much better
than her, despite they being younger, and the
protagonist has to be on top of her game in order
to pacify her parents expectations. Eventually, the
protagonist and her friend leave their hometown,
but return after having been raped after being
drugged, and simply not being able to keep on
going by themselves. When she returns, she looks
at herself in disgust; she refuses to recognize that
she did drugs, that she could have been as vile
as she was, and she vows to never do them again.
However, that plan does not last long, as with
another trip, she ends up finding herself in Denver,
where she is scraping by to live, and is with other
junkies. After being being picked up by her father,
she finally does try to get her life back together.
She ends up meeting a college boy, who falls in
love with her. She falls in love with him too, but
this is soon to crumble. Her old so-called friends
drug her, and she ends up going absolutely
insane, to the point where her whole body is
barely recognizable. She is placed in an insanity
ward for some time, but is released. At this point,
she is completely done with drugs. She starts to
turn her life around, slowly but surely. She starts
hanging around with the square kids, who have
a better influence on her, her lover still has deep
emotions for her, and she is picking up the pieces
of her old self again. However, three weeks after

Includeimportantinformationabouttheauthor.You
maywanttoincludewhatinspiredthem,other
workstheyhavewritten,significantlifeevents,what
timeperiodheorshewrotein,andhowthetime
periodinfluencedthewriting.

The story itself does not have a direct author;

however the publisher, Beatrice Sparks, is
speculated to be the author. In the story, it states
that the author is based on the diary of an actual
teenage junkie, but names have been changed to
protect the privacy of the people inside the story.
There are other diaries of other teenage users,
who have similar editors and publishers. Many
believe that if Sparks is the author, she wrote this
to intimidate teens and children to stay away from
drugs, based on evidence people have found over
the years. However, the author of
Go Ask Alice

remains Anonymous.

NovelNotes

GoAskAlice

Anonymous

Xavier Castaneda

9/24/15

EssentialQuotes

Addtwoquotesthatcapturetheessenceofthe
novel.Besuretocitethequotationsproperly.

HistoricalContext

Includeinformationonthetimeperiod,social,
economical,cultural,andothersignificant
influencesthatcharacterizethisnovel.

The time period

Go Ask Alice
was written was in
the 1970s, which was the time of the Vietnam
war, and also a time that influenced sex and
drugs. In this period, drugs were much easier to

Its a good thing people bleed

on the inside or this would be a
gory, blood-smeared earth,
(Anonymous 134).
I used to think that I was the
only one who felt things, but I
really am only one infinitely
small part of an aching
humanity (134).

she stops writing her diary, she dies because of an

overdose. No one can determine if it was
premeditated or self-inflicted.

get ahold of, as well as birth control, which shows

how much a teen like the protagonist in
Go Ask
Alice
can be influenced by. She makes no
mention of the music of that time; however, she
does go by some of the hippie stereotypes, like
the long, straight hair, and the slang such as
Dig. She also experiments with several types of
drugs, such as marijuana and LSDs, which is
what started her on drugs to begin with.

AddWorkCitedHere:
http://www.bustle.com/articles/29829goaskalicei
sstillawashincontroversy43yearsafterpublicati
on

CharacterAnalysis

Identifyeachmajorcharacterinthenovel.
Describethemostimporttraitsthatcharacterize
thisperson.(
S
peech,
T
houghts,
E
ffectsonother,
A
ction,
L
ooks)

Overall,therearenosignificantcharacterstothe
storyasidefromtheprotagonistherself.

Speech: The protagonist is the narrator of the

story, therefore she speaks throughout it all. She
writes in her diary her downfall from her once
not-so-bliss life, but acknowledges everyone else
differently. She does not confide in everyone as
much as she confides to her diary.

Thoughts: Her thoughts alone are shown in her

diary, but her mind is a beast in its own way. Its
as if she has an alter ego, which goes and does
all the stuff she would never do normally.
Actions: She uses many times throughout the
story, but also runs away from home times as
well. Encountering many people, most that did
not benefit her, she is used many times, as if she
is merely a means to an end.

Themes

Identifyandanalyzesomeofthesignificantthemes
inthenovel.

Addiction is perhaps one of the most significant

themes in
Go Ask Alice
, due to the fact that the
protagonist refuses to stop until her life has been
delved in far too deep into the chaos of it all. Like
so many others, she learns the hard way that
addiction does not only affect her, it affects
everyone and everything in her life, and turns
everyday into a struggle to resist the temptations.
She learns that her actions have consequences, a
ripple like a drop into a pond, and that her past
will not stay in the past.

Another significant theme that appears is being

alone. The protagonist encounters that the people
she uses with do not care for her well-being; they
appear for their own self interests, and possibly to
harm others, as seen by the people who got her
hooked to the demented hell she was thrown into.
One thing that for sure ties it all together is her
dealing with it alone.She cannot tell family, for she
believes it will only make it worse. Her friends do
not want anything to do with her, and her junkie
friends care only for themselves.

MotifsandSymbols

Identifyandinterpretsomeofthemajormotifsand
symbolsinthenovel.

Diary
: To the protagonist, her diary is

the only thing she truly trusts her soul

with, as she writes about everyone and
everything in her diary. To her, it is her
closest friend, one where she confide
anything and everything to.

Alice:
Inthestory,aliceismerely
anothergirlwithadrugaddictionthat
theprotagonistmeets.However,itcould
alsosymbolizetheprotagonistata
changingpoint,hertalkingtoherself.
Alicecouldbeherotherhalf,heralter
ego.Shecomestotermswithbothsides
ofherself,inthiscase,andrealizesshe
doesnotthatkindoflifestyleanymore.