Representing an Era: Victorian duality in “Alice: Madness Returns”

The Victorian period is known for its duality: for having been both an era of moral and social oppression and that of literary classics dedicated to debauchery, both a place at the heart of the ongoing Industrial Revolution and a period of Romanticism and odes to Nature, both a time of Doctor Jekylls and Mister Hydes. Similarly, the video game Alice: Madness Returns takes duality as one of its core notions.

This Spicy Horse and EA game directed by American McGee is a dark rewriting of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. It is set between 1875 London and a decaying Wonderland representing Alice’s crumbling mind. Both of these settings are used to represent Victorian England and its main features.

The game is therefore pervasive with stereotypical metaphors for the Industrial Revolution such as a nature-destroying train, a steam engine which at times allows Alice to fly and at times burns her, etc. Similarly, the decay of Wonderland is represented by a black thick substance – reminiscent of oil or perhaps coal – slowly invading the landscape.

Moreover, references to other events or movements can be found throughout the game: opium and Chinese ceramics associate the Victorian context to the Opium Wars throughout a chapter of the game called “Oriental grove”; a chapter where Alice has flash-backs of her time spent in “Rutledge Asylum” reminds the player of the famous “Bedlam”; a certain “Jack Splatter” and his violent discussions with prostitutes from Whitechapel throughout the game echo the famous Victorian killer Jack the Ripper.

Most importantly, the game puts forward the notion of psychoanalysis, which Freud first developed in the 19th century. One particularly clear example of that is the so-called “hysteria mode”, used in the game when Alice is particularly weak: it allows her to cause more damage when fighting enemies.

The fact that hysteria should be attributed to Alice should be analyzed in association to one of Freud’s theory that hysteria was caused by sexual violences in childhood. The hysteria mode thus contributes to putting forward the violence female characters are the victims of in the game (Alice and her sister are both victims of sexual assaults) as well as Alice’s unstable mental state.

Furthermore, the hysteria mode raises the question of Alice’s duality. Indeed, every time she uses this mode, she becomes a different character: blood-thirsty and violent, like a modern take on the literary trope of the Victorian double.

Moreover, the game features a Doctor protagonist and his murderous, top hat-wearing alter ego, making the game not only a rewriting of Carroll’s novels, but, to a certain extent, a rewriting of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

This game therefore not only represents, through details and more or less subtle metaphors, (stereo)typical Victorian elements, but it also stages some of the typical features of Victorian literature, such as duality. Thus, Alice: Madness Returns is not only a way to open a door to Victorian studies and to 19th century history but to its literary canon as well, presenting us with a contemporary perception of a historical period. The game is therefore an example of the way video games can be a tool for popularizing academic fields such as history and literature (the saga Assassin’s Creed is another great example of that), as well as a way of enlarging the target audience for literary classics such as Alice.

Bibliography

Alice: Madness Returns, Electronic Arts, 2011.

All images illustrating this article are screenshots – of the game – taken by the author.