Alice in the Mirror Image
The Identity Crisis of Alice in the Mirror Image
In the story “Mirror Image” by Lena Coakley, Alice has been in accident which to survive they were only able to save her by performing a brain transplant. She finds herself in the middle of an identity crisis when the doctor was required to exchange her body for someone else’s body. This body had belonged to a girl named Gail. Due to the change in body, she finds herself curious about her new body. Also she is quite sensitive about when is comes to her new body she takes the changes she has gone through quite personally. Alice is also quite unsure when it comes to her new body, and she is has a hard time taking in the changes that she has gone through such at wondering if her soul is really hers. When she recovered and was able to go back home, and she was interested in reading her twin sister Jenny’s diary. Jenny wasn’t comfortable with her reading her diary, but she still feels like there is a stranger in her home. Alice explores her new body in a different way and compares it to her old one: “I feel like I could do anything in this body. Hey, did I show you, I can almost touch my foot to the back of my head” (Coakley 13). The significance of this quote shows her curiosity about her new body and the way she explores how different her new body is and the new things that she is able to do compared to the one she was born with. Along with curiosity, Alice also shows signs sensitivity. The reader comes to realize this when Alice was in the hospital because at first she struggles greatly on recovering her basic cognitive and motor skills:
At first the world was nothing but a mush of dark images, disconnected voices and prickly feelings all over her skin. If someone touched her arm she wasn’t sure from which part of her body the sensation came. Colours seemed different. People’s voices were pitched at a tone higher. When she tried to speak she bit her tongue, which seemed enormous in her mouth and tasted
In the story “Mirror Image” by Lena Coakley, Alice has been in accident which to survive they were only able to save her by performing a brain transplant. She finds herself in the middle of an identity crisis when the doctor was required to exchange her body for someone else’s body. This body had belonged to a girl named Gail. Due to the change in body, she finds herself curious about her new body. Also she is quite sensitive about when is comes to her new body she takes the changes she has gone through quite personally. Alice is also quite unsure when it comes to her new body, and she is has a hard time taking in the changes that she has gone through such at wondering if her soul is really hers. When she recovered and was able to go back home, and she was interested in reading her twin sister Jenny’s diary. Jenny wasn’t comfortable with her reading her diary, but she still feels like there is a stranger in her home. Alice explores her new body in a different way and compares it to her old one: “I feel like I could do anything in this body. Hey, did I show you, I can almost touch my foot to the back of my head” (Coakley 13). The significance of this quote shows her curiosity about her new body and the way she explores how different her new body is and the new things that she is able to do compared to the one she was born with. Along with curiosity, Alice also shows signs sensitivity. The reader comes to realize this when Alice was in the hospital because at first she struggles greatly on recovering her basic cognitive and motor skills:
At first the world was nothing but a mush of dark images, disconnected voices and prickly feelings all over her skin. If someone touched her arm she wasn’t sure from which part of her body the sensation came. Colours seemed different. People’s voices were pitched at a tone higher. When she tried to speak she bit her tongue, which seemed enormous in her mouth and tasted