# The Caterpillar — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland character guide

> The Caterpillar in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** a Caterpillar, The Caterpillar, the Caterpillar

**First appearance:** 0006-v-advice-from-a-caterpillar

## Snapshot

A blue hookah-smoking insect who answers Alice's identity crisis with contemptuous silence and a mushroom that keeps changing her size.

## Who they are

Perched on a mushroom and puffing a hookah, the Caterpillar greets Alice's confusion not with comfort but with the unanswerable question, "Who are you?" He is terse, easily offended, and oddly insistent on finishing what he starts, ordering Alice to recite "You are old, Father William" and then dismissing her effort as wrong from beginning to end. His parting gift of mushroom knowledge is what finally gives Alice some control over her own body, making him the first creature in Wonderland to hand her a tool rather than a riddle.

## In the story

### [IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se/chapters/iv-the-rabbit-sends-in-a-little-bill)

Appears at the very end of the chapter, sitting on a mushroom and smoking a hookah, ignoring Alice.

### [Advice from a Caterpillar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se/chapters/v-advice-from-a-caterpillar)

Questions Alice's identity in a curt and contradictory manner; criticizes her recitation of 'You are old, Father William'; gives her the cryptic advice about the mushroom's sides before crawling away.

### [List of Illustrations](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se/chapters/list-of-illustrations)

Illustrated looking at Alice in silence while on his mushroom.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se/characters/caterpillar
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/alices_adventures_in_wonderland_se/characters