What question does the Caterpillar repeatedly ask Alice in Wonderland?

The Caterpillar repeatedly asks Alice, “Who are you?” in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The question appears during Alice’s encounter with the hookah-smoking Caterpillar in Chapter V, “Advice from a Caterpillar.” Rather than offering a straightforward answer, he challenges Alice’s uncertainty about her identity after the strange transformations she has experienced in Wonderland. His question is brief, repeated, and deliberately unsettling.

The Caterpillar is usually depicted as blue and seated on a mushroom, though John Tenniel’s original illustration creates an ambiguous figure whose face can also resemble a human nose and chin. Alice is initially irritated by his curt manner, but their conversation becomes important: the mushroom he guards can change her size, helping her control the physical problem that has troubled her throughout the story.

Readers sometimes remember the Caterpillar’s line from later film adaptations, where it may be stretched into the breathy “Whooo are you?” The wording varies slightly in performance, but “Who are you?” is the canonical question in the story.