Quest for Identity in the Victorian Era"'Who are you?' said the caterpillar” to Alice (Carroll 60). It was a question she couldn't answer. Why doesn't Alice know what constitutes her being? Humans desire wholeness and a solid identity. Until the time of Darwinism, this void was filled by religious faith. But with the emergence of Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest, the Victorians were reassessing their path to righteousness. Without God as a foundation, what were the rules of life? Peter Bowler argues in Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence that the ancient path to salvation had been damaged by one of Darwin's greatest triumphs - that of being the catalyst for the transformation of Victorian thought (150). Darwin caused man to question his belief system and, as Richard Altick presents in Victorian People and Ideas, revisions of man's destiny and place in the universe had to take shape (232) . “Since no divine agent can be counted on to improve his condition, man must turn to do all he can with his life” (235), thereby helping himself. This idea of ​​mutual aid led the Victorians in search of mens sana in corpore sano, or total health or wholeness, in which "they adopted the well-knit body as the model of spiritual health, l 'harmony of self with external principles of growth'. and order" (Anderson). Through this model, they attempted to identify their purest and most desirable form through drug use and a desire for eternal youth. They also admired Greek characteristics , which was exactly the opposite image that Darwin had placed in the Victorian mind: man was the descendant of a hairy quadruped All these goals were sought ...... middle of article ... ... York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1866. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Berkley Publishing Group, 1994. Gardner, Martin. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2000. Haggard, H. Rider 1887. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. “Man or Beast? Darwin's Lasting Effects.” Florida Gulf Coast University. Unpublished essay, 2001. Mitchell, Sally. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1886. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1891. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc..., 1993.