Alice lives as the daughter to The Robesons, a brother and sister living as husband and wife in a large, old funeral home in an upper-class neighborhood. It is revealed later that The Robesons are NOT Alice's parents; she was stolen from her family as a baby during Mommy Roberson's search for the perfect children and raised by her to be completely cowed and subservient. Alice has survived because she has learned not to 'see, or hear, or speak evil.' Doing so will mean that the offending 'part' is cut out (eyes, ears or tongue) and she be placed beneath the stairs, in the basement, with the rest of the children who broke the rules. Since she knows this, she has cultivated the perfect attitude in order to survive in the household. It seems that she was the only female child stolen, as all of the 'People Under the Stairs' are apparently male.Alice's age is not given, but she could be anywhere from fourteen to eighteen, has long brown hair (which her 'mother' often curls into doll-like ringlets) and is often seen in either pure white, thin cotton gowns or gingham dresses that wouldn't be out of place on a 6-year-old or even an old-fashioned doll.Alice is quiet, polite, skittish, naive and has never seen an African American (or presumably any other person other than her 'parents' or those that come to the house) but doesn't seem at all afraid to attempt to help those trapped in the house with her, so long as it escapes notice of her 'parents.' She has never been outside the Robeson house and seems unaware that what her 'parents' are doing isn't perfectly normal as family dynamics go.Alice is regularly mistreated, such as being frequently beaten by her 'father' with a leather belt when she's been 'a bad girl' (often at her mother's insistence), hung from the chimney in the attic all night long, or being scrubbed with hard brushes in scalding hot water by her 'mother,' and it is suggested that her 'father' has sexually abused her, as well (although this without the knowledge or consent of her 'mother').Alice's only friend (before she meets Fool) is one of the boys that was destined to be her brother, now named Roach, who had his tongue cut out for 'speaking evil' but ended up escaping the confines of the basement and found his way into the maze of passageways between the walls of the house. Alice feeds Roach when she can and uses the passageways throughout the house as easily as he does.As far as we know, Alice has only one hobby; sewing dolls. She sews a small, simple, patchwork doll to hold the souls of each person who dies in her home at the hands of her 'parents.' She apparently does this prematurely, at times, as she sews a doll for Fool before he has actually met his death in the house.Towards the end of the movie, Alice finds out, from Fool, that the Robeson's are not her real parents and she begins to exert some independence from them, refusing to follow Mommy Robeson's brainwashing and eventually stabs her in order to protect herself. Alice is freed from the house at the end of the film, with all the other children, although her future at that time is unknown. Show less «