Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

At the mention of the name Alice, one tends to usually think of the children’s stories by Lewis Carroll. Namely, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are two classic works of children’s literature that for over a century have been read by children and adults alike. These two stories tell the tale of a young girl named Alice who finds herself in peculiar surroundings, where she encounters many different and unusual characters. Although Alice is at the centre of both stories, each tale is uniquely different in its purpose, characters and style.

Is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as absurd and nonsensical as it seems to be—without any traces of morals hiding underneath the bizarre shaped tea cups and crooked smiles? Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by an English author in 1865 under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, contains obscurities that leave people uncertain due to the nonsense. The novel holds many obscurities, such as a disappearing Cheshire Cat, a personified rabbit, and a caterpillar who smokes from a hookah. These characters hold a common feature of madness, yet the nonsense of this novel relates to the nonsense of Lowell High School, a public school that piles bricks of pressure on their students leading them to madness. Although, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland contains a series of puzzles that seem unsolvable, it symbolizes a strong foundation that helps Lowell High School ninth graders gain knowledge about surviving the competitive school.

In particular, Alice’s fluctuating size and “opening out like” (Carroll 11) a telescope parallel with a child’s seemingly spontaneous growth spurts, which occur frequently and most noticeably during pre-adolescent and adolescent years. In fact, Alice Liddell, the inspiration for the original tale, was ten when Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Dodgson) first told the tale (Vallone 245). In addition, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as tale about the adventures of seven year-old Alice Liddell (Vallone 245). In reality, most children like Alice Liddell grow, but in Wonderland, Alice changed drastically and symbolically. Physically Alice’s growth correlates in many instances with her behavior. For instance, prior to drinking the mysterious liquid, Alice ponders on the substance’s toxicity, however, she fails to consider possible outcomes while forgetting the golden key. Consequently, Alice grew smaller as her behavior was incongruous to a practical and experienced adult. In contrast prior to consuming the cookie, Alice muses “‘if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door so either way I’ll get into the garden’” (Carroll 9). Hence, Alice exemplifies problem

In 1862, floating upon the river Isis, Charles Dodgson narrated for Alice Liddell and a few others in company his original tale of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Gliding along underneath the blue sky, Dodgson wove his words into one of the most classic children stories of all time. Thesis: Although Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland may have only begun as a children’s story, many adults have sought to discover the “true meaning” of the novel. Curiosity has led to years of searching and interpretation of the origins of Carroll’s novels, and the symbols inside, developing into theories ranging from practical to nearly impossible, eventually evolving into their own stories in the film industry.

What if the story of Wonderland that we all know and love was a lie? What if Alice’s adventures were twisted by the mind of Lewis Carroll? The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor introduces us to this world where true story of Wonderland and Alyss is revealed. Hello, I am Mia and these are my colleagues

These emotional spaces in Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There can be seen through another lens as well. While Alice, the book’s heroine, metaphorically grows into adulthood as she moves her way across the fictional chessboard, the author remains static; Carroll watches wistfully as the emotional space between himself and

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, more commonly known as Lewis Carroll, rose to fame from the birth of Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass. While he became a celebrated author among children and adults alike, conspiracies arose concerning his life outside the glamorized, innocent light from which the Victorian masses viewed him. Many modern critics have called into question Dodgson’s relationships with young girls, specifically holding a microscope under his interactions with Alice Liddell, the girl that inspired his famous tale. Despite the mix of reckless and groundless claims, Dodgson’s relationship with little girls never went beyond the confines of friendship.

Lewis Carroll Lewis Carroll, a man who is most remembered for his ability to explain the simple mind of a child in wondrous ways. Lewis Carroll, pen name of Charles L. Dodgson, was born January 27, 1832, and died of illness January 14, 1898 (Biography 1). Within his sixty-six years on this Earth, he had managed to sway the hearts of both the young and old, leaving a legacy behind. Thus being, he has become one of the most appreciated writers in history thanks to his literary masterpiece, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s story, still a work in progress 150 years later, is a shapeshifting tale about how we see childhood (Bethune 1).

“Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange. -Inception” (50 Dream Quotes). Carroll writes Through the Looking Glass based off of the dream concept. This novel is strange compared to most because of the dream Alice has. In the beginning, Alice is playing with her kittens. As she drifts off to sleep, Alice goes through the mirror and enters Looking Glass World. While there, Alice joins a chess game as a pawn. She continues across the board and meets all sorts of characters who help Alice in her journey to become Queen. She meets the Red Queen, White Queen, Humpty Dumpty, and White Knight in different squares throughout the game. When she reaches the honor of Queen, Alice is

The Victorian Era was a time where not many ethical ideals and moral standards were sustained. Yet, it is also an Era in which modern society uses to make advancements in both humanity, and philosophy. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, was a novelist who wrote pass his time. He wrote further in the future of the "common" Victorian Era. The ideology he presents in Alice in Wonderland is conducive to an individual attempting to bring attention to the deteriorating mental health and humane conditions in Victorian-Era England. Alice is representative of a normal child in everyday-Victorian England. This child, Alice, has not been exposed to the likes of diversity, but instead solidarity. The type of solidarity that is all too prevalent throughout the Victorian Era, primarily in the upbringing of children during this time. Children in Victorian Era England were taught to be followers of the norms already established by adults, and to ask no questions. These types of parameters placed restraints on children growing-up during this time; not only physical restraints, but also mental restraints, such as their imaginations'. Carroll was no stranger to this ideal or the likes of this concept; In fact, he constructed Alice in The Wonderland with this in mind, to defy the imaginative 'norm' of Victorian-Era England. He created a character that dreamt of falling down a rabbit hole into another universe. This dream or imagination becomes so vivid in his novel that the

   Lewis Carroll's Wonderland is a queer little universe where a not so ordinary girl is faced with the contradicting nature of the fantastic creatures who live there. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a child's struggle to survive in the condescending world of adults. The conflict between child and adult gives direction to Alice's adventures and controls all the outstanding features of the work- Alice's character, her relationship with other characters, and the dialogue. " Alice in Wonderland is on one hand so nonsensical that children sometimes feel ashamed to have been interested in anything so silly (Masslich 107)."

'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll seems a first a simple fairy tale, but in fact its meaning is a lot more profound. This novel criticizes the way children were brought up during the Victorian era. Carroll presents the readers with the complications these offspring must endure in order to develop their own personalities/egos, as they become adults. For Alice, Wonderland appears to be the perfect place to start this learning adventure. A way to understand her story is by compering it to the world as if being upside-down. Nothing in Wonderland seems to be they way it’s supposed to. The first lesson, Alice must learn in this peculiar journey through Wonderland is to achieve separation from the world around her and to stop identifying herself through others, in order to discover who she

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a children’s book written by Lewis Carroll. The focus of

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll endures as one of the most iconic children 's books of all time. It remains one of the most ambiguous texts to decipher as Alice 's adventures in Wonderland have created endless critical debate as to whether we can deduce any true literary meaning, or moral implication from her journey down the rabbit hole. Alice 's station as a seven year old Victorian child creates an interesting construct within the novel as she attempts to navigate this magical parallel plain, yet retain her Victorian sensibilities and learn from experience as she encounters new creatures and life lessons. Therefore, this essay will focus on the debate as to whether Alice is the imaginatively playful child envisaged by the Romantics, or a Victorian child whose imagination has been stunted by her education and upbringing.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are both widely thought to be books filled of nonsense by adults because adults search for meaning in the wrong places. People are taught from a young age to analyze books in a “traditional” way, which is identifying the five stages of plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution) and to look at the story one part at a time, slowly analyzing the whole book. This method becomes ingrained in their minds and they do it subconsciously. This frame of thought causes most adults to be unable to see the true meaning of Lewis Carroll’s two books, but at the same time helps adults obtain more than originally intended: “Although we can never hope to explain fully what these books mean or how they have secured their high place in the world’s literature, our efforts in this regard can yield many important insights about them and about their meanings for us,” (Rackin, 18). Adults are also taught there is always main plot that slowly builds towards the end, revealing a central theme. But in these books there is no main plot and Carroll uses the central theme to go back and give meaning to the rest of the events in the books. The themes of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are conveyed through the structure of the book, rather than the theme. The theme must also be read with the perspective with that of a child rather than an adult to fully understand these books.