Probing Insanity in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Essay

In his analysis of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Richard Kelly describes Wonderland as a nonsensical place where Alice is “treated rudely, bullied, asked questions with no

Generally people with mental issues are cast aside in society. The mentally impaired are immediately labeled as different. Questions on what to do with these people are common. In literature they are seen being locked into a tower room where they are forced to live their days peeling back the yellow wallpaper. This confines the characters to a world where it's just them and their insanity. These characters are present in many different stories. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare's King Lear are two prime examples of characters suffering from mental disabilities and disorders. Although they are not locked in a tower, the mental illnesses are apparent when studying the Mad Hatter, Alice, King

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story of a young girl’s journey down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world where there seems to be no logic. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice experiences a variety of bizarre physical changes, causing her to realize she is not only trying to figure out Wonderland but also trying to determine her own identity. After Alice arrives in Wonderland the narrator states, “For this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 12). This quotation is the first instance that shows Alice is unsure of her identity. The changes in size that take place when she eats or drinks are the physical signs of her loss of identity.

As Alice walks through the enchanted forest full of bright color and fantastical creatures, she pales in comparison to the rest of Wonderland. She seems much more human than the world surrounding her. She is an outcast when seen juxtaposed to the chaotic and irrational world around her, much like Tim Burton when seen next to other more “sane” people. Placing characters in worlds that do not suit them, and that are generally wrong for the character, or so it seems, is a trope that Burton uses many times. But this scene could just as easily be a girl in a locker bay, wearing black instead of the bright hues of the students surrounding her.

You're mad,' and when Alice inquires how he knows she is mad, he responds, “You must be…or you wouldn't have come here” (Carroll). As Alice interacts with the strange land around her, she learns to manipulate her surroundings. If she is mad, as the Cat presumes, Alice would inherently belong and be a part of the environment in which she finds herself. Throughout the novel, Alice is able to manage her size, arm herself with authority against the Red Queen and be a stronger, more well-developed individual as she comes closer to the conclusion of the story and embracing adulthood (Carroll; Ross 56). “[Alice’s] is a reality where women author their own tales, work out their own problems, expect the extraordinary, and speak their minds” (Carleton

Alice doesn’t comprehend the unreasonableness of Wonderland itself. She had always had a defined path of logic and sense that is thrown out the window when she enters wonderland. She makes numerous attempt to try and understand it but ultimately fails when she realizes Wonderland is bogus and wakes up.

There are many examples in the children's story, that really exhibit how Alices descends into her own madness. To start off, the Caterpillar, during the scene where Alice is with him at the mushroom, he plants a seed of madness into Alice. While Alice is speaking with the caterpillar at the mushroom, he tells her that she is mad and that everyone is mad here; here as in Wonderland. This means that to be able to be in Wonderland that she has to be mad, and this turns into a spiral of her discovering and feeding into her madness.

A hookah smoking caterpillar sitting on a mushroom, a pepper-loving duchess with a big head and the main character, a young girl who follows a rabbit down his hole, are a few of the weird and fantastic characters in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice portrays bad judgement. A few of the things that happened in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland were unbelievable. While writing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol had a fantastical imagination. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a literary classic, although I have read better books.

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

Whether you conceive it or not, dreams helped to give a shape of a model our society in various ways.

Dreams have been around as long as the first civilization came to be and have been a normal part of human existence. One third of your life is spent sleeping, and of that third, on average you will have spent a total of about six years of it dreaming. Most people dream on average two hours every night, but you can have anywhere from four to seven dreams in one night. According to research, the most common setting for a dream is in your own house. In our dreams we can do anything we want and be whoever we want to be. Our dreams are an escape from reality. While we dream we are unable to control our actions and choose our surroundings. We let our minds take over. Sometimes dreams can be understood in the context of repressed thoughts. Dreaming serves as an outlet for those thoughts and impulses we repress during the day. When we go to sleep at night and slip into our dream state, we feel liberated and behave in a manner that we do not allow ourselves to in our everyday life. Visions and ides can come from your dreams. Often, authors, screenwriters, and even poets turn to their dreams for inspiration. The think quest oracle library goes on to tell about the most well-known of the modern dream

'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 is a story about a little girl who comes into contact with unpredictable, illogical, basically mad world of Wonderland by following the White Rabbit into a huge rabbit – hole. Everything she experiences there challenges her perception

Daydreams are not always meaningless, they permit one a chance to create a place where one can rehearse the future and imagine new adventures without risk. Allowing the mind to roam without restrictions can show us who were really are and how we perceive the world around us. Lewis Carroll uses these fantastical thoughts as a foundation for that of Wonderland, a bizarre and seemingly absurd world in which, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and the sequel, Through the Looking Glass occur. These novels both depict the journey and adventure of a young girl named Alice. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice spots a White Rabbit while reading in a meadow. Due to her curiosity, she follows him into an unknown area and down a rabbit hole,

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.