Carroll
Carroll 6
The Big and Small of It All Lewis Carroll?s novel, Alice?s Adventures in Wonderland, has captivated readers for decades. From England?s Victorian Age to the present-day, Carroll?s work remains a priceless treasure for all who have fallen in love with Alice and become immersed in the world of Wonderland. Although Lewis Carroll?s Alice?s Adventures in Wonderland is classified as children?s fantasy, the novel also explores the difficulties adolescents face as they mature, including the emotional struggles of self-identity and physical maturity, loss of innocence, and an enduring conflict between childhood and adulthood.
The central theme in Alice?s Adventure?s in Wonderland revolves around growing up and becoming an
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Throughout the novel, Alice is unsure of what to expect with regard to her physical appearance and is constantly in a state of confusion over the dramatic changes in her body: ?How puzzling all these changes are! I?m never sure what I?m going to be, from one minute to another!? Alice is left disoriented as she undergoes physical changes in her body and wonders: ?if she was different from who she was before, who is she now??4 Alice?s experiences in Wonderland show how adolescents, mainly women, are forced to adjust to unexpected changes and adapt to fit into the real world.5 The theme with Alice growing and shrinking into different sizes is relatable to many young women as they experience the ups and downs of adolescence.6 As Alice learns throughout her journey in Wonderland, discovering her true self is not always easy and can sometimes be quite intimidating. Two particularly frightening moments for Alice in this struggle are her encounters with the Caterpillar and with the Pigeon. The Caterpillar demands to know, ?Who are you??, a question that both confuses and disturbs Alice because she does not even know the answer herself.7 Alice again shows uncertainty regarding her identity when asked by
Late rabbits, talking cats, and dancing cards are just some of the un-natural occurrences that take place in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In today’s society with competing books, such as Harry Potter, these elements in the book may seem like no big deal, but for the time period the book was published, these were anything but normal. This children’s book was first published in 1865 in the United Kingdom; during the Victorian time period, named after Queen Victoria. The book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland represents a satire on the Victorian Era and how people were expected to act, through which Carroll displays an overall theme of growing up.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is an imaginative fictional fairytale about a seven year old british Alice, who follows a talking rabbit down a hole into the magical world of Wonderland. Alice curiously finds her way around Wonderland with her original purpose to find her way back home. She talks to a rabbit and drinks random potions that make her size larger and smaller than the average human. She eventually meets a mad man who has an unusual fixation on tea parties and a cheshire cat who leads her in every direction possible, through Wonderland She comes across a queen who loves to collect a list of human hearts with whom she has quite literally broken. “Off with their head!” she screams when one makes her dissatisfied. Alice races through
Issues concerning her size, identity, and her social exchanges with both Wonderland and its creatures spur and characterize Alice’s development towards becoming a young woman.
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.
Alice can be very childish, but throughout the story, she encounters many animals with human qualities that make her change her perspective of the world she lives in. The main obstacle in Alice's life is growing up. As she grows up, she looks at situations in a very distinctive way, such as the moment when alice meets the March Hare, The Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse. By the time the story is over, Alice is already a grown up because of all the experiences she confronted such as, the mad tea party, the encounter with the caterpillar smoking a hookah pipe, also Alice's encounter with the Red Queen during the croquet game and the trial.
Based on the children’s literary work written by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland is a fictional film that was directed by Tim Burton. The film is set in Wonderland inside of Alice’s dream, so viewers are able to recognize the lack of order and the fantasies of children. One of the major themes seen in the movie is childhood, specifically the development into adulthood, which is depicted in other characters besides Alice. Alice, however, is used as the primary symbol for what children in the Victorian Age should not ideally act like, since they were expected to dress properly and attain a certain level of education. Furthermore, Sigmund Freud’s dream theory and tripartite give further insight into the characters and what they represented during the Victorian Age. The id, ego, and the superego are applied to the unconscious and conscious mind states, and how the unconscious state is still somewhat available during a conscious state. In Alice in Wonderland, psychoanalysis is used to portray the Red Queen as the id, the Absolem
In the novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the main character, Alice, undergoes quite a change. During the time the novel was published, parts of the world were in the victorian era. The Queen at the time was Queen Victoria, in which the era was named after. During this era, knowledge, class and reason were greatly valued, and stressed. This time period ended in the year of Queen Victoria’s death. Throughout the novel, there are many ways that show how Alice begins to understand the world in adult terms, matures, and grows.
Alice begins by startling at the sight of the Cat sitting on a tree bough, while the Cat only grins at Alice. As dear Alice asks for advice on which way she ought to continue, the Cat claims, “if you do not know where you want to end up, then surely it does not matter which way you go” (Carroll 49). This simplistic view of decision making plays on the complexity that humans weave into simple decisions of everyday life. Alice’s confusion is spotlighted by this overtly simple take on decisions, and her confusion can then be tied to the absence of a concrete identity. The Cat proceeds to reveal that in Wonderland, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad,” and this awareness and acceptance of “the fury” within himself further serves to bold Alice’s insecurity (Carroll 49). Perhaps, if Alice knew who she was to others – and to herself – in Wonderland, she would not deny the madness of Wonderlands creatures, including
Understanding there’s been a change in her body, Alice questions the probability that she might not be herself any longer. She believes she may have become someone else through the transformation, another typical child theory when growing up. If your appearance has changed, it may be likely that you’re not who you used to be, so of course, you must be someone else. This is also portrayed in the instance when she meets the Caterpillar. When asked, “Who are you?” by the Caterpillar, Alice honestly answers, “I hardly know”. The Caterpillar represents Alice as well, as it will also transform into something greater as it ages.
She begins experimenting when she finds a little bottle perched on a table, upon drinking it she shrinks until she is ten inches high. Although this is an advantage because she is now capable of fitting through the door to the garden, Alice becomes less powerful than she previously was because, though she is still the only human in Wonderland, she is no longer of a regular size. When Alice is small she is vulnerable, she swims in a pool of her own giant tears, and meets a puppy that is larger than her and therefore a threat to her, “it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing” (38). Contrary to what one might think, Alice suffers from a lack of power when she is too large as well. Her size causes her pain when she is stuck in the White Rabbit’s home, and it causes those around her to be afraid of her many times as well. Unrelated to her size, Alice has a negative power on the friends she is trying to make when she accidentally mentions that her cat likes to chase and eat little animals, or when she has a long neck that she is not a serpent - though she does like to eat
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.