The Internal Frame Of Mind In Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland

     Carroll’s use of the chess board is also important in Alice’s transition to adulthood. Her journey across the chess board from being a pawn to reaching the status of Queen represents the growth of being a child to becoming an adult. This emphasis is conveyed primarily in Through the Looking Glass and Carroll conveys this through the encounters that Alice has with the various characters, mainly the Queens and the Kings. The Queen always seems one step ahead of Alice, similar to what a child feels in an “adult” world. Carroll continues to express the tyranny of adulthood through Alice’s encounters and journey. She soon learns that becoming a Queen was not all

A book about Psychotherapy with children uses Alice in Wonderland for an example of what helping professionals may look like to the people they work with. The authors begin with this quote:

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 in Wonderland has been a beloved children’s classic for over a century and was originally told to entertain a close friend’s child, Alice Liddell; yet, it has now become one of the most analyzed children’s stories with its many paradoxes. While it could be acclaimed to feminism with its many intense female characters that often illustrate poor decisions or historical with its Victorian era time frame, the two that best fit are psychoanalytical and existentialism. Via these schools of literary criticism, one can make a complete picture of a young girl in an irrational adult world.

A mind so wondrous, anyone would think she had gone mad. Alice becomes more mature during her exploration through Wonderland. It becomes easier to make decisions and easier to converse with other people. She never loses her imagination, and that is one reason that she is her own person. There is no other

The Duchess sees her as nothing more than an uneducated child. She does not give Alice much respect because she figured that Alice is a child and when she is older she would have earned her respect. “Most earlier writes (contemporaries and later writers too) wrote down and descended children. They rarely gave the young credit for much intelligence, let alone sensitivity or imagination” (Cohen 142). The way the Duchess speaks to Alice is a reflection of this idea, which many authors tended to use in the time period.

Alice is running forward, or so she thinks; however, Alice is doing the exact opposite of that. Alice has a main objective in this novel; she must move eight squares in order to become a queen. In Lewis Carroll’s, Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll adds a certain pizazz that most people wonder where it comes from. How does he come up with certain characters? How does he think of something so different like the Jabberwocky poem? Many things contribute to Carroll’s writing: struggling with sleep deprivation, dealing with dual personalities, having an education, growing up with several siblings, and handling abnormal eating habits.

Alice shows no fear when she drinks the potions and eats the cakes without hesitation, as she grows and shrinks into all sizes. Not only does Alice explore the fantasy realm of Wonderland, she also explores different states of being for herself. After all, that's what curious children have to do: “‘Well, I'll eat it," said Alice, "and 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, and I don't care which happens!”’ (Carroll 12). We observe Alice’s curiosity which is apparent, but also we can see her unawareness of her identity, not caring which way the cake will make her grow.

The arc of the story follows Alice’s growing certainty of her identity. When she first meets the Queen of Hearts she is only tentatively sure of herself: ‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty’. In the final courtroom scene Alice scoffs at the jurors who write down their names in case they forget them (‘Stupid things!’), identifies herself clearly (‘”Here!” cried Alice,’) and then leaves Wonderland with the realisation, ‘You’re nothing but a pack of

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.

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

Herman Heese once said, “I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us” (Goodreads). Hermann Hesse was a German, who wrote about mind and body, spirit and nature, and spiritual search within oneself. Hesse explains that through one’s life, an individual will learn through their experience. In order to for a person to become mature and transform from childhood to adulthood, that individual has to understand that through suffering, disappointments, and melancholy they learn to accept who they are and will transform from their personal experience. Throughout the novel, Carroll emphasizes the maturation and the growth within an individual externally and internally, with the protagonist Alice. Alice’s adventure begins when she follows the White Rabbit down into his rabbit hole. Alice quickly learns that the rules and the people in Wonderland are different and unique. The audience witnesses Alice grow and develop as she encounters many different types of characters and confusing situations. As Alice goes through changes, external and internal, she discovers who she is and reacts to situations differently. In his novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll exposes the nature of maturing and adapting through Alice’s encounters

'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 ignorance about the discourses of the denizens of Wonderland reflects the lack of understanding of diversity in her society. The first character Alice talks to in

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.