Wonderland
In the midst of the Victorian period, the story of Alices Adventures in Wonderland emerged. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll invented the story as he told it. Six years after the novel Alices Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865 Carroll created the sequel to it, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There. Some years later in 1920 Walt Disney decided to make an animated film based on Lewis Carrolls story. Finally, close to 100 years later, Tim Burton rereleased Alice in Wonderland with a live cast. The novels written by Carroll and both film adaptions are based on the genre of literary nonsense and the theme of growing up. By exploring Lewis Carrolls version of Alices Adventures in Wonderland, it will be made clear that there is logic behind the nonsensical journey in Wonderland which provoked Alice to grow up.
The author of Alices Adventures in Wonderland was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on January 27, 1832. He was the third of eleven children and was very protective of his brothers and sisters. Even as a child his ability to entertain was evident as he clearly enjoyed amusing his brothers and sisters with stories and games. In 1856 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson created a pseudonym by latinizing him first and middle names and reversing there order, resulting in Lewis Carroll. (Stowell 5-8)
As stated in the prefatory poem, the story of Alices Adventures in Wonderland began on a golden afternoon (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 7) on July 4, 1862. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, friend Canon Duckworth and the three Liddell sisters (Alice, Lorina, and Edith) set off on a boat trip from Oxford to Godstow. As the trip progressed Alice grew restless , begging Dodgson to tell her a story with nonsense in it! (AAIW p7). Dodgson agrees and invents the story as he tells it. In lines quoted by Stuart Collingwood in The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll:
"I believe the beginning of Alice was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from all three came the old petition of, 'Tell us a story' and so began the ever delightful tale
(Carroll, Gardner, and John 8).
Aside from the nonsense in Alices Adventures in Wonderland, the underlying theme represents the idea of growing up. The story begins with Alice, a conventional 7-year old girl, sitting on the riverbank with her sister. Alice, bored by books with no pictures (Stowell 5-8). quickly reacts to her curiosity of having seen a white rabbit run by her wearing a waistcoat and looking at a pocket watch. She runs off after the rabbit and finds herself climbing into a rabbit hole. Oblivious of consequences, she tumbles in and falls slowly till she lands on a heap of sticks and leaves. Alices fall indicates the readers entrance into her dream which is to be filled with chaotic reversals, disorientations of time and space, and the linkages between irrational and illogical. (Stowell 5-8)
According to Phyllis Stowell, the journey divides into two parts, before and after Alices entrance into the garden (Stowell 5-8). Coincidentally, the two parts divide about evenly between the twelve chapters in the book. Part one concentrates on chapters one through seven in Alices Adventures in Wonderland. Within this first part, Alice is confronted with feelings of frustration, aloneness, fear and uncertainty. He frustration surfaces within the first two chapters of Carrolls book. In Down the Rabbit Hole again Alices curiosity controls her when she finds a little bottle with the words DRINK ME printed on it. Since she is too big to fit through the door, she starts to drink it, she shrinks to ten inches tall and is the perfect size to enter the door but the door is still locked and she has left the key on the glass table and now it is too high to reach. Alice emotionally reacts to her feelings of aggravation and she begins to cry. Noticing a glass box under the table, Alice finds a small cake with the words EAT ME on it. Again frustrated because of her inability to control her size Alice says:
Well, Ill eat it, and if it makes me grow lager, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way Ill get into that garden, and I dont care which happens! (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 19)
Alice has found herself feeling either too small and therefore powerless, or too large and she therefore feels intrusive and overwhelming (Stowell 5-8). What Alice needs to realize though is it is her own inappropriate self-image which is controlling these situations. This links with how often a childs self perception changes.
When Alice encounters the blue Caterpillar in Chapter five, Advice From a Caterpillar her problems of identity and the need to grow up converge. It is the caterpillar who asks Who are you? and Alice replies with she hardly knows who she is due to how often she has recently changed. It is the caterpillar though who teaches her a lesson is speaking for her self and not to expect her reaction to be the reaction of himself, or anyone else. Alice demonstrates this growth on page 55, well, perhaps your feelings may be different, all I know is , it would feel very queer to me. Being only three inches in height, a wretched height to be (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 60) The caterpillar advises her to eat from the mushroom, one side will help her grow, the other side will allow her to shrink. He gives her the means to control her size, yet omits which side will do what. At this point Alice feels some sense of reassurance that life can be managed. In controlling her height, Alice frees her head, but to the point that her head and neck rise far above the treetops. A pigeon mistakes her for a serpent, attempting to eat her eggs, and for the first time Alice asserts her identity saying I - Im a little girl (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 62).
Alienation is of the last issue that Alice must face before progressing in to part two of the book. While in Chapter seven Alice finds a large table set under a tree with the March Hare, Mad Hatter and Dormouse all sitting at. Although Alice is declined an invitation to join these madmen for tea, she seats herself at the table. It is here, at the tea party, that she feels displaced. The March Hare and Mad Hatter are blatantly rude and mad (Stowell 5-8).
Alice feels frustrated that she is unable to relate to their madness. The Mad Hatter has a watch which displays the day of the month, but not the time, and he thinks the day is off by two days, the March Hare offers Alice wine, but there is only tea to drink at the tea party, and the Dormouse cannot stay awake long enough to have a conversation. As Stowell points out, Alice begins to realize that their judgements are subjective, distorted and unjust (Stowell 5-8) Alice expresses justified anger in her act of leaving the tea party demonstrating her growth enough to reject those who mistreat her. At any rate Ill never go there again! Its the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life! (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 87) At the end of Chapter seven, for the first time Alice is in control. Step-by-step she works until she finds herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flowerbeds and the cool fountains (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 87).
Part two of Alices journey takes place within the beautiful garden she has been longing to enter. Quickly though the bright flowerbeds and cool fountains(Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 87) is triumphed by chaos. Alice sees a procession of the Queen lead by cards. In an annotation on page 81 in The Annotated Alice the spot cards are broken down into distinctions. The spades are the gardeners, the clubs are the soldiers, diamonds are the courtiers, and the hearts are the ten royal children. The court cards, are of course members of the court. Alice finds out the procession is part of the trial of the Duchess under sentence for execution. The trial also serves as the climax of Alices underground journey. As the trial is nearing an end, the King calls for a verdict before there is evidence, and then threatens the Mad Hatter to give evidence or he would be executed.
Without the aide of magic food, or conscious decision Alice begins to grow back to her normal size. This upsets the jury and the grown Alice refuses to leave when kicked out. Alice has decided that she refuses to put up with anymore absurdities of this trial. With her new ability to respond to her own judgement without being intimidated by the irrational power of others the book climaxes with Alice telling the court youre nothing but a pack of cards! (Carroll, Tenniel, and Lin 140). Alice begins swatting at the cards as they come flying down upon her, and she is woken by her sister who is gently brushing off dead leaves which had fallen off the tree onto her as she was sleeping. Alice realizes that she has been changed by her underground experience and this new Alice will now be less intimidated by adults, less taken in by them, and less confused by their contradictions about her. With each succeeding episode Alice faced or issue she had to overcome, she was able to further grow in both maturity and self-understanding.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis, John Tenniel, and Tan Lin. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 2003. 11-144. Print.
Carroll, Lewis, Martin Gardner, and Sir John. The annotated Alice: Alice's adventures in Wonderland & Through the looking-glass. Definitive Edition. NY, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.
"Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site." Alice in Wonderland. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec 2010. http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/
Stowell, Phyllis. "We're All Mad Here." John Hopkins University Press. 8.2 (1983): 5-8. Print.
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