Blog 13 : Essay Draft - Alice in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland By Lewis Carroll is about a young girl named Alice who's imagination goes through the roof. Her sister reads her a book which she doesn't see the point because it doesn't have "any pictures and conversation". Alice is as curious as a cat, so her curiosity makes her come face-to-face with some of the strangest adventures and the most fantastic characters. The Ugly Duchess, the Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire cat. All of this nonsense can only be created by the king of nonsense himself Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) . He was an English author, Mathematician, and a photographer. He got the book inspiration "Alice in wonderland" from this young girl named Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10, born 1852).On 4 July 1862, in a rowing boat travelling on The Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford to Godstow for a picnic outing, 10-year-old Liddell asked Charles Dodgson (who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll) to entertain her and her sisters, Edith (age 8) and Lorina (age 13), with a story. As the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed the boat, Dodgson regaled the girls with fantastic stories of a girl, named Alice, and her adventures after she fell into a rabbit-hole. The story was not unlike those Dodgson had spun for the sisters before, but this time Liddell asked Mr. Dodgson to write it down for her. He promised to do so but did not get around to the task for some months. He eventually presented her with the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.[1]


In Lewis Carroll's novel there are so many Symbolism such as The Bottle and cake saying "Drink me" and "Eat me", The Garden, The caterpillar's mushroom, the white rabbit.
The bottle and cake are like temptations ; to me I see it as Liquor and Drugs. The keyhole is like peer pressure telling alice to drink the liquid in the bottle in order to pass through the door, and since alice is so curious she did; She shrunk. When someone drinks liquor they feel low, they want to drop on the floor because they're body can't control it. When she eats the cake, She grows - I see this as a drug because when someone is on drugs they feel high - so when Alice ate the cake she grew REALLY high. The garden's symbol makes me think of the forbidden garden of eden. Alice is trying so hard to get into the garden but no matter what she did she couldn't enter it. The beauty of the garden attracted her curiousity. The caterpillar's mushroom is also a sybolism of temptation. This temptation is different that the bottle/cake because the temptation coming from the mushroom has to do with maturity. One side of the mushroom makes her feel like a child by shrinking her really tiny and making her feel vunerable. The other side makes her grown as talls as the trees letting her feel like she got power and makes her feel strong. The white rabbit is a symbolism of adulthood - growing up really fast. He is rushing and busy ; very impatient just like a parent. Rabbits also symbolize luck which is kinda opposite here because since Alice followed him down the rabbit hole and all she's been running into is craziness and the unexplainable.


There are a few foreshadowing in Alice in wonderland. The book her sister was reading, The white rabbit, his watch, the Hookah smoking caterpillar, and All the games and riddles she had to play. When her sister is reading her the book she started to become very sleepy, AND indeed she fell alseep but didnt realize it thats when she entered Wonderland and saw the rabbit in the corner of her eyes. The white rabbit is a foreshadow also because she always spots him during her adventure in wonderland and that re-sparks her curiousity to follow him. His watch is also foreshadow because hes going on the time that it says on his watch and he keeps saying he's late, but in wonderland time isn't necessary but he still insist that he is late - then throughout the story he finds out his clock is two days late. The caterpillar tells Alice after he turns into a butterfly to keep her temper. She doesn't understand why he said it but hes giving her advice for whats coming for her as she continues on in her journey. Every riddle, game and story she's been through is a major foreshadow because it prepared her for the queen and king of hearts and their non stop game of croquet. it kinda gave her the idea of what the queen would be like since she rules everyone in Wonderland.


The literature theory in Alice in Wonderland has to be the Psychoanalytic Criticism because its a dream. Alice is dreaming this WHOLE time about Wonderland, The white rabbit, the cheshire cat , etc. Carroll is using the criticism for the characters "the characters: the theory is used to analyze one or more of the characters; the psychological theory becomes a tool that to explain the characters’ behavior and motivations. The more closely the theory seems to apply to the characters, the more realistic the work appears"[5] In the story there is ALOT of characters with alot of different behaviors. Alice, is curious about almost everything she runs into in the story. The white rabbit is always rushing and nervous in the story, The caterpillar is calm which is weird because Wonderland is really hectic and crazy, but there he is relaxing on his mushroom smoking on a hookah. The Mad hatter and the March hare are really crazy - Kind of a sign of ADD[4]. Always changing subjects and talking about total NONSENSE which is what Carroll is famous for. The Cheshire cat is very mysterious- He never stays in the same place for a long period of time. The Queen of Hearts is really angry, She always wants to exsecute somebody just because. So the characters he chose to put in the story have VERY different personalities. Another literary theory is Jung's interpretation of dream. He believes there's four parts "In first phase, which can be regarded as the exposition, the initial situation (setting) is represented - already pointing at central conflict expressed in dream. The second phase is the plot and contains something new (essential change), which leads the dream in the third phase: the culmination. In this phase the most critical things happen, which bring the dream to a closure: the fourth phase or denouement. Jung attributed extraordinary significance to the end of dream. The end of dream is so important, Jung held, because we cannot consciously influence on the outcome (i.e. change the end), and dreams so reflect the real situation."[7] Jung's theory goes better with Alice because The first phrase "Initial setting" is Wonderland, The room with the BIG table but the little doorway. - its already pointing out the central conflict; How is she going to get through the door. Which leads to Phase two "Essential change" This is when she has to drink/eat the bottle/cake which is the main part of the dream because Alice believes this alters who she is because it changed her size. She thinks the transformation altered her mind because she doesn't think the same. The characters she runs into throughout her journey make her repeat riddles and she doesn't remember them or she says them the wrong way; so she blames it on her changing so much. Which leads to the third phase "the culmination" in this phase this is when she meets the Cheshire cat, who tells her about the queens and her croquet game - which sparks Alice's curiosity once again. Then when she meets the queen she finds out she's on trial for stealing her tarts. That leading into the final phase ,the "denouement" - She's on trial for stealing the queens tarts. At this point the queen is being really rude to Alice so she tells the queen how it is- She tells them that they're ALL just a pack of playing cards. They all start to attack her which causes her to wake up from her dream; what was really falling on her were leaves from the tree her and her sister were sitting under.



1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell

2.http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/themes.html

3.http://www.shmoop.com/alice-in-wonderland-looking-glass/genre.html

4.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_literary_criticism

5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder

6.http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/psychcrit.html

7.http://library.thinkquest.org/C005545/english/dream/jung.htm