Alices Adventures In Wonderland Essays - Alice In Wonderland

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Essays - Alice In Wonderland Alice's Adventures In Wonderland An analysis of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The following text is a small part of a project from: Jerry Maatta, HII, Katedralskolan, Uppsala, Sweden Written in March 1997 Interpretations and opinions It is important to bear in mind that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, however special it may seem and however many different interpretations one thinks one can find, is, after all, but a story written to entertain Charles Dodgson's favourite child-friends. It is very obvious in the story that it was written for the three Liddell girls, of whom Alice was the closest to Dodgson. In the introductory poem to the tale, there are clear indications to the three, there named Prima, Secunda and Tertia Latin for first, second and third respectively in feminized forms. The part considering rowing on happy summer days was derived directly from reality. It is said that he used to row out on picnics with the Liddell girls and tell them stories. On one of these excursions it started raining heavily and they all became soaked. This, it is said, was the inspiration to the second chapter of the book, The Pool of Tears. The ever-occurring number of three points out Dodgson always having in mind the three girls he tells the story to. It could, of course, having in mind the fact that he was a cleric, be the Christian Trinity or something completely different. Many people have seen Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a prime example of the limit-breaking book from the old tradition illuminating the new one. They also consider it being a tale of the variations on the debate of gender and that it's continually astonishing us with its modernity. From the looks of it, the story about Alice falling through a rabbit-hole and finding herself in a silly and nonsense world, is fairly guileless as a tale. The underlying story, the one about a girl maturing away from home in what seems to be a world ruled by chaos and nonsense, is quite a frightening one. All the time, Alice finds herself confronted in different situations involving various different and curious animals being all alone. She hasn't got any help at all from home or the world outside of Wonderland. Lewis Carroll describes the fall into the rabbit-hole as very long and he mentions bookshelves on the sides of the hole. Perhaps it is an escape into literature he hints at. Carroll is an expert at puns and irony. The part with the mad tea-party is one of the best examples of this. There's a lot of humour in the first Alice book, but in the second the mood gets a bit darker and more melancholic. The theme with Alice growing and shrinking into different sizes could reflect the ups and downs of adolescence with young people sometimes feeling adult and sometimes quite the opposite. The hesitation so typical of adolescent girls is reflected in Alice's thoughts: She generally gave herself good advice (though she very seldom followed it). Many short comments point to teenage recklessness, restlessness and anxiety in all its different forms. One other example of maturing is Alice getting used to the new sizes she grows. She talks to her feet and learns some of the new ways her body works in. Her feelings are very shaken from her adventures and she cries quite often when it's impossible to obey the rules of the Wonderland or is it adulthood? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, as Alice often repeats to herself. Alice doesn't like the animals in Wonderland who treat her as a child, but sometimes she gets daunted by the responsibility she has to take. The quote Everyone in Wonderland is mad, otherwise they wouldn't be down here told by the Cheshire Cat can be given an existential meaning. Is it that everyone alive is mad being alive, or everyone dreaming him- or herself away is mad due to the escape from reality? Time is a very central theme in the story. The Hatter's watch shows days because it's always six o' clock and tea-time. Time matters in growing up, I guess, but further interpretations are left unsaid. The poem in chapter 12 hints at forbidden love, and it is entirely possible that it is about his platonic love for children, or Mrs. Liddell, for that matter. Considering the fact, that the first manuscript was called Alice's Adventures