In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Alice is put in a variety of situations that expose her to different point of views. She meets the other characters of Wonderland as she takes on the role of a chess piece and moves through the “squares” of the chess board designed realm. By the end Alice has gained a new understanding and appreciation of her world, as well as her place in it. Carroll created a series of works that have inspired and entertained multiple generations. The story of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland, however, begins not with the writings of Lewis Carroll, but with the life of Charles Dodgson.
Born as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in a small English village, Lewis Carroll was the eldest of eleven children, which consisted
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Here, in order to move forward, she must step back. If she wants to arrive somewhere quickly, she must walk with patience. What she considers to be common is nonsense to the characters of Wonderland. The first person she meets is the Red Queen, who is in the form of a large chess piece. The Red Queen blabbers on about the girl 's poor manners before explaining that they are all playing a giant chess game and that Alice can take the role of the White Queen 's pawn if she wishes. There are seven more squares she must pass through in order to win and become a Queen. To end the game, Alice must travel to the eighth square. As Alice makes her way through each square, she encounters various characters and creatures that provide obstacles for her to overcome. These characters range in absurdity, each with a different set of challenges. There are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who pester Alice with riddles. They worry her by claiming that she is simply an imaginary figure in the Red King 's dream and that once he awakes she will cease to exist. Soon after leaving Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Alice meets the White queen, with whom she forgets about her previous unease. She eventually becomes acquainted with other characters, such as the Hatter and the Hare. The White knight and, consequently, a Red knight, fight one another for the right to hold her prisoner. Though, as it turns out, the White knight 's definition of 'prisoner ' entails very little imprisonment besides being forced to ride with him to the next space. Alice, as she goes through each square, discovers new ways of thinking and recognizes other viewpoints. She starts to understand the logic of her own world and how it applies in Wonderland. Alice also, however, begins to wonder at her own existence and whether or not Tweedledee and Tweedledum are right.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story about a little girl who comes into contact with unpredictable, illogical, basically mad world of Wonderland by following the White Rabbit into a huge rabbit – hole. Everything she experiences there challenges her perception and questions common sense. This extraordinary world is inhabited with peculiar, mystical and anthropomorphic creatures that constantly assault Alice which makes her to question her fundamental beliefs and suffer an identity crisis. Nevertheless, as she woke up from “such a curious dream” she could not help but think “as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been ”.
The gender roles change from the original to the remake. The original Alice role is defined as a young girl who is able to explore her curiosity, but she is constrained by her feminine characteristics. Alice being a young girl is portrayed as helpless in many situations throughout her journey. The characters of Wonderland offer her assistance, but she remains most times crying by herself. Alice’s character clearly shows the innocence and virtue American society attached to girls roles in the
In order to be ‘queened’ Alice must make it to the eighth square, meeting different residents along the way. When Alice comes across Tweedledee and Tweedledum, halfway through her journey, she views them in wonderment. “They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive,” (Carroll). This shows Alice is still learning and can sometimes make mistakes. She continues to travel and as she does so she slowly matures. When she has reached the seventh square, where the Red Knight attempts to take her captive, she is able to take much more in at once. When Alice first crawled through the looking glass, she was a child, but at this point she is able to better empathize with those around her. This is shown in her response to the Red Knight, “Just as he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly: 'You 're my prisoner! ' the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse. Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again” (Carroll). She places the Knights before herself and is able to see that, though the Red Knight claims he wishes to take her prisoner; he is actually not a threat. She bases this off of her earlier interactions with characters and the backwards way in
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on January 27, 1832, in the parsonage of Daresbury Cheshire, England, the third child and eldest son of eleven children of Reverend Charles Dodgson and his wife, Francis Jane Lutwidge. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was his birth name. Lewis Carroll was his pen name which he used later on in his life. Lewis Carroll was educated at home, he was passionate about reading books. As a child he was a shy and quiet child who suffered with a stammer his whole life. Carroll’s stammer affected his social interaction with adults. Lewis Carroll attended Richmond grammar School from the age of twelve. He then moved to Rugby School years later. Carroll achieved well academically and excelled in mathematics, but he was very unhappy
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Most people know the name Lewis Carroll, and even more know about the taleof a little girl who fell down a rabbit hole straight into the adventure of a lifetime. But not many people know the name Charles Dodgson, the man behind the pseudonym and the one who constructed this wonderland from a summer time boat ride in 1862. Originally written for three friends, the Liddell sisters, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has inspired philosophers, artists, writers, theologians, and not to mention the general public. The culture in which this piece of art was written has shaped Alice’s dream-like journey from the first false step into an almost never ending fall to the last storm of cards. Dodgson’s enchanting work illustrates mankind’s childlike spirit that 1880s English society tried so hard to ignore.
One of the two themes of Alice Through the Looking Glass is to never stop believing and to always try your hardest, even if you get defeated. Another lesson for Alice Through the Looking Glass is that you shouldn’t dwell on the past even if it makes you furious. The Queen of Hearts dwelled on the fact that her sister, the White Queen, lied one night as a kid and got her in trouble. That night was the night that the Queen of Hearts became penurious and self conscious about herself. One of the themes for Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is that though trusting people may be hard, it can help you in the future. For Example, Jacob had to trust his grandfather that the monsters and the peculiar children were real. Another example of this
“’But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'” quoted by a very creative and imaginative author, Lewis Carroll, author of the hit Alice novels. This short novel was written by an extremely upright, ultra conservative man in which his unique character and many experiences had a great influence in the creation of Through the Looking Glass. Of all of Carroll’s works, Alice’s Through the Looking Glass, has a unique way of expressing adventures and stating the events in which occur throughout the whole novel making the novel standout in the category of whimsical, nonsense literature. The novel includes 12 chapters in which every new chapter brings you into different exotic settings introducing you to many peculiar characters involving the only and only Alice, the Tweedledum twins, Red Queen, White King, Humpty Dumpty Walrus and Carpenter. Meeting these characters brought her to finally achieving what her destination had been since the start; she finally became her normal size, making it into the garden. The events and settings involved with Through the Looking Glass make it a very fictional, imaginative novel. Carroll's imagination takes readers with Alice into where she finds the Looking-Glass House. Using the game of chess as the setting of his novel, he fills the novel with situations and puzzles from the ordinary to the extraordinary; including silly characters and adventures in which may be nonsensical, using the game of chess as the setting.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland follows the story of young Alice trapped in the world of Wonderland after falling down through a rabbit-hole. The rabbit-hole which is filled with bookshelves, maps, and other objects foreshadows the set of rules, the ones Alice is normally accustomed to, will be defied in Wonderland. This conflict between her world and Wonderland becomes evident shortly after her arrival as evinced by chaos in “Pool of Tears” and Alice brings up the main theme of the book “was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I am not the same, the next question is who am I?” (Carroll 18). After Alice fails to resolve her identity crisis using her friends, Alice says “Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here til I’m somebody else” (Carroll 19). Hence in the beginning, Alice is showing her dependency on others to define her identity. Nevertheless when her name is called as a witness in chapter 12, Alice replies “HERE!” without any signs of hesitation (Carroll 103). Close examination of the plot in Alice in Wonderland reveals that experiential learning involving sizes leads Alice to think logically and rationally. Alice then attempts to explore Wonderland analytically and becomes more independent as the outcome. With these qualities, Alice resolves her identity crisis by recognizing Wonderland is nothing but a dream created by her mind.
In Lewis Carroll’s sequel novel, Through the Looking Glass, Alice falls back asleep and revisits a Wonderland type of dream. In her dream a few of the characters from Carroll’s first novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, reappear. Because of their reappearance, and a few episodes of interactions, Alice is reminded that there is no reason or logic to her dream worlds, but along with this theory, for this particular dream world, everything is backwards. After Alice entered her new dream world, she met up with the Red Queen and was overlooking the valley when she came to the realization that the valley was marked out like a large chess-board. In Carroll’s novel, Through the Looking Glass, he bases the book off of a chess game, and there are many different elements throughout the
Vallone, Lynne. Notes. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. By Lewis Carroll. New York: The Modern Library Classics, 2002.245-252. Print.
The title character, Alice, is a young girl around pre-teen age. In the real world, the adult characters always look down on her because of her complete nonsense. She is considered the average everyday immature child, but when she is placed in the world of "Wonderland," the roles seem to switch. The adult characters within Wonderland are full of the nonsense and Alice is now the mature person. Thus creating the theme of growing up'. "...Alice, along with every other little girl is on an inevitable progress toward adulthood herself"(Heydt 62).
The characters in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are more than whimsical ideas brought to life by Lewis Carroll. These characters, ranging from silly to rude, portray the adults in Alice Liddell’s life. The parental figures in Alice’s reality, portrayed in Alice in Wonderland, are viewed as unintellectual figures through their behaviors and their interactions with one another. Alice’s interactions with the characters of Wonderland reflect her struggles with adults in real life. Naturally curious as she is, Alice asks questions to learn from the adults.
At first glance, the story Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll seems to differ from the findings that Thomas C. Foster has written about in his novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor. However, when taking a closer look at the text, Foster’s findings become more evident. Foster explains that every meal between characters in a novel is like a communion. He also believes that eating is the most intimate thing characters can do with each other. In Alice in Wonderland, the mad tea party scene seems to be full of riddles and nonsense, making the act of eating seem unimportant. Although, Alice learns insightful lessons during the tea party and becomes more open to the belief’s of the residents in Wonderland, showing the meal’s significance.
Richard Morton, (December, 1960). "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass". Elementary English. 37 (8), pp.509-513