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Critical analysis of alice's adventures in wonderland
Critical analysis of alice's adventures in wonderland
Critical analysis of Alice in Wonderland
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Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” is a satirical fiction novel where the main character, Alice finds herself in a strange chaotic world that causes her to question all she understands in her young mind. Carroll creates the memorable character of Alice through the characteristics of emotional maturity, youthful inexperience, and kindness. From the opening of the novel, when Alice fell down the rabbit hole, her motivation of curiosity also revealed her restlessness in normal circumstances. As Alice sat with her sister by a river, she saw a worried white rabbit run past her. Suddenly, she realized that the rabbit wore a waistcoat, carried a watch, and appeared worried, all of which appeared bizarre. Alice recognized the strange occurrence before her and she chose willfully to dive into the rabbit hole and embrace the paradigm shift wholeheartedly. Alice’s acceptance demonstrates her emotional maturity and the author used these events and to imply that she felt bored with her life, and desired a change. …show more content…
When Alice discovers the small door to the garden, she also discovers a small bottle labeled, “Drink Me”. As she acknowledges her plight, she states, “It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry: “ no, I ’ll look first,” she said, “ and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not:” This contemplation by Alice epitomizes the state of her judgment and the effect of her age. She debates the idea using her past experiences as a reference, in which she was told poisonous materials would be marked. The equivalent to this statement in wonderland relays that if anyone attempted to trick her, they would let her know beforehand. Alice’s hopes to find a passage into the garden and the innocence of her age blinded her from making the logical decision of choosing not to drink the
Kelly, Richard. Lewis Carroll “Alice” 78-97. U of Tenn. Twayne Publishers, G. K. Hall & Co. Boston, Mass 1977.
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 ”.
Lewis Carroll, world renowned author, known most for his tale of literary nonsense published almost a century and a half ago, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Several conditions of Carroll’s life molded and shaped his writing. Evidence from Carroll’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ,one can conclude that Carroll has engraved moments from his life, people around him ,as well as his beliefs and love of logic into his story, considering these are the things that Alice Liddell would recognize.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland . 3rd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Lewis Carroll demonstrates paradoxes within Alice and Wonderland as Alice is tossed within an entirely different world. Yet one of the greatest paradoxes is the transformation of Alice over the course of the novel as well as the transformation of the duchess. Alice begins as an ignorant child; she has difficulties in morphing to the logic and needs of Wonder...
The underlying message of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a rejection of adult authority. The character of Alice is not at all like what you would find in a typical children's book. "The character of Alice herself is a bit puzzling, even to the modern child, because it does not fit a stereotype. How much more unusual she must have seemed to Victorian children, used to girl angels fated for death (in Dickens, Stowe, and others), or to impossibly virtuous little ladies, or to naughty girls who eventually reform in response to heavy adult pressure... But Alice is neither naughty nor overly nice. Her curiosity leads her into her initial adventure and most of the latter ones in the book... (Leach 119)."
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.
When she falls in the hole she is confronted with no exit except a tiny door to escape from. She, therefore, shrinks into pocket size only to find that the door was closed, constructing her to grow into an enormous size, larger than what Alice began. The idea was to drink to shrink, allowing her to proceed past the miniature door, however she had to eat a small cake to sprout again to gain access to a key placed on a table as it unlocks the door leading to the garden. At any rate, providing that she stop crying, she would realize what a substantial puddle of tears she’s created while being a colossal giant resulting in being stuck in the same place she’s been, therefore, can not escape into the magnificent garden. Alice, no matter how diligent she tried or wanted, was not capable of admission into the garden correlating that it was very slim. The representation of the garden can be looked upon as childhood during the time period, with this intention, lacking the ability to gain entry to the state of being a child. Thus, the reality of the Victorian era was the removal of entrance into childhood as they comforted an age of the Industrial Revolution. The passageway was infancy to young adulthood with no in between the stages, however that was the typical norm during those
Although the novel is notorious for its satire and parodies, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland main theme is the transition between childhood and adulthood. Moreover, Alice’s adventures illustrate the perplexing struggle between child and adult mentalities as she explores the curious world of development know as Wonderland. From the beginning in the hallway of doors, Alice stands at an awkward disposition. The hallway contains dozens of doors that are all locked. Alice’s pre-adolescent stage parallels with her position in the hallway. Alice’s position in the hallway represents that she is at a stage stuck between being a child and a young woman. She posses a small golden key to ...
Here she finds a strange caterpillar on a mushroom smoking a hookah. It doesn’t even matter that the caterpillar talks and questions Alice about her identity, the way he looks should be enough for Alice and the audience to question their sanity. Upon being asked who she is by the caterpillar, Alice has no idea anymore. She is becoming as mad as she believes the inhabitants of Wonderland to be. The caterpillar seems to be able to read Alice’s thoughts now ‘Just as if she had asked it aloud’ - which leads us to believe that Alice is so confused about her identity that perhaps her thoughts aren’t even hers anymore. By the end of this chapter we again see characters leave Alice in anger as she insults the caterpillar on his height and scares the pigeon who believes her to be a serpent. The caterpillar and pigeon both found Alice to be very strange indeed, yet their surroundings were absolutely normal to them - which again shows that Alice is the only odd thing in Wonderland and is able to upset the
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 novel begins with Alice falling down the rabbit hole to follow the White Rabbit. Once she reached the bottom of the hole, Alice noticed a small door that the White Rabbit went through. However, Alice was too big to fit.
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.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.