Psychological Issues In Alice In Wonderland

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At first glance, when reading or watching Alice in Wonderland, the tone is light and playful with the author’s intent to entertain, however there is no doubt that the story also succeeds as a vivid demonstration of human psychopathology. In the movie, the tone can also come off as light and playful, but if you pay close attention the movie adds a darker tone to the story. The movie, both the original and the Tim Burton version, vividly demonstrate multiple mental disorders. The main character of Alice is an excellent example of this, as the movie brings out her disorder of paranoid schizophrenia and a little bit of nightmare disorder. Alice is first portrayed with a nightmare disorder as child in the original movie. Nightmare disorder is when …show more content…

Alice does not like that there are no pictures so she begins dreaming of her own world, which she calls Wonderland. She states that in her world, everything that shouldn’t be possible would be, and that animals would wear waistcoats and trousers. After describing this, she happens to see a rabbit in a waistcoat and decides to follow it. At this point, the movie begins to display her disorder as she follows the rabbit into a hole that she falls through. As falling through the hole takes her to another world, Wonderland, Alice believes that it is real and is not aware that it is all just a …show more content…

The garden is the last stop in Wonderland, but it is where she is put into the most danger, as the red queen puts her on trial with a sentence of “off with her head!” This situation puts Alice in enough danger that it causes her to realize that she is only dreaming, and to force herself to wake up. This is the last symptom of the nightmare disorder to be shown in the movie. The symptom that the dream becomes disturbing enough to wake Alice up and that when she awakes she can recall her dream. The only thing that is portrayed wrongly in the movie is that when Alice awakes, she should be able to think clearly but instead has trouble with this, as she takes a minute to realize where she is and what is going

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