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critical analysis of alice's adventures in wonderland
literary analysis of alice in wonderland
literary analysis of alice in wonderland
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By looking at Alice in Wonderland, one can see that Lewis Carroll included the themes of growing up and life lessons because he was trying to teach the children he watched over real lessons about the real world. He was a man and knew how to communicate with children in a way that made sense to them. we will be looking at what he did and how he is still helping people ahev a great time to this day.
Lewis Carroll had 10 siblings almost all of which were female. he was the second oldest in thefamily and took to rugby quite well. he would later suffer a horrible case of Whooping Cough that would prevent him from playing, kicking him out of his prime like a tiny injured bird. However all was not in vain as before he lost the use of his rugby playing
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and both his and Alice’s accounts state that it was a perfectly sunny day with good weather and cool temperatures. the minute they got home Alice immediately asked Mr. Carroll to write it down for her so that she could read it again. it was only published because it exchanged hands until it finally found its way to a renown publisher who asked him to publish it. the actual story of Alice in Wonderland is quite simple. A young girl is being read to by her older sister and sees a white rabbit wearing an overcoat and a pocket watch. she decides to follow it into Wonderland where she experiences several amazing things such as changes in her height to a talking cat that likes to disappear. how this man came up with this idea is unknown it is known however that he always tried to teach the children a lesson with his stories. and thats exactly what he did here. the beginning is as i said girl, rabbit, wonderland. it is worth mentioning however that as she is falling down into wonderland she notices its more like shes floating down not falling. throughout the begiinning of the book she s not looking for the rabbit like the movie so clearly lies. shes talking to several animals and creatures that have washed up in a pool of her tears. she then scares them away with a story about her cat Dinah. she then proceeds hrough the door that was blocking her path and finds the rabbits
Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice was with her sister by the riverbank when she noticed a rabbit pull out a pocket watch and say he is going to be late. He went down the rabbit hole and Alice followed him. When Alice finally reached the bottom, she ended up in a hallway of doors. Alice looked in one of the doors and saw the most beautiful garden she has ever seen; but she then realizes she is too big to fit in the doorway. She notices a bottle marked “DRINK ME” on the little glass table behind her and drinks it. Alice shrinks down to the size of the door to the garden but realizes she has forgotten the key to get in. She sees a piece of cake sitting on the table and eats but nothing happens.
He had insomnia and even Alice in Wonderland syndrome,which made it hard on him to sleep at night, but in which influenced Carroll even more to produce his famous writings and making his famous inventions. In Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, both contrast his life, since Alice is “sleeping” and dreaming in both. Alice in Wonderland syndrome, is a disease where one can begin to think there body is becoming smaller, and we see that in Through the Looking Glass Carroll writes, “the Queen was no longer at her side-- she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a little doll…” (Carroll Ch. 9). He’s using advantage of his difficulties, which is smart, and putting them towards his writings, making him a strong inspiring writer.
His writing is easy enough for children to understand but the text itself holds a variety of different themes. Lewis Carroll’s writing style in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is detailed and humorous. He describes every event that Alice endures and the struggles she faces while still having a humorous tone that gives the novel dimension. For example, while describing Alice's entrance to Wonderland, Carroll gives a vivid image of what she saw such as the hallway lined with doors and the different people and animals she saw including the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, and the chesire cat. Lewis Carroll also has a way of incorporating cleverness into this novel. His use of puns and confusing homophones such as the mouse in the story describing his “long and sad tale” which Alice assumes is about his physical tail and not a
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.
Thus, Alice in Wonderland is a good illustration of a Hero’s Journey. This story allows us to see how Alice overcomes the three main phases, and most of the stages identified by Campbell in her journey-transformation from an undisciplined child to a wise young adult. Throughout the story, Alice overcomes the nonsense of the young and the old before she truly understands what adulthood is all about. All through her adventures in Wonderland, she encounters numerous new situations and meets different archetypes that are necessary for her to be considered a Hero.
One of the main purposes for writing Alice in Wonderland was not only to show the difficulties of communication between children and adults. In this story, almost every adult Alice talked to did not understand her. At times she messed up what they were saying completely as well, which many times stick true to real life circumstances. This book shows that kids and adults are on completely separate pages on an everlasting story. Carroll points out that sometimes children, like Alice, have a hard time dealing with the transition from childhood to adulthood, 'growing up.' Alice in Wonderland is just a complicated way of showing this fact. Lewis Carroll's ways with words is confusing, entertaining, serious, and highly unique all at the same time. And it's safe to say that it would be difficult to replicate such and imaginative technique ever again (Long 72).
Lewis Carroll's Wonderland is a queer little universe where a not so ordinary girl is faced with the contradicting nature of the fantastic creatures who live there. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a child's struggle to survive in the condescending world of adults. The conflict between child and adult gives direction to Alice's adventures and controls all the outstanding features of the work- Alice's character, her relationship with other characters, and the dialogue. " Alice in Wonderland is on one hand so nonsensical that children sometimes feel ashamed to have been interested in anything so silly (Masslich 107)."
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.
Growing up is a scary time for almost everyone in the world. The new feelings, experiences, perspectives, and way of thinking changes us. It is a time that can be both full of surprises and disappointments, and also intimacy. Lewis Carroll became a very successful author in portraying everything that is encountered growing up. It has been proven that many readers and also professors from high universities like Princeton and Yale, have claimed that the story completely pertains to adolescence and every experience gained from it through the uses of symbolism, themes, motifs, and imagination.
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 ”.
Many have compared life to a journey over the course of which, one experiences many tumultuous changes and transitions. On this journey, the human body continually undergoes a developmental pattern of physical, mental, and social modifications. Even in the realm of literature, fictional characters inevitably follow this fate. In literature, the stage between childhood innocence and adulthood transforms characters, this is frequently referred to as "coming of age". Because all humans experience this transition, it establishes "coming of age" as a timeless universal literary theme. Among such "coming of age" novels is Lewis Carroll’s tale about a seven-year-old Victorian girl named Alice. In the novel, "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland", Alice falls into the curious world of Wonderland. Alice assuages and manages inter-conflicts, such as her identity. Through the confusion, experimentation, and uncertainties of the Wonderland between childhood and adulthood Alice realizes in her unconscious state that she is changing from simple child into a young woman.
Alice in Wonderland does a good job of highlighting how Alice in Wonderland convey’s growing up. This is done by using distinctive techniques to show the different ways, outfits and mindset a person has from childhood to
Alice’s quest in Wonderland is not well though-out, in fact her encounters are disordered. Having her encounters be unpredictable places Lewis Carroll fairy-tale under Gothic horror. Without a doubt, Alice’s experiences can be illustrated as a nightmare. More importantly, the usage of satire and symbolism by Lewis Carroll gives Alice in Wonderland a meaningful note. All the different characters used in Wonderland essentially come together to form a secret lesson, this secret lesson being teaching children the turmoil of having to grow up. Lewis Carroll utilizes the rabbit hole, growing and shrinking, identifying oneself to characters, and Alice herself as symbols. Like in the “real world,” the only known laws in Wonderland are of chaos.
Known for its utilitarianist ideals, the education system of the Victorian Era limited the thoughts, speech, and actions of the individual; People were the product of the Victorian society in which they were raised. Many Victorian novelists highlight this mechanization of human beings, as it contributed to the identity crisis epidemic of the Victorian Era in which children were especially affected. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll uses the emphasis of facts in the Victorian education system, the likeliness of Victorian Society to discourage the use of the imagination, and the importance of ideal male and female roles of the Victorian citizen, imposed on children at a young age, to create Alice’s confused character analogous to the identity crisis of children during the Victorian era.
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.