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literary analysis of alice in wonderland
literary analysis of alice in wonderland
literary analysis of alice in wonderland
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Lewis Carroll wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and a follow up novel “Through the Looking Glass”. Lewis was born on the 27th of January, 1832 under the name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He is most famous for his writing style of lyrical nonsense in his works. “In 1856 Carroll met Alice Liddell, the four-year-old daughter of the head of Christ Church. During the next few years Carroll often made up stories for Alice and her sisters. In July 1862, while on a picnic with the Liddell girls, Carroll recounted the adventures of a little girl who fell into a rabbit hole. Alice asked him to write the story out for her. his works Carroll has many different literary focuses in this novel. Such as his theme behind his headlining novel. “The most obvious theme that can be found in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is growing up” (Lenny). Lenny also stated that “In Wonderland, Alice struggles with the importance and instability of personal identity. She is constantly ordered to identify herself by the creatures she meets, but she herself has doubts about her identity as well.”(Lenny). Curiosity is also a significant theme in the novel. That statement can be based on her most common phrase in the novel “Curiouser and curiouser!”(Carroll 13). Another staple in his work is the style of his writing. Carroll has a very unique style of writing in that he uses nonsense poems throughout the novel. “How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!”(Carroll 16) The poem doesn’t make sense and is considered nonsense because the poem is actually based on Against Idleness and Mischief (Isaac Watts). Finally, the other method Mr. Carroll uses is the setti... ... middle of paper ... ...s spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."(Carroll 119) Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Cambridge, Mass : Candlewick Press, 1999. Print. Roody, de,Lenny. “themes and motifs in the ‘Alice’ stories”. Alice-in-Wonderland, n.d. 24 mar 2011. McIntire, Sarah. “Alice in Wonderland Theme and Subject”. Victorianweb. Brown University. n.d. web. 24 mar. 2011 Everson. Michael. “Alice’s Adventures under Ground”. Everytype. Westport. 26 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 mar. 2011 Singh, Rajir. “Lewis Carroll-biography and style/literary devices” essayfourm. 9 Sep 2008. Web. 30 Mar .2011 Sylvia. “Curiosity Killed the Alice” Aliceproject5. 2 Dec. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2011
what she knew of her odd identity. Then one day she saw herself in a photograph
Carroll’s works illustrate a firm understanding of nonsense. His stories and poems thrive in fantastic worlds of imagination. Because of this, they effortlessly thrive in the worlds of children, as well. Carroll writes with the mind of a child. He understood that, “For young children, whose brains are struggling to comprehend language, words are magical in any case; the magic of adults, utterly mysterious; no child can distinguish between "real" words and nonsensical or "unreal" words, and verse like [his] brilliant "Jabberwocky" has the effect of both arousing childish anxiety (what do these terrifying words mean?) and placating it (don't worry: you can decode the meaning by the context). Lewis Carroll, in whom the child-self abided through his celibate lifetime, understood instinctively the child's propensity to laugh at the very things that arouse anxiety…” (Oates 9)
Lewis Carroll was born in England on January 27, 1832 under the name Charles Dodgson; Lewis Carroll was a pen name. Dodgson happened to be the third child of Charles Dodgson senior and Frances Lutwidge, who was also his father’s cousin. Being the oldest boy of eleven children, three brothers and seven sisters, Dodgson often felt overlooked by his parents. His father worked as a clergyman at the time and was usually occupied with his studies. However, he tried to create time for his children and every now and again and found time to joke and play with Dodgson. The Dodgson children, living far out in the country, didn’t have many friends; nevertheless they played with one another regularly. Dodgson enjoyed entertaining his siblings, especially his sisters, inventing games and puzzles for them as well as setting up theatrical plays and puppet shows. Dodgson often suffered from a stammer, as a result of a sickness he had when he was very young. His stammer showed often when speaking to adults, he mostly talked to other children; this persisted into his adulthood.
Gattegno, Jean. Lewis Carroll: Fragments of a Looking-Glass “Alice” and “A Carroll Chronology” 4-27. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. 1973 New York, NY.
The book Alice in wonderland was published in 1865, by Lewis Carroll, this book has become part of many adults and children’s lives and has been a cherished fairy tale for many years. The story begins with a young girls dream called Alice, and the adventures that are about to take place in the unconscious mind of Alice, due to her starting to drift off to sleep by becoming bored of her sister reading her a novel with no pictures. (Carroll,1992). However, since it’s traditional origin, many generations have been eager to find hidden meanings in the tale. To some readers they feel that the author created something more than a child’s storybook, in which continues to fascinate both adults and children today, (Reichertz,1997).
While adults try to figure out use of complex m codes in the text, or debate his possible use of opium, viewers may be simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, chasing after "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they meet the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Fake Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a large number of other characters gone forever, fantasy-like, and ordinary creatures. Alice travels through this Wonderland, trying to understand the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," (appearing to be) without moral or
Carroll’s work seems to have several different interpretations that readers can come up with that I can count now. Some of them includes that the reader has to try to connect the short stories from the images based on the specific objects, view the objects as pieces of evidence as to solve the puzzle or the case of the lizard queen, or just not even create or put things together but perceive the images as they are.
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).
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
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.
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 ...
When one thinks of children’s storybooks, one robotically assumes a simple fairy tale with no particular purpose. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, is very successful in means of portraying a deeper message with usage of symbolism and satire. Just about all the characters found in the story function as a symbol, leaving the rest for the reader’s imagination. Even though Alice in Wonderland does not fulfill the “classic fairy tale,” it does not leave one, particularly children, questioning the story. Because Alice in Wonderland is a dream-like tale, it enables Lewis Carroll to criticize and make fun of the Victorian Age. Like many other known authors, they use satire to point out faults of society and the people in a humorous manner. The core idea behind Alice in Wonderland is the chaos that comes with puberty and growing up. More importantly, the use of the rabbit hole, growing and shrinking, having to identify herself to characters, and Alice herself help to construct the main theme of the story.
At the beginning of the story Alice is a little girl who is very curious, but also quite scared of being alone. First of all, she has an inquiring mind that brings her down the rabbit hole and, even if her way of thinking could remind the adult kind of thoughts, she still acts like a child. A clear example of this kind of behavior is when she finds a bottle with the words “DRINK ME” labeled on. Before drinking f...
Lewis started to write literature works when he was young. He led up to his climax after writing Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland because for these books, he became well known over time. Lewis really started to write when he was 13. At this age in 1845, he contributed poems and drawings to the family magazine titled Useful and Instructive Poetry. Lewis attended Richmond Grammar School at the time. He established himself as a freelance humorist in 1854 and contributed poems as well as stories to the Oxonian Advertiser and the Whitby Gazette. On July 4, 1862, Lewis made a boating excursion up the Isis to Godstow in the company of Robinson Duckworth and the three Lid...