Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Analysis of the character
Analysing alice in wonderland
Analysing alice in wonderland
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to realize the unpredictable nature of life and she must learn to adapt to illogical circumstances that are uncomfortable and unfamiliar such as when Alice contemplates the Mad Hatter’s riddle, when Alice plays a part in the Queen of Hearts’ shenanigans, and when Alice takes place in the Knave of Hearts’ trial. Alice’s conversation with the Mad Hatter is her first experience in new territory of ridiculous situations as she tries to understand the confusing words of the Hatter. The Queen of Hearts’ unpredictable behavior further prepares her to adapt to uncomfortable and precarious situations. Lastly, Alice’s participation in the criminal trial that fails to follow the rules of justice Alice is familiar with teaches her to adapt to new events even if they fail to make sense. In other words, Alice redefines her close-mindedness to matters she is …show more content…
For instance, the Mad Hatter asks Alice the complicated riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” (Carroll 173). Alice cannot determine an answer to the riddle, and when she asks the Mad Hatter what the solution is, the Mad Hatter tells Alice he has no idea. Alice has trouble accepting this as an answer since she believes everything has a resolution. This situation teaches Alice that life does not always have predictable solutions that make logical sense. She begins to realize that despite the unfamiliarity of some situations having no answer, like the riddle, they are a part of life and she must learn to adapt to. This means that Alice’s first experience in understanding the unpredictable events can be out of her control and she has to adapt to deal with people she is not used to; this especially prepares her for the second time it occurs in her encounter with the Queen of
In The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, the sweet nonsensical story of Alice in Wonderland is retold in an interestingly strange way that includes everything from war and rebellion, to love. Towards the beginning of the story Alyss is forced to leave Wonderland after having her castle ambushed by her evil Aunt Redd. Hatter Madigan, her mother’s trusted bodyguard, is told by Queen Genevieve herself to look after the young princess but is separated from her when they enter the Pool of Tears. He eventually finds her in england where she had been staying for the duration of her time on Earth, and takes her back to wonderland where she reclaims her throne. By altering this story, Bedder adds a more significant twist to what was a children’s book, creating many meaningful themes to go along with his version that develop throughout the novel. One example is taking responsibility, which is evident in many of the actions involving the characters Hatter Madigan, Alyss Heart, and Dodge Anders.
Alice has many arguments because many of the creatures in Wonderland think of her as silly. She has to stand up for herself which helps her to mature and progress through Wonderland. When she stands up for herself against someone who is really important like the Queen of Hearts, she awakens back into the real world. This represents that she has overcome her challenge.
Alice’s failure to understand the “native” culture, and her insistence on imposing her own norms and values ultimately culminates in a life-threatening situation.” (Binova “Underground Alice:” the politics of wonderland). Alice is the colonised in the situation with the Queen of Hearts. When she is introduced to the Queen her evil nature is revealed as she orders “Off with her head!” (Carroll 96). However, she is contrasted to Alice’s good nature while she shouts “Nonsense!” ( Carrol 96). The theme of chaos and confusion is brought forward as they play croquet all at once with noises all around and even in the court where everyone is expected to be civil. Although the Queen, as a character reinforces adulthood, subversion emerges again by Alice standing up for herself at this time. Nearing the end of her dream, she stands up against the Queen at court but it dream ends without a resolution. Maria Lassen-Seger says in ( “Subversion of Authority”: In “Alice’s Adventures of Wonderland”), “the relationship between the child and the adult is an impossible power relation in which the child is marginalised and considered powerless, thus, the adults suggest in their books what a child ought to be, what values and images it should accept.” The Queen at this point in the dream would have been the
...e at the end of the story, in which she herself dreams about the adventures Alice has just had. The adult Alice will have children of her own, and, perhaps, she will entertain them with the story of Wonderland. Indeed, the dream gains some reality when it is spread, as a story, to so many others.
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's use of puns and riddles in Alice in Wonderland help set the theme and tone. He uses word play in the book to show a world of warped reality and massive confusion. He uses such play on words to reveal the underlying theme of growing up', but with such an unusual setting and ridiculous characters, there is need for some deep analyzing to show this theme. The book contains many examples of assonance and alliteration to add humor. Carroll also adds strange diction and extraordinary syntax to support the theme.
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 ...
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
...n though she struggled to cope with Wonderland at the beginning due to the lack of appropriate methods, the experiential learning with the sizes taught her to solve the problems at hand rationally, logically and with evidence. Armed with this powerful tool, Alice then sets out to resolve her identity crisis by learning about Wonderland independently. She may not have intentionally chosen which topics (i.e. Time) to pursue but the conclusion she reaches is the same in her interactions: Wonderland is governed by irrationality and her rational self cannot come to terms with it. One may argue ‘how is a seven and a half year old capable of such thinking?’ One must note that Wonderland is a dream and because Alice is dreaming, she is capable of it.
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’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.
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.
Many of us have read Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and sympathized with the main character, Alice. The audience wonders why all of the characters in Wonderland are so strange and no one seems to notice but Alice herself. The tale brings a chilling feeling to it’s audience because we wonder what we would do if we were surrounded by nothing but odd circumstances and mad characters. However, if we truly think about the story, is the population of Wonderland mad? Or is it Alice that is different and strange? After all, Alice is in their world not vice versa. With these next few paragraphs we will take an in depth look at Wonderland, it’s population and Alice to determine who is really mad here.
Alice tries to come to terms with Wonderland as she grows and figures out more about herself than she ever has before. In both the book and 1951 movie Alice is a young girl, possibly a pre teen, who goes on a journey of a lifetime. I would say that this journey is one that many young adults go on in one way or another and when they come to the end they discover what they are really made of and all of the things that they can accomplish if they really put their minds to it. “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?”
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.