Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, James and the Giant Peach

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Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, James and the Giant Peach

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was written by Lewis Carroll in

1865. It was written for children and is a story of a twelve year old

girl who falls down a rabbit hole. On her adventures, the protagonist,

Alice, comes across many weird and wonderful scenes, sites and

characters. She comes across many creatures and animals with

anthropomorphic behaviour. The entire story is set in a strange world

of continuous change.

'James and the Giant Peach', written by Roald Dahl in 1965, is also a

book written for children. It is about a boy called James, who is also

the protagonist and is also a similar age as Alice, and he comes

across a huge peach. This peach contains giant insects, which talk.

There are several similarities between these two stories, including

the fact that the protagonist is a child who goes through magical and

strange scenes that are packed with fantasy and wonder. Also, the

characters that they meet along their way are, in both stories,

creatures and animals who behave anthropomorphically.

James is taken through many adventures and situations of great

excitement. He lives in and lives off the peach which he has become

stranded upon whilst floating at sea. Eventually, in the climax of the

story, the peach ends out flying over New York City with the aid of

Seagulls. This is a modern child's story, and even with a century

between the publishing of James and Alice, the two stories are

incredibly alike in scene structure and character relevance.

In both stories there are wonderful but bizarre characters that

influence the story and how it develops. In Alice, a strong influence

of the story is the Cheshire Cat. Using riddles a...

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...er influence, I have come to the conclusion that

'Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland' simply isn't as enjoyed by

children as it used to be. It is too out of the ordinary and merely

unbelievable. Fantasy works with the imagination, but this story is

just too fantastical. The introduction of the animated film has also

discouraged children from reading the book, because not as much effort

has to be put in just to understand what's happening. This is the case

with modern stories as well. For example, the Harry Potter stories are

released as films as well as in books, yet many children still enjoy

and are inspired to read the books as well as watching the films.

Basically 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' has passed its time, and

in the modern day requires too much concentrating, hard work and deep

thought to be enjoyed. Easily read stories, are easily enjoyed.

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