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Alice in wonderland summary
An Analysis of Characters of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
An Analysis of Characters of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
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The classic stories “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll consist of dreamlike adventures in a crazy world of nonsense. However this nonsense can be deciphered into a complex new system of thinking. This way of thinking can be transferred and directly applied to the mind. How the mind works, its many varying functions, and lastly the unconscious mind can all be tied to Alice. The unconscious mind can be compared to Alice, as can a dreamlike state of mind.
In the first book Lewis Carroll wrote, it never states that Alice is dreaming. It does infer that she is, though, by way of saying it was a warm day, which would make one drowsy. You can imagine slowly drifting off and all of the sudden you are in a world of nonsense and crazy things all around. Everybody dreams about different things, but most people usually will have a dream that is like an odd one out, and is way out in the left field. This dream that Alice is having appears to be one of these dreams, completely random and different from what is usual to her. By the second book though, it seems to be a normal thing to her. Well, at least more normal than it was in the first book.
If Alice is compared to the mind, it will be found to have similarities. From her psyche, to ours, from her sense of the logical, and illogical, from her sense of wondering and wandering to ours, we are similar. We can compare ourselves in many ways to Alice. The most prevalent thing we are alike to her, though, is the mind. If we analyze our minds, and Alice, we find copious likenesses. If we take that into awareness, we can learn much about ourselves, and the world we live in.
The mind takes events, people, and feelings from your conscious mind a...
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The definition of nonsense has been debated throughout literature. Yet nonsense itself cannot be defined, but rather it is defined by its inability to be defined. It’s the destruction or defiance of the norm that often leads to creation of nonsense. The language of nonsense itself is closely intertwined with various techniques of style, structuralization and various motifs. Authors such as Lewis Caroll in Alice and Wonderland and Edward Lear’s The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear use such techniques to invoke the language of nonsense as well as to create nonsense within their writing. Both Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear use the language of nonsense is also defined by paradoxes, the play on stereotypes, and the usage of polysemy.
The human mind is one of the most complex structures the gods had created. It is difficult to understand each brain process as every human being possesses his or her own distinguished thought patterns with different levels of complexities. A person’s mind greatly influences his behavior, which eventually transforms into his habit by becoming embedded into his character. Today, the world of psychology tries to understand everything that a mind can create. However, even before the field of Psychology was introduced and brought into practice, some American writers threw a spotlight on the mechanism of the human brain in their works. On top of this list is an American writer, Edgar Allan
This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
When Alice enters Wonderland, everything she knows (or rather she thinks she knows) is completely turned upside down. As a result, when Alice is first confronted with the nonsensical ways of this dream world, she loses her sense of identity as she continually asks herself, “Who in the world am I?” (18). However, in confronting and challenging the adults in Wonderland she is
The unconscious mind can be explained in various ways and can take on various attributes. Carl Jung the author of “The Archetype and the Collective Unconscious,” defines unconsciousness as the first reactions and interactions a person endeavors. Several Physicists believe that the unconscious mind acts separately from our voluntary thinking. Scientist believes that understanding the unconscious mind is key to determining what type of archetype a person may have or develop. Experiments such as, reaction to stimuli, have lead cognitive psychiatrist to determine the strength of the unaware and involuntary mind. In addition, many social physicists have also believed that the unconscious mind is unaware of it actions and that the unconscious part of our brain can sometimes be focused on several signs that our conscious self can’t see.
Of course there is no sure way to prove that Carroll did not intend any deeper meaning into the story, after all, he was a mathematician and a man of great knowledge of children (19th Century Literature Criticism 105), but lets take a look at the most obvious fact – the time, place and audience of the original story of Alice in Wonderland. Here are the words of Lewis Carroll as he recalls that day: Full many a year has slipped away, since that “golden afternoon” that gave thee birth, but I can call it up almost as clearly as if it were yesterday – the cloudless blue above, the watery mirror below, the boat drifting idly on its way, the tinkle of the drops that fell from the oars, as they waved so sleepily to and fro, and (the one bright gleam of life in all the slumberous scene) the three eager faces, hungry for news of fairyland, and who would not he say ‘nay’ to: from whose lips ‘Tell us a story, please,’ had all the stern immutability of Fate!
In the end there are many situations where Alice feels that she is different from everyone else around her. Alice realized that she was always different but more so when she was with these three characters who are the Mad Hatter, the caterpillar and the pigeon, and lastly being the Queen of Hearts. When she met the Mad Hatter is more so when she started to realize that she was different from everyone else in Wonderland. Throughout the book Alice just kept finding out how different she really was. Then she met the caterpillar and the pigeon who both made her question who and what she is. Then lastly she met the Queen of Hearts and really found out how different she was from everyone that was surrounding her in Wonderland. To conclude these were just a few examples where Alice felt like she was different from everyone else.
The study of children’s theory of mind has grown tremendously attractive to many developmental psychologists in the past few decades. The reason for this being because having a theory of mind is one of the quintessential skills that define us as being human and because having this ability plays a major role in our social functioning. To have a theory of mind is to be able to reflect on the categorical contents of one’s own mind, such as dreams, memories, imaginations, and beliefs, which all provide a basic foundation to understand how someone else may think and why they may behave in the manner that they do (Bjorklund, p.199). It is the development of one’s concepts of mental activity; their ability to understand that they think things that others do not and that their thoughts are theirs alone, as well as understanding that other peoples’ minds work in the same way, in which they too, have their own individual thoughts. Our theory of mind grants us ability to navigate our personal and social world by explaining past behavior, and anticipating and predicting future actions (Moore & Frye, 1991).
Sigmund Freud is one of the most popular and credited scientists in the history of psychology. When Freud sought how to treat his patients, he discovered that there were some patients who had nothing physically wrong with them. Freud began to explore the possibility that these patients may be suffering from a mental rather than physical disorder and his lead to his discovery of the unconscious. Freud determined the unconscious was basin of thoughts, feelings, memories, and wishes that were mostly unacceptable. Other psychologists believe unconsciousness is merely information we process that we are unaware of. Part of exploring the unconscious was to analyze the dreams patients were having. Patients were able to relay the deepest parts of their minds be using free association. Free association is when a person relaxes completely and reacts however they want without feeling shame or embarrassment. It was through free association and freedom of expression that Freud was able to determine a patient’s personality. Per...
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).
Davis, Tom. The Theories of the Mind Lectures. Ed. G. Baston. Birmingham University. 9 Nov. 2000
II. (Introduce Topic) Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to understand the different functions of the human body, how we move, talk, and even act. Many of these physiological behaviors have been explained to some extent. However, one area of the human body that has baffled researchers, is that of the mind. Many things that go on inside the mind that don’t make sense, and serves no real explanation as to why or how things happen. One of the most fascinating and mysterious sections of psychology is that of dreaming. Even though there are numerous theories about dreams; whomever you are, wherever you live, you will dream. Whether it's a good dream or a nightmare is up to your mind, but there must be some reasoning behind dreams, right?
Most of the characters in Alice’s dreams are considered adults in that they assume a role of authority over her. Characters such as the Mad Hatter assume said role through their superiority in age. We know of them to be older physically but not are not mature enough to have authority. However, for the characters whose age we cannot assume, we recognize their sense of authority as their being adults. This meaning that their age is not necessarily defined and so we assume them to be adults through the way they carry themselves. Nevertheless, these characters are all considered adults, so Carroll depicts them as closed minded and unintellectual, the reasoning behind their condescending tone to
thoughts from people’s deep sub conscious through the use of dreams, this is the act they call
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.