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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Analysis of the character
Literary Analysis of Alice in Wonderland
Literary Analysis of Alice in Wonderland
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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on January 27, 1832, in the parsonage of Daresbury Cheshire, England, the third child and eldest son of eleven children of Reverend Charles Dodgson and his wife, Francis Jane Lutwidge. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was his birth name. Lewis Carroll was his pen name which he used later on in his life. Lewis Carroll was educated at home, he was passionate about reading books. As a child he was a shy and quiet child who suffered with a stammer his whole life. Carroll’s stammer affected his social interaction with adults. Lewis Carroll attended Richmond grammar School from the age of twelve. He then moved to Rugby School years later. Carroll achieved well academically and excelled in mathematics, but he was very unhappy …show more content…
After falling asleep sitting beside her sister, she wakes up to find herself falling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. Alice’s adventure begins as she follows the White Rabbit on a journey through Wonderland. Alice finds herself meeting a wide range on interesting characters that seem very strange to her. She encounters talking animals, which Alice finds rather different. In Wonderland, nothing makes sense to Alice as the many rules and morals she was taught from her parents did not exist in this world. When Alice reads the glass bottle sees that there are no markings saying “DO NOT DRINK”, this deducts that it cannot be lethal. However, when she drinks the liquid she grows up to 9 feet tall. Alice learns that although we follow rules, the rules can change dramatically and we have to become comfortable with them and their adaptations. Alice encounters character such as the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the hatter and the Queen of Hearts, and when meeting each of these characters, she learns new rules and morals about this place called Wonderland. The overall idea Lewis Carroll was trying to convey was to teach children lessons about growing up, but in an entertaining
Charles Searles is an African-American artist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1937. The second son of a total of eight children, Searles main focus as a child was becoming an artist. Searles' mother encouraged and equipped Charles with tools to continue his passions while he grew up. Charles went to Salsburger High School, all the while working as a carpenter for his father. During his young adult life, he went to the armed forces to be able to help raise his family. Searles went for his undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. In 1974, he graduated the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with honors accomplishments. Around this time, Charles received the Cresson Medal scholarship to travel to Amsterdam. Searles also received the Ware Memorial Traveling Scholarship, where he was the first student to use the grant to travel to Africa.
Charles Spurgeon was a British Particular Baptist preacher. He is known as the “Prince of Preachers”. He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. Charles remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations.
Whether on page or on the big screen, young Alice struggles with questions about her own identity and continually strives to gain agency in order to legitimize herself. Her journey through Looking Glass Land in Lewis Carroll’s novel and Wonderland in the film version, produced by Disney in 1951, are metaphorical expeditions to find her place in the Victorian society. Prior to visiting these alternate universes, she lived in a world where children were seen as inferior to adults. It is important to notice that in both the book and the film, the authoritative figures are highly satirized. This is evident because although they seem to know the answers to everything, their answers are contradictive to common knowledge or are even made-up. When comparing these places to Alice’s reality, one can come to the conclusion that this is how Alice perceives adults in the real world. As Alice travels through Looking-Glass Land and Wonderland she gains knowledge from these absurd, imaginative characters. However, the question remains:
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!
The derivation of this controversial month was initiated in 1926 by Carter G Woodson. He started “Negro History Week” which was first celebrated in the event of both the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas and then branched out into the entire month of February. Woodson was a student at Harvard University and, in 1912, became the first person of enslaved parents to receive a Ph.D from that particular elite Ivy League school. During a lecture, one of his white professors, Edward Channing, had stated that “The Negro had no history.” Upon hearing this, Woodson was inspired to do something about it. Since then, every year, we celebrate the history of and the contributions that people of color have achieved. In doing so, people have learned how to impact other people. They spread awareness to future generations to remind them of their past and better themselves for the future. We thank and respect people of color because of how they changed the way our nation and their accomplishments. If we disrespect someone’s value, culture, history, traditions, there will be a gap in communication and we’ll be back to where we started from.
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 ”.
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).
Throughout the story, Lewis Carroll uses the metaphor of the rabbit hole to represent growing up and reality of life. The story starts off with Alice sitting near a tree, when she saw out of nowhere a white rabbit who was in a hurry, and Alice was curious to where he was headed to. She followed it and the next thing she knows is that she is falling in rabbit hole and is headed to the adventures of the unknown. The adventures she goes through is what is what all girls will go through one time or another.
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 ...
Lewis Carroll lived a disciplined and diligent life and accomplished many accolades in numerous fields of academics. His ability to do this was through the means of his family’s support and the era of which he lived in. These factors composed his disposition, which resonated throughout his literary works.
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.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the name Lewis Carroll, was a British author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer. Carroll was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on January 27, 1832 to Frances Jane Lutwidge, the wife of the Rev. Charles Dodgson. Carroll attended Richmond School, Yorkshire for a year and then continued his education on to Rugby School. He left Rugby in 1850 and continued his education at Oxford, Christ Church the college his father used to attend. Although Carroll did not always work hard, he showed brilliance and achieved excellence in mathematics. At Christ Church, Carroll received a studentship at age twenty and won a Mathematical Lectureship in 1855. He taught there for twenty-six
Analyzing Carroll’s work starts with knowing the life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. “Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England” (http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-carroll-9239598) to Charles and Frances Lutwidge. “Dodgson was the eldest son in a family of eleven children – Four boys and seven girls” (http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-carroll-9239598). Charles and his family lived in the outskirts of town, so they did not have many people to interact with. Charles did his best to entertain his siblings by creating games and riddles so that they could the make the best of their lonesomeness. “Young Dodgson attended Richmond School, Yorkshire (1844-45), and then he proceeded to Rugby School (1846-50)” (http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-carroll-9239598?page=1).
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 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.