Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland

Lewis Carroll’s fascinating novel Alice in Wonderland, published in 1865, was foremost intended to entertain and pleasure children with a new outlook on the ability to imagine and explore one’s creative mind. Alice is not only just a character in a book, but a dear friend to Mr. Carroll. She inspired and encouraged Carroll to first tell the original story and further publish the tale into the enduring classic, Alice in Wonderland. In the novel Alice experiences the adventure of a lifetime after falling down a large rabbit-hole in her family’s pasture, bored and curious one summer’s day. Once Alice enters Wonderland a number of strange and confusing events take place, such as: crying a pool of tears, advice from a caterpillar, meeting the Queen of Hearts, playing on her Croquet-Ground, almost getting beheaded by the Queen’s demand, meeting numerous talking animals, including the Cheshire cat (who continues to appear throughout the novel), and finally serving as a witness in the Queen’s Courtroom. In the middle of the chaos Alice meets the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse at their mad tea party. Alice approaches the great table where all three are crowded together; to her surprise they all cry out “No room! No room!” (Carroll 52). Alice announces there is plenty of room for her and sat down at the end of the table in a large arm-chair. From this moment forward the four characters have a conversation over three challenging topics. Throughout the novel and real life, Carroll introduces riddles and complex ideas to Alice, stimulating her intuition and the ability to think for herself. The Mad Hatter and March Hare are created to assist Alice discover and recognize what madness and meaningless puzzles look like, all throu...

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...and, but also suggests that the ordering principles that rule Alice’s world are just as arbitrary. The Mad Hatter’s answerless riddle confirms Wonderland’s unusual reason of order. “Only in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland was Carroll able to fall all the way through the rabbit-hole to the point where the top and bottom become one, bats and cats melt into each other, and the vessel of innocence and purity is also the source of inescapable corruption” (Bloom 39).

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Lewis Carroll. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1971. Print.

Cohen, Morton. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York: Alfred a. Knopf Inc., 1995. Print.

LN, FN. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Novels for Students. Deborah A. Stanley.

Farmington Hills: Gale Research, 1999. 17- 40. Print.