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Literary Analysis of Alice in Wonderland
Literary Analysis of Alice in Wonderland
Literary Analysis of Alice in Wonderland
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In Frank Beddor’s, The Looking Glass Wars, the original story of Alice in Wonderland is twisted from what we have always known. Not an inquizitive girl in London, Alyss is princess of Wonderland. Though she is soon forced to leave due to her Aunt Redd’s return to take over the queendom, she will soon return to take it back. Beddor frequently proposes that perseverance is the answer to regaining the queendom and conquering other obstacles along the way. This is evident in the actions of Alyss Heart, Dodge Anders, and the Hatter Madigan. Alyss Heart was one of the many characters in the novel that displays perserverence. At the age of seven, Alyss was taken away from Wonderland, due to the return of her evil aunt, Redd. She escaped through the Pool of Tears with fellow protector, Hatter Madigan, but ended up in London, where she stayed with a group of orphans for some time, making them money because “she made the flower sing. It wasn’t for more than a few bars, but it was enough” (109). Alyss never gave up on the orphans, until her imagination grew weak, and she was adopted by the Liddell family. They too treated her as if she were a …show more content…
crazy child, making everything up. Once her imagination had weakened, she was no longer able to provide people with evidence that Wondlerland was indeed real. Alyss eventually returned to Wonderland where the Alyssians turned to her begging, “‘fight alongside your army,’ he continued, ‘and you will face Redd because only you have the strength and power to defeat her’” (235). Alyss displayed perseverance throughout her whole lifetime by never giving up on the tough orphans, fighting to defeat Redd no matter what, and accomplishing many other acts of perseverance over the span of her lifetime. Another brave character that always persevered is Dodge Anders. When Dodge was just eleven years old, he watched his father being murdered before him, and his best friend, Princess Alyss, escaping through the Pool of Tears, trying to escape the the clutch of her Aunt Redd. After this crisis in his life, “he was faced with nothing, blankness” (95) and he felt a strong need for revenge on Redd and the Cat for taking away the life of his father and running off his best friend. From then on, he was willing to do almost anything if it meant defeating Redd and the cat. Years later, there he was, “handsome and rugged, with four parallel scars visible on his right cheek. Dodge Anders. Only fourteen years old but fighting like a grown man” (137). He was willing to fight, no matter his age, to defeat Redd. Eventually, he struck down the enemy Cat alongside Alyss, who bravely defeated Redd. Dodge Anders showed perseverance many times by not giving up on defeating Redd and the Cat and doing whatever was needed of him. The last character who showed perseverance throughout the book would be Hatter Madigan.
Hatter was the brave protector who successfully escorted Princess Alyss out of Wonderland. They “plummeted toward the surface of the water below” where the Pool of Tears awaited. No Wonderlander had ever traveled trhough the Pool of Tears and returned back to Wonderland, until Hatter. After thirteen years of devoting his life to finding Alyss, Hatter traveled out of reality through a puddle and appeared back into Wonderland through the Pool of Tears. The Alyssians later found Alyss and returned her to Wonderland. Turning to the Alyssians, Hatter stated, “‘It makes no difference if I’m alive or dead except as it concerns the princess.’” Hatter didn’t care if he got harmed, or even killed, as long as Princess Alyss and the queendom were safe from
harm. Throughout the book, Frank Beddor makes it evident that perseverance will get you far. He displays this reoccuring theme through Alyss Heart, Dodge Anders, and Hatter Madigan. Alyss perseveres from the time she arrived in London, England to the moment she defeated Redd. Alyss didn’t give up on defeating Redd and regaining her queendom no matter the circumstances. Dodge’s urge to get revenge on Redd and the Cat pushed him to persevere and keep fighting for the queendom. He fought until the throne was regained by his dear friend, Alyss Heart. Hatter Madigan knew that he had to fulfill the queen’s last wish of keeping Alyss safe, so he fought to get Alyss and the queendom back and let nothing get in his way.The theme of persevering is signigicant to this text because withoiut perseverance, Alyss, Dodge, and Hatter would not have had success in their journey.
In Frank Beddor’s book The Looking Glass Wars it retells the story of Alice in Wonderland and makes it its own new book. In this version, Alyss is the princess of Wonderland, but when her Aunt Redd who was banished from the Queendom attacks Wonderland and makes everything evil Alyss must run away with Hatter Madigan. After she ran away from Wonderland when she was seven she ended up in England. After she made it back from England she returned to Wonderland to fight Redd and her army. In this book Beddor provides many themes throughout the book that mean a lot to the characters and how they act. For example, good conquers all is evident from the actions of Genevieve, Alyss, and Hatter Madigan.
Alyss concludes, “This marriage would please her mother, for her family’s sake” (Beddor 171). Alyss acts as a people pleaser when she accepts Leopold’s proposal. She doesn’t love Leopold, but accepts his proposal only to make her mother happy. Alyss has decided to no longer stand out and become like “every women” (Beddor 191). Alyss desires to conform and submit to ideas of society. She becomes normal and no longer stands out like odd Alyss. Mrs. Liddell exclaims “ The dress she had purchased months before, but which Alyss had always refused to wear it because she feared it would make her look normal”, Alyss now wears it ( Beddor 151). Alyss starts to dress like everyone in England. She no longer looks like a former Wonderlander, but becomes by all appearances a proper young
Throughout the book Alyce proves to be a very empathetic and caring young girl. One of the times Alyce shows her empathy, the Midwife was trying to help a woman give birth, but the lady was having some trouble and Jane tried so much that in the end she just gave up to go help someone else she knew would pay her more, deciding to abandon the woman who was in need of help. Alyce decided that it wasn’t fair, and that a lady shouldn’t be left like that when she needed help, “The memory of the proud, frightened, Joan of a moment ago kept her there. And she asked herself, What would the midwife so if she were here? … Alyce took a deep breath and returned to Joan’s side” (59), so she decided to help Joan even though the midwife was too selfish to do so. Alyce also respects the people who don’t respect her, so when the village boys that had recently stopped teasing her were doing something that would have definitely gotten them in trouble if the midwife had seen them, she knew they’d have been in trouble so she went up to the midwife and talked to her to hold her off so the boys could get away. Alyce likes helping people that need help when no one else will help them, for example when she’s found a job at an inn after she’s given up her career as a midwife’s apprentice and a few people ride to the inn asking for help because they claim the lord’s wife is being eaten by a stomach worm but Alyce immediately realizes the lady is pregnant and decides to help her even though she’s a bit uncertain at first because of her recent failure.
In the beginning of the novel, Alyss is characterized as irresponsible, immature, and silly. On Alyss’s seventh birthday, she is now eligible to become queen. Bibwit tells her, “The position comes with tremendous responsibilities.”, but she doesn’t seem to care. (Beddor 25) Instead, she plays pranks on everyone and does not take her responsibility as queen seriously.
In the beginning of the novel, Alyss is characterized as dependent, loving, and imaginative. Throughout the story these traits mature and Alyss becomes more adult like but still is a little childish in certain scenes. One can say that the maturity that Alyss goes through affects herself later on in the story. During the story the
To prove that she is loyal to White imagination here is a quote from the book. “But she had caught it; the crystal cube was safe.” This quote represents Alyss saving the looking glass maze cube from hitting the ground and cracking. If it cracked it would be broken forever, never allowing the queens that come after Alyss to go through the maze. Another example of Alyss’ loyalty would be when she went into the maze to become the warrior queen that she had to become to save the queendom. “Do i kill or...but what’s to be done with her if I don’t? She’ll pose a threat as long as she lives.” In this quote Alyss struggles with how to handle her aunt. She shows loyalty to the queendom by thinking about getting rid of her aunt for the better of the land. She said that she would pose a threat as long as she lives. What that means is that it would be threatening the queendom if she does not kill her. This shows she is pretty loyal to white imagination/queendom.
Hatter Madigan is one of the characters that takes responsibility. After being told by Queen Genevieve to look after Alyss until she is ready to rule, Hatter Madigan takes the young princess to the Pool of Tears, “Alyss Heart, holding tight to
In The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, the story of alice in wonderland is modified and changed to where Alyss is the Princess of Wonderland, who is forced to leave wonderland when her evil Aunt Redd takes over and kills alyss’ parents. When hatter madigan and alyss are separated in the pool of tears, Alyss ends up alone in England. Eventually returning to take back her throne. When changing the story he developed new themes like how Dodge, Jack of Diamonds, and Alyss can not stay children forever.
The Struggle Of Building Adversity means difficulties or misfortune. When someone's dealing with things or a situation turns out to go against them, they face adversity. Adversity is something someone comes across in life, it's like being part of a person. Decisions and actions are influenced by a lot of things. Conflicts influence all kinds of actions and decisions, depending on the person.
Alyss Heart was changed after Dodgson showed her the book he wrote about her. She gave up on being Alyss Heart. She thought to herself, “...No more. Erase it all. I will no longer be Odd Alice. Odd Alice must die. Yes it was a solution: Give up on her so-called ridiculous, fantastical delusions and enter whole heartedly into the world around him.” (Beddor 149-150) , now she was Alice Liddel. Everyone was surprised at her transformation. “...so well well had she adapted to the customs and beliefs of the time, so well had she adopted the inclinations of other her age, that she’d befriended those who use to tease her mercilessly.” Alice was showing that she could be the prim, proper, and beautiful woman that her adoptive parents wanted her to be. Alice had many suitors, one being a prince, Prince Leopold. He thought that “... her beauty was undeniable.” that’s one of the reasons why he asked for her hand in
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 ”.
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 ...
...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.
Carroll is unwilling to accept the fact that Alice is growing up and that their friendship is coming to an end. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice is portrayed as a child in need of help, much like how Alice needed Carroll. However in Through the Looking Glass, Alice is portrayed as older and independent. This is because Carroll sees Alice as years older than when he first wrote about her, despite her only being six months older in the book. Carroll in reminiscing on the way Alice used to spend time with him and he misses that friendship. His dependency on Alice is shown at the end of the White Knight’s scene through the White Knight’s insistence that she sees him off. The White Knight bringing Alice to the final brook to become a queen is Carroll’s way of showing that he needs to let Alice go in order for her to grow
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.