Wonderland Through the Ages

Alice's tale of self-discovery in Wonderland and in the Looking Glass has resonated through pop-culture for decades, long after the book's publication.

However, as the satirical aspects of the book have become less relevant with time, the story has evolved along with the era.

The Quest

http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2010/03/alice-in-wonderland-its-wonder.html

 The idea of the hero’s quest is one that fascinates me, and has fascinated many others, with the Alice books.  To inherit the culture that we are born into is to inherit the idea of a hero, and we seem to embellish the ideas ourselves before passing it on. Thus, the hero is an archetype, one that is almost universal, in world literature. Joseph Campbell points out a few characteristics that great heroes, especially in the Western literary tradition, share. They begin by showing signs of a vocation, then by refusing to carry it out until their conscience, or a divine being, has interfered and told them to do so. Then there is the inevitable journey that they embark upon, the trials they face and the sacrifices they make, before they are able to return to the fold of the community they left. Their actions have consequences that are far-reaching, and very significant to their own literary words. They are the heroes that are ever-present in the popular imagination, like David, who killed Goliath, or Odysseus, whose quicksilver mind turned the tide of war on foreign shores. However, sometimes, this archetype had been subverted in literature to create a new type of hero, in a different paradigm. Subversion such as this forces readers to step outside of the hero paradigm they are familiar with and examine these works in a new light. Most importantly, it leads to the questioning of the ‘hero’ archetype in itself, and why it is an important archetype for the human imagination.

The idea of a hero is present within the Alice book,s and becomes meta-textual in Through The Looking-Glass. Alice, like the hero in the poem Jabberowocky, is cast in the mould of  a subversive hero, almost an anti hero. In the poem, the hero kills the Jabberwock, but that in itself has no far reaching consequences. The first and the last stanzas of the poem are essentially the same, which means that his heroic act of killing the Jabberwock has done absolutely nothing to change the world that he lives in. Indeed, in order to be a hero, he had to leave his world and seek the world of the woods. Similarly, Alice, in escaping first to Wonderland and then the Looking Glass World, is trying to claim the identity of a heroine. Her social paradigm in the real world prevent her from being a hero. The thing that comes closest to being heroic in either of the books in the Real World is Alice untangling the yarn. In order to be a hero, Alice needs to enter a different, fantastical world. She needs the liminal space that the Carnivalesque offers to claim this identity. And why is that important? Because it is an initiation rite. The argument that I wish to make here, then, is that Alice, in order to grow up, needs to undergo a hero’s quest as an initiation rite, and can only access these rites in worlds that are not her own. Her wish to become a queen, or her assertiveness in the courtroom are all manifestations of the completion, of sorts, of her hero’s quest. Her own world is static, with no fluidity or movement. Thus, for any sort of growth to occur, she needs to leave this world and come back to it after having grown up. Moreover, these fantasy worlds becomes spaces for the fulfilment of wishes that cannot happen in Alice’s world. These fulfilled wishes don’t always come with desirable consequences, hence the nightmarish quality that pervades the fantasies, but they happen, which is more than can be said for the real world.

Alice as "the Most Interesting Man in the World" meme

'"But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!'"

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice often struggles internally trying to reconcile her childlike curiosity, naivety, and desire to fit in amongst an adult driven world. Crying when nervous or upset is a childlike reaction that is normal for a girl her age to express, and yet a part of her suppresses this tendency in order to appear and feel more mature. At many points in the novel, she seems to struggle between two entirely different 'selves.' 

In several scenes, she attempts to control her emotions and childish responses by forcing herself not to cry. (Follow link for meme!) During the scene in the linked image, her interactions with the moody animals in Wonderland are not entirely positive, which continues throughout the novel.

Not Always A Wonderland

Though I read the book and watched the movie as a young child, I never realized what a disconcerting and off-kilter world Alice inhabits in Caroll’s “Wonderland.” From her falling down the rabbit-hole to being attacked the court of cards, Alice never seems to be at one with her surroundings. Strange things happen in this unpredictable world and offer no explanation. And yet, as a child, I never found myself perplexed by any of it. Of course it was odd, but within my imagination, anything was possible. Today, I read the story and find myself analyzing every page, questioning and critiquing the underlying statements Carroll was making. Perhaps that’s the beauty of his work… while young children enthusiastically accept it for its playful imaginativeness; adults are struck by its deeper implications.

As many critics point out, Alice in Wonderland is not the purely innocent story we experience it as when we are children. There is always an element of danger lurking behind every scene or interaction Alice encounters in Wonderland. Drinking the bottle marked “Drink Me,” which might contain poison, nearly drowning in her own tears, becoming trapped in the White Rabbit’s home, meeting strange strangers, and the Queen of Hearts’ threats are all examples of times when Alice is at risk without ever really taking the threats seriously.

And yet Carroll seems to be attempting to idealize youth – to make it into something beautiful and innocent that adults all wish to return to. Perhaps it is Alice’s naiveté that grown-ups miss… being able to enjoy new experiences without recognizing the harm that they also face. Whatever it is, they find themselves reminiscing of their own Wonderlands, of their “simple sorrows” and “simple joys,” and of “happy summer days” (Carroll, 99).

As I thought about my childhood – which I truly did enjoy, and which I feel has not yet fully come to end – I realized that even as a young adult I have idealized some of my memories and experiences. Most of it was of a true, dream-like quality, but there were elements that frightened me. Confusion and change occasionally crept into my happy dreamland and threatened me. One such creeping fear manifested itself in a recurring nightmare – my only recurring nightmare as a child – which I decided to make into a comic and share, since it 

affected me so deeply as a child.

For me, like Alice… dreams are not always full of wonder. 

Bringing Wonderland to Life

http://www.pxleyes.com/blog/2011/01/36-pictures-that-look-photoshopped-but-are-not/

     In the OED, wonder is described as “something that causes astonishment.” Alice’s adventures to other places are marked by craziness and chaos. It is a world where everyone is mad. However, if we look at the world around us, we can find that we ourselves are living in a wonderland.  Maybe Lewis Carroll wasn’t crazy…maybe Alice woke up from her dream because she realized that the world is already full of wonders. Just the idea that we can imagine and dream is wonder all by itself. Wonderland is great, but the world is full of wonders and we should enjoy those too. So let me point you to some of our own wonders, welcome to our wonderland.

1.      Stevie Wonder- Besides the fact that his last name is Wonder…It is amazing how this guy can play the piano, and wow us all with his songs and his talents. Stevie Wonder stands for the poetry and the songs in Alice and Wonderland. Sometimes the only way to relate to someone or something is to write it in a song (or poem).

http://livemusic.ejarvis.eu/feeditem/2012/09/stevie-wonder-voleva-un-duetto-con-amy-winehouse.html

2.      “Body is a Wonderland” by John Mayer- It is a great song, and since Alice’s body goes through a lot of changes, it points to the idea that the body itself is amazing. Alice’s body is accustomed to the craziness that is Wonderland.

3.      Sweets and Sugar- so, we also have delicious food, by the way, it’s close to valentine’s day, so you can be sure to find little hearts with writing on them. Let us not forget that there is food that is capable of making us…grow.

http://sliceofcake.deviantart.com/art/Alice-In-Wonderland-158310472

4.      And lastly…we have our own rabbit-hole! (101 N. Tejon St. Colorado Springs, CO 80903).

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-rabbit-hole-colorado-springs?select=HIDyzP3kqP5vfwbc6uqaXA#HIDyzP3kqP5vfwbc6uqaXA

      In conclusion, Alice in Wonderland draws attention to the messiness of life, but it also brings out an important aspect of the life of its readers. Alice in Wonderland is a good framework for how the world we live in is full of wonders. Wonder is a good thing. It is easy to see, once we take a step back, that we are living in a world of wonders. We ourselves get to experience wonders every single day. In fact, I do believe, that we are luckier than Alice. The only thing is that we have to be willing to go down the metaphorical rabbit-hole, and chase whatever wonders we might find. 

-Porschae 

The Literal and Language in Wonderland

The word "literally" is often carelessly thrown around today ("I was literally seeing stars" or "This migrane is so bad, my head is literally going to explode"). The OED defines "literally" to mean "in a literal, exact, or actual sense; not figuratively, allegorically, etc." Confusingly enough, people usually use "literally" when they actually mean something figuratively. The fact that "literally" is constantly used to mean its opposite is something that reveals the flexibility and frailty of the English language. Lewis Carroll repeatedly mocks this aspect all throughout the Alice stories and therefore illustrates a theme of language manipulation.

In Alice in Wonderland, much of Alice's confusion is caused by the discrepancy between intended meaning and actual meaning in language. The majority of the characters that she meets often take what she says literally. In a similar way, the places, characters, and objects Alice interacts with sometimes are literal manifestations of their names.

All of this confusion shows that language can never be concrete. But as time goes on and our language develops, there seems to be no way to stop this trend unless we, as the March Hare says, "say what [we] mean" (55). However, the network of words that we use are themselves made of words, so it may not ever be possible to escape the signifer and only use the signified. Are we, then, trapped in our own version of Wonderland through language? (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

photo credit

"literally, adv.". OED Online. December 2012. Oxford University Press. 7 February 2013 <http://0-www.oed.com.tiger.coloradocollege.edu/view/Entry/109061?redirectedFrom=literally>.

Alice Comics

A Fly's Lifespan

“‘And what does it live on?’

‘Weak tea with cream in it.’

A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. ‘Supposing it couldn’t find any?’ she suggested.

‘Then it would die, of course.’

‘But that must happen very often,’ Alice remarked thoughtfully.

‘It always happens,’ said the gnat.

After this, Alice was silent a moment or two, pondering” (134).

The above quote occurs in Through the Looking Glass, and is a discussion of the bread and butter fly, that gorgeous thing in the picture above. Death often remains a threatening, shadowy presence through Alice in Wonderland.  We see it in the poems, in the discussions of animals dying, in the Queen of Hearts’ constant calls for decapitation. Yet the absurdity of these examples often belies the gravity of death. This quote is curious in the frankness of its comment on death and the tone with which it is delivered.  The line, “It always happens,” is a very true but also striking comment on the inevitability of death. But despite the acceptance of death it demonstrates, our tragic gnat speaks this line with a certain amount of sadness, and Alice’s silence after suggests the seriousness of this remark.

There are two great deaths in Alice in Wonderland to which this view of things is particularly applicable, that being the deaths of the two dream-worlds at the end of each story. There is no option of return to these dreams. The first is clearly Alice’s dream, and the second is either Alice’s or the red king’s dream. Both dreams, however, cease to exist when Alice awakens from them. In other words, they die.

These two dreams, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, share many qualities with the bread and butter fly: they are similarly absurd, made of familiar qualities arranged in new, strange ways, and also have a quality of fragility to them. They each thrive on a certain delicate fare—the bread and butter fly, its weak tea with cream, and the dreams, the imagination of a young girl. The life of the bread and butter fly acts as a metaphor for the dreams as a whole, its death the dream’s ending. Death is not near as much of a threat in Wonderland as the fact that Alice will age. And in doing so, she will lose the power to create these worlds. There will come a time when the dreams run out of sustenance and so must die. Though this is certainly inevitable—the gnat, after all, speaks of acceptance—the death of these dreams comes with a certain amount of pain. The vision of adult Alice at the end of Wonderland is happy, but the idea of “happy summer days” carries the suggestion of the end of those days (99). The poem ending Looking Glass is much more explicit in its sense of tragedy: “Autumn frosts have slain July” (209). There is sadness in the end of dreams just as there is in the death of the bread and butter fly.

Life and dreams become one in the final line of the ending poem of Through the Looking Glass. “Life, what is it but a dream?” (209). In their endings, there is essentially no difference between life and dreams. Life is a dream, from which we will eventually awaken. That awakening is our death. It is curious, perhaps, that if this is so, Alice awakens from one dream into another, but of course, death is guaranteed, life is not.

~Savannah Worth

Also, who doesn’t want a bread and butter fly t-shirt?

Growing Up Poem

Growing Up Poem

Struggling to adapt to new rules,

Alice wants to grow up but doesn’t quite have the tools.

Filled with childish urges,

Her perspective is changed and with the “mad” world it merges.

Questioning her identity as her body changes size,

Her emotions often fall and then rise.

Alice can’t avoid growing, she has no control,

Aging is inevitable, as time takes its toll.

She sometimes feels lonely and even anxious too,

But searches for belonging and understanding as most children do.

Childhood is a part of the cycle of life,

Enjoy it while it’s happening but accept growing up, don’t let it cause strife.

Alice's Limmerick

grinning from ear to ear

"Please would you tell me," said Alice, a little timidly, "why your cat grins like that?" (47, Carroll)

                                 http://lukeka-pow.blogspot.com/2010/06/cheshire-cat.html

After finishing both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass I decided to think back and decide who my favorite character was, and I soon definitively came up with the Cheshire Cat. I began to analyze its presence in Wonderland as well as the disappearance in the Looking-Glass world.

My interest sparked after reading Nina Auerbach’s critical essay “Alice in Wonderland: A Curious Child”. She claims, “The Cheshire Cat is a late addition to the book”, and the “only creature in Wonderland whom [Alice] calls her ‘friend’” (341, Auebach). I found this curious because the Cheshire Cat is such a crucial character to the book, why would Carroll feel the need to add the menacing grin after a few revisions?

The first encounter with the Cheshire Cat comes at arguably one of the most disturbing and eerie parts of the book, when Alice comes of the house of the Duchess, the cook, and the baby. The scene is terrifying as she walks into the room to the overwhelming aroma of pepper, a screaming baby, an aggressive Duchess, and a cook who flings utensils with no rhyme or reason, Alice “jumping up and down in an agony of terror” (48, Carroll), looks for some logically refuge. She becomes hesitantly relieved at the sight of a familiar creature, but still skeptical at its large grin. When Alice escapes the madhouse she rescues the child, whom then turns into a pig, and suddenly, the Cheshire Cat appears again.

Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go, immediately initiating a weak sense of trust between the cat and herself. Although the Cheshire Cat doesn’t give her a straightforward answer the response is strangely logical and Alice does not pursue it further.

The Cheshire Cat next asks what became of the baby and Alice tells him he turned into a pig, the Cheshire Cat replies, “I thought it would” (52, Carroll), showing a facet of wisdom that is not present in the other characters of Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat also has a sort of self-awareness the other characters don’t have when he controls his appearing and disappearing, to the frustration of Alice. Auebach claims the Cheshire Cat, “is the only creature to make explicit the identification between Alice and the madness of Wonderland” (341, Auebach) when he says, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad” (51, Carroll).  He is the only character aware of his own madness.

Without the Cheshire Cat the reader would not come to the conclusion that Wonderland is indeed a place of madness, however it is important Alice knows it so she can fight the madness with attempted maturation and logic. Without the Cheshire Cat, Alice, ironically, would be seen as a mad character as well because she would be unaware of her madness existing in Wonderland.

The Cheshire Cat does not make an appearance in Through the Looking-Glass for a seemingly obvious reason after close readings of its purpose in Wonderland. Alice has matured from her trip to Wonderland, and no longer needs a guide to keep her sanity in check. Although I miss the presence of the large grin, I feel the absence of the Cheshire Cat is a tribute to the progression of Alice. 

Alice Memes

One of many realizations

Alice in Child-land

Alice in Child-land: Carroll’s Glorification of Childhood and Repulsion towards Adulthood

Those were the days... (Credit: http://3.bp.blogspot.com)

One of the greatest ironies of the world involves growing up—children long to be adults, and adults long to be children. The adult longing for their lost childhood is especially relevant in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where we are whisked away into a world of talking animals and food that can make one shrink to the size of a mouse or grow to the size of a tree in a matter of moments. Following a seven-year-old Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and a seven-and-a-half-year-old Alice in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, we are faced with a cruel reality: we are not children anymore. The days of the Mock Turtle, Gryphon and Jabberwocky paying us visits, for most of us, is at an end. Even if we are very imaginative, or a child at heart, it is difficult to go back to that place as an adult with adult responsibilities. This was a fixation of Carroll’s (many 19^th century writers were similarly intrigued by children and childhood), and one that we see clearly in his Alice novels. What I am interested in is in what ways he places children on a pedestal (juxtaposed with a less desirable adult life) in the Alice series and how our reading of the novel is affected accordingly.  

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice recounts an elaborate dream she had involving talking animals, incidences of growing and shrinking, and strange things in general. At a surface level reading, the story is about a girl’s various encounters with the inhabitants of Wonderland and what she draws from them. The conclusion she seems to reach is that growing up is overrated. All the animals she meets tend to be easily offended, unnecessarily bossy, and quick to contradict her every sentence. They seem to symbolize adults, offering a glimpse into her own future when she joins those ranks herself. If a relatively short dream includes so many unpleasant encounters, what awaits her in reality, with the rest of her adult life full of such unpleasant meetings? Unlike most children, after her dream she does not seem incredibly eager to be older or be an adult.

Come on, would you want to be an adult after playing croquet with a flamingo?! (Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org)

One specific occurrence that I feel is important to isolate is Alice’s “abduction” of the Duchess’ baby. Fearing it will be murdered, Alice takes it upon herself to take the child and protect it. Her maternal instincts quickly wear off, however, when the child transforms into a grunting piglet. This shows her rejection of adult roles, like motherhood, and her repulsion towards the thought of being forced into such a situation. Luckily, she is a child, and is not obligated to take care of someone else’s child, especially if it isn’t human. She lets the pig go, giving it no further thought except to mention it in passing to the Cheshire cat. (Carroll 49-53)

Uh... Am I the only one who would prefer the pig? (Credit: http://www.kcconfidential.com/)

In Through the Looking-Glass, Alice embarks on yet another journey, this time around entertaining herself with a game of chess in which she is a pawn. She seems more sensitive this time around, checking herself more often for fear of hurting the feelings of others. She is able to have pleasanter encounters overall, but what she is to become is clearer to us: we can see she is growing up. Her best friend from the first book, for one thing, has become a mother. Dinah the cat has kittens that she is constantly grooming and caring for, and Alice similarly takes on a motherly role, scolding the black kitten when it misbehaves (Carroll 107-109). We also see Alice in a motherly role with the two queens who fall asleep on her shoulders (Carroll 197), and also with the White knight who is constantly falling off his horse and assisted by Alice as a parent would help its child back onto a bike (185-186). (At the same time, the presence of the White knight also explores the idea of Alice’s sexual maturing, as she is a prize to be won from the Red knight who captures her first). 

Like this, only with a full-grown man and a horse (Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org)

The most important scene in Through the Looking-Glass for me is when she transitions from pawn Alice to Queen Alice. As Queen Alice, her temper worsens, as when she rings to be let into the house and no one allows her entrance (Carroll 198-199). She throws a small tantrum and barges in anyway. At dinner, she contradicts the Red queen by ordering the pudding back to the table, and even more surprisingly cuts it after it has made itself known to be a living thing (200-201). With the title of Queen, Alice becomes very much like the characters she has encountered, more adult-like, and it is not a pretty picture. In fact, she is whisked out of the land shortly after becoming this way, as if there is no place there for a dreamer who has begun to mature into an adult and act as such (205-206).

In the Alice series, childhood is glorified and made out to be something quite desirable. Adult responsibilities and traits are not looked upon very well in either novel, while childlike traits are revered. Alice’s wild imagination gives us these wonderful stories, and her way of viewing the world makes us long for a similar existence. We would never want for anything if we could allow our minds to explore the imaginary world of Wonderland as Alice’s can, and that is something to envy indeed. Carroll certainly wants us to see it that way, that is. Consider the closing lines of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.” (Carroll, 99)

And what a childhood it was! (http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/)

While this is a beautiful sentiment, it is in its own way a little heartbreaking. As a mother, Alice finds happiness through re-examining her childhood, and reliving it through her own children. There is something sorrowful in reminiscing, a strong yearning to return to the happy summer days when she was a child. Even though she has retained the “simple and loving heart of her childhood,” it is still her childhood that she is fixated on. It is what she experienced as a youth that follows her now into adulthood, and not being an adult that pleases her. There is no mention of her being happily married, not even a word spared for the father of her children. She is trapped in the past, only able to remember what happiness was like, but is she truly happy? Carroll doesn’t seem to think so, and based on what we’ve read, we might not be so quick to disagree with him.

~Justine Camacho