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.





In the early 1900's, remakes and retellings of the Alice tale followed the tradition of Dodgson in that it mocked much of British society, such as in The Westminster Alice, a version of Alice's tale that critiques the current-day politics of England.

After World War I, many renditions of Alice featured new adventures, perhaps reflecting the time's desire to return to a fantasy world and escape the horrors of the war that had ravished the world.

By the late 70's through the 90's, many began to view Alice's story in the light of the future that troubled them, producing such titles as Alice in 2000, Alice in Quantumland, and Automated Alice, all of which deal with notions of science exploration and the future, in the same vein as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Around this time, we also had pop culture interpreting the fantastic imagery in the book as a reference to drug culture, which was increasing exponentially at the time. At a time of liberation and freedom, Alice's adventures could be seen as an escape from the world, much like the hippie push to liberate themselves from the oppression of corporate life.

 

In recent years, Alice's tale has taken on a darker tone than it has traditionally, utilizing the fall into Wonderland as a literal descent into madness, or painting Wonderland as a place that one dare not go.

The 1999 film The Matrix, depicts the outer world, free of computer control, as a kind of inescapable Wonderland full of hardships. In this version, Wonderland is the reality, while the "reality" that Neo had known previously was the true Wonderland of the story, as it has become a simulacra of the world that people actually live in.

Alice has also entered into the realm of manga, as Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, a lesbian-erotic spin on Alice's descent into Wonderland.

And finally, Alice as the video game heroine, portraying a version of Alice in Wonderland in which Alice's parents have died in a fire, and her descent into madness, along with its sequel, her struggles as a teenager trying to reconcile the fragments of herself despite herself.

Alice's darker descent is perhaps representative with today's obsession with the fallen hero, with destroyed childhood, and a general interest in the "dark" side of the world.

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