For Kids or Adults?

I have read several blogs where people talk about whether they think Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story for children or adults.

I personally  think the Disney movie version is for children. But the actual book, I feel is for older students who can fully understand the complexity of the book.

I tried to sit and watch Alice in Wonderland. I turned the TV of before Alice even went down the rabbit hole! I definitely think children should watch the movie.

When we were told we would be reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I was surprised. I had always seen it as a kids story. Not a tenth grade class assignment.

Wow, was I wrong!

I never realized how complex and complicated a childrens story could be. We may over-analyze, but that is just us trying to understand the book. I can not believe how much I have learned from this story!

Tell me what you think. For kids or adults?

Ugly Swine

The baby/pig thing creature scene has held the attention for many blogs posts I’ve read. After Alice meets the Duchess in chapter six, Alice catches this repulsive ‘starfish[-like]” creature after it had been discarded. Alice, always keeping in mind the compassion little girls are taught to have, nurses the baby in a very peculiar way. She ties is up into knots, suggesting that the vile little thing is flexible enough.

Let us think for a minute what such flexibility means. When one stands with a sturdy waist and structure, thee body language to be read is to fear or give respect. Infants are usually nursed with gentle touches and spoken to softly, but this baby is treated in a very rambunctious way, suggesting that it is insignificant and can be handled in such a way. The meaning behind the baby’s nature lies in the meaning of the baby’s transformation.

This creature/child thing is the only other inhabitant of Wonderland which is young. The Mock Turtle speaks of his youth and the changes that he went through to become such a lonely being which in a way is also experiencing his transformation. Other older characters in Wonderland place themselves above Alice in terms of intellect and importance.  The baby turns into a pig… which may suggest that as it grows older, it turns into a filthy swine. I wonder though why Carroll would have this child grow into a brainless animal.

It might just be because Carroll thinks little boys are pigs… but that doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. There is a transformation seen by the Mock Turtle and the baby which take them from their childhood and put a dark or unfortunate side on them. This might be the way that Carroll says after childhood, one is no longer free and giddy and able to do as they please. After childhood, one is handicapped by the rules of society and acts like a pig.

The characters have knowledge of Wonderland, and some have knowledge of the real world. In this way, they are able to hold themselves above Alice. We don’t know anything about the other character’s past in Wonderland though. They might be children still at heart. Could this be Carroll’s way of saying that children are simply greater and freer than adults? Perhaps Alice might be saved from the fate of the baby and the Mock Turtle in that she visited Wonderland and had the chance of learning from the backwards ways. Perhaps she will stay a child forever.

Let’s Get Back to Reality!

As we have learned, this journey Alice went through was a dream.

I like that it ended up being a dream. I think it was actually a good idea for Carroll to end the story this way.

Dreams are an important aspect of life.

Children are known for being big dreamers. But for children, they can continue to dream. Children don’t necessarily have to “wake up” from their dreams yet. But as we grow up, we learn to wake up from dreams.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is especially important for everyone to dream. Dreams allow us to have an escape from everyday life. But it is also important that we learn to wake up from our dreams. Dreams give us hope. Hope is generally what inspires us and boosts us try harder. But we need to come back to reality at some point.

I think Carroll was trying to point that out to children. Dreams are great. But eventually we wake up. That is just the way it works. I would like to think that Carroll is trying to teach children this. Using Wonderland is a great way to let kids dream and for their imaginations to run wild.

Kicking and Screaming

My group had a very helpful and insightful discussion on CoverItLive. Scott brought up the trial scene and how Alice was kicking and stepping on the jury.

The trial is my favorite part of the story. I see it as Alice waking up. She is growing because she is waking up from her dream.

I personally think her adventure in Wonderland was a dream. My group discussed why we believed it was a dream.

The great detail and strangeness of the story can only be a dream. What else would it be?

During the trial scene, Alice becomes very defensive. Alice becomes angry. She is not afraid because she is now so much larger than the rest of them. She is braver now.

Alice begins to kick and step on the jury. To me, this seems like she is having a nightmare. Sometimes when people are having nightmares, they kick in their sleep. I think that could be a reason why Alice was kicking and knocking people over. She was doing it subconsciously in her sleep.

Learn about Alice Liddell

As I said in one of my previous blogs, we never got a background knowledge of Alice Liddell. I decided to do research and learn more about her so we might be able to understand the story better. Here’s what I found.

Alice was born on May 4, 1852. She was the third child of Lorina and George Liddell. Alice In 1856 the family moved to Oxford when her father, George was appointed Dean of the Christ Church College in Oxford. The Liddell family met Carroll through Christ Church College. Carroll became close with the three young girls Lorina, Alice, and Edith.

Carroll would take the three girls boating. While they were boating he told the girls stories. Carroll told stories of a young girl named Alice and her adventures after she fell down a rabbit hole. This story was Alice’s favorite. Alice asked to Carroll to write it down for her. Carroll finally finished it several months later. November 1864 Carroll gave Alice the manuscript for what was titled “Alice’s Adventures Underground.”

During publishing of the book, Alice’s mother became concerned with the close relationship between Carroll and Alice. Her mother limited access so they could not see each other.

When Alice was 20 years old, Prince Leopold arrived at Christ Church. There was a rumored romance between Alice and Leopold. But Leopold was a Prince and Alice was a “commoner” so marriage was not allowed between them.

Alice married Reginald Hargreaves in 1880 at the age of 28. Alice later had three sons. Alice named her first son Leopold and made Prince Leopold the godfather. When Prince Leopold had a daughter, he named her Alice. Two of Alice’s sons died in World War I.

When Alice’s husband died, she needed money. Alice was forced to sell the original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Underground. When Alice was 80, she published her memoirs. Alice was quoted saying that she was “tired of being Alice in Wonderland.” Alice died on November 14 1934 at the age of 82.

I found one weird thing compared to the general Alice that we imagine. In the movie “Alice in Wonderland” Alice is blonde. But in real life, Alice had dark hair.

sources: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice1e.html

http://en.allexperts.com/e/a/al/alice_liddell.htm

pictures: alice liddell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_Liddell_as_a_young_woman.jpg

alice: http://www.mindflare.com/celgallery/alice2m.jpg

The REAL Moral the Duchess Teaches

In chapter nine, the reader is bombarded with facile morals that the Duchess deems substantial. Alice seems somewhat cautious to this rapid fire of “knowledge”, seeming to organize this information with the other nonsense rattling around in her brain. After saying this numerous times, I’ll say it again: Alice learns so many lessons in this story as she meets new characters and new social structure, this whole scene might be a lesson in itself.

While reading the chapter, I was very careful around this area. The Duchess says such irrelevant things, such as, “Birds of a feather flock together.” and so on. She says, “Every thing’s got a moral,” and she tries very hard to patch some together. All these farcical “morals” being thrown around could possibly be a very random distraction that Alice can learn from. The extraneous information being given to Alice may serve as a lesson to not take to heart such things of irrelevancy. After all, this encounter with the Duchess has a very short duration and is placed at the beginning of the chapter.

Alice’s journey is short, as we know. Every character she encounters has something to offer her, lesson wise. When Alice first meets the Duchess, we get a rather hostile feeling from her. Now in this chapter she acts as if she was a completely different character. There might be a lesson in that too. The Duchess’s shift in personalities might have something to do with the changes of environment. Nevertheless, Alice doesn’t mind the morals thrown at her too much, because she continues along in her journey normally as always without being distracted. What a smart girl.

Pig/Boy

In chapter 6 Alice first meets the Duchess. I found this scene to be very interesting.

The biggest thing that caught my attention was the baby. Alice sees that the Duchess is holding a baby. She is shocked by how crazy things are in the kitchen. The cook was throwing plates and dishes around the room. The Duchess and the baby were hit several times. The Duchess then throws the baby at Alice.

Alice knew that she must take the baby in order to save it. Soon Alice notices the baby’s weird behavior and odd features. Alice says to the baby, “don’t grunt, that is not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.”

It seems to me that this was a very mature act for Alice. For the character of a seven year old girl, she handles the situation pretty maturely.

The baby soon begins to grow a snout. Alice realized the baby was turning into a pig! Alice then let the pig go.

As we know, Carroll did not like boys. He is using the baby turning into a pig as symbolism for what he thought was true.

Alice was happy to save the baby, but as soon as it turned into a pig she let it go. I think Carroll was trying to teach her a lesson about boys. Showing that boys turn into pigs and you don’t want anything to do with them. This was probably very critical of Carroll, but it did add humor to the story!

Alice’s Sister

One thing I noticed at the end, right after Alice runs off after waking up, is her sister’s recollection of Wonderland. Exactly how did her sister know about everything that happened? Has Alice’s sister been to Wonderland before? It certainly seems so.

The sister also seems to be the only one who mentioned the name Wonderland, too. I get the feeling that Alice’s sister has been there before, with perhaps a similar adventure. She remembered some specific parts of the journey, such as the Gryphon and other characters. If Alice’s sister HAS been to Wonderland, it’s unlikely the adventure is really a dream like Carroll tells us.

But this recollection of Wonderland was in a dreamlike state (from what I’ve gathered from the text), so maybe it really IS a dream… who knows? Perhaps Wonderland IS real, and many people end up going there? Perhaps her sister was there while Alice was there, as there were a few times where things were moved around, such as the golden key in the beginning. Or maybe she heard Alice sleeptalking about Wonderland? What do you think the reason for Alice’s sister’s knowledge of Wonderland is?

I Watch This Movie Too Much

Well, I was watching a little bit of the movie AGAIN and thought well what would my younger siblings think about this? After all I think it’s weird, would they?

Now I think this experiment would work better if my brother and sister were a little bit younger, but I still got the same effect. First I showed them the part when Alice got stuck in the Rabbit’s house and then the part with the hookah smoking caterpillar. Now what I was surprised about was what my brother said about the caterpillar. “Isn’t that sort of a bad influence?” was the first thing he said. Now I didn’t think he would’ve even thought about that but still he did.

What has this world come to?

Our youth know about drugs and peer pressure! He’s not even in middle school yet!

This is a clear example of how society has changed in the past years. Although it was quite a long time ago, I’m sure that when Alice Liddel was first read this story she didn’t think about the drug reference. I don’t think any child would have maybe 15 years ago. But still it bothers me that kids my brothers age are aware of this.

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