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Hello readers,
Had sat down for a reread of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll on Mad Hatter Day (10/06). In my opinion, Wonderland is best experienced with the same child-like point of view as Alice has while meeting its inhabitants.
She is accompanied throughout the entire book by its cast of animals and the many followers of the Queen of Hearts. Each exhibited manners of varying degrees of politeness, depending on how mad they were, and, rest assured, they are all madder than children in some manner or another. Yet, the madness lies in the wisdom that Alice distills, such as how little girls are a kind of serpent.
'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' is an example of nonsense literature, where it balances many literary elements to evoke imagery, with speeches that create silly and enjoyable visuals via homophones, like ‘not’ and ‘knot’ or ‘tale’ and ‘tail’.
While the setting is set in the fantasy genre, I really enjoyed the few elements of magical realism that were included, which helped ground Alice’s adventures and portray them in a relatable manner. Wonderland was described, by the Cheshire Cat, as a place for people who have gone mad. Instead of focusing on dry politics, the cast satires language itself with the political topics being used as content only, highlighting the narrative perspective of a child.
Poetry featured within the tale are largely based upon others, further absorbing the satire in literary nonsense.
Alice fell into Wonderland by chasing the White Rabbit, by chasing something irreal that caught her curiosity. Today, the idiom “down the rabbit hole” is synonymous with fixation and hyperfocus. When the story was written, however, the idiom had yet to exist, while the other metaphors within the book are portrayed in a literal way for Alice and the Wonderland creatures to experience.
The metaphors that do stay metaphorical are instead parodied in both speech and execution, solidifying the playful imagery techniques.
Despite this, some key lessons are shown, such as how promising to give everyone prizes had caused everyone to look to Alice for what they now expected.
All the while, Alice asked questions in order to understand the nonsensical world that she found herself to be in. Alice continued to experiment and to try eating or drinking new things despite their effects. Despite shrinking and growing, she held onto the wisdom that she managed to root out from the others’ madness. Most of what Alice encounters appears as nonsense, at first. However, whenever she discovered or assigned an effect to something, the cause and the effect became consistent or otherwise recallable.
Upon returning home from Wonderland, we readers are told that adults look to childhood for inspiration in the manner of Alice’s adventure. One’s childhood is described as “a far-off land”, as Alice stumbling through Wonderland.
The most striking aspect of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is her whimsy and ambivalence toward the effects of things by her focusing on its causes, which allowed Alice to create meaning from nonsense. Alice manifested this nonsense by rejecting the inherent lessons or morals of the stories of Wonderland in favour of her own interpretations. The Queen using fear to manipulate her subjects, the same edible causing two different effects and Alice dispelling an entire court by believing them to be nothing but a pack of cards all highlights how choosing the effects of a cause based on one’s (versus another’s) wilful intent alone is able to overcome any situation.
Thank you for reading.
Allen W. McLean
PS. You can read my two other (shorter, two years old now!) "Alice" themed reviews below;
https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201217-alices-adventures-in-wonderland.html
https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201219-through-looking-glass.html
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