Outline
• Introduction
• Part I. Lewis Carroll, life and work
• Part II. Characters and Plot
• Part III. Adaptations
• Part IV. Significance
• Conclusion
• References
Introduction
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a novel written by
English author Lewis Carroll in 1865.
• A girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a
fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic
creatures.
• The tale is filled with allusions to Carroll's friends; it
plays with logic and is considered to be one of the most
characteristic examples of the "literary nonsense" genre.
• Most of the book's adventures were based on and
influenced by people, situations and buildings in Oxford
and at Christ Church, e.g., the "Rabbit Hole" which
symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the main hall in
Christ Church.
Part I. Lewis Carroll, life and work
• Lewis Carroll, pseudonym
of
Reverend
Charles
Lutwidge
Dodgson,
a
lecturer in mathematics at
Christ Church, Oxford,
who lived from 1832 to
1898.
• Carroll discovered his gift
for storytelling in his own
youth when he served as
the
unofficial
family
entertainer for his five
younger sisters and three
younger brothers.
Part I. Lewis Carroll, life and work
• Underneath Carroll’s awkward exterior (physical
deformities, partial deafness), however, lay a brilliant and
imaginative artist.
• In 1856, Carroll became close with the Liddell children
and met the girl who would become the inspiration for
Alice.
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland received mostly
negative reviews when first published in 1865. Critics and
readers alike found the book to be sheer nonsense, and one
critic sneered that the book was too extravagantly absurd.
• Only John Tenniel’s detailed illustrations garnered praise,
and his images continue to appear in most reprints of the
Alice books.
Part I. Lewis Carroll, life and work
• Carroll proposed a sequel to his publisher in 1866 and set to work
writing Through the Looking-Glass. By the time the second book
reached publication in 1871, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland had
found an appreciative readership.
• In 1881, Carroll resigned from his position as mathematics lecturer
at Oxford to pursue writing full time. He composed numerous
poems, several new works for children, and books of logic puzzles
and games, but none of his later writings attained the success of the
Alice books.
• Several of his child friends served as inspiration for the Sylvie and
Bruno books. Like the Alice stories,
Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and
Bruno Concluded (1898) relied heavily
on children’s silly sayings and absurd fantasies.
Part II. Characters and Plot
•
Henry George Liddell
accepted an appointment as
Dean of Christ Church, one
of the colleges that comprise
Oxford University, and
brought his three daughters
to live with him at Oxford.
Lorina, Alice, and Edith
Liddell quickly became
Carroll’s favorite
companions and
photographic subjects. Alice
became Carroll’s favorite of
the three girls, and he made
her the subject of the stories
that would later became
Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass.
• Alice is a sensible girl from a wealthy English family who finds
herself in a strange world ruled by imagination and fantasy.
• The tension of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland emerges when
Alice’s fixed perspective of the world comes into contact with the
mad, illogical world of Wonderland. Alice’s fixed sense of order
clashes with the madness she finds in Wonderland.
• The Mad Hatter: A small, impolite hatter who lives in perpetual
tea-time who enjoys frustrating Alice. He explains to Alice that he
and the March Hare are always having tea because, when he tried to
sing for the Queen of Hearts at a celebration, she sentenced him to
death for "murdering the time," but he escapes decapitation. Out of
anger at this attempted "murder", Time halts himself in respect to
the Hatter, keeping him and the March Hare stuck at 6:00 forever.
• The Queen of Hearts a singular force of fear who even dominates
the King of Hearts. In her presence, Alice finally gets a taste of true
fear, even though she understands that the Queen is merely a playing
card. In fact, the Queen never actually executes anyone she
sentences to death. She is often confused with the Red Queen from
the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, although the two are very
different. She is a caricature of Queen Victoria.
• The White Queen: appears in Through the Looking-Glass. She
could be viewed as a protagonist and ally to Alice, although she is
perhaps less helpful than the Red Queen in terms of the information
she divulges. Her ability to move so swiftly away from enemies,
leaving the White King far behind, reflect on the abilities of a queen
in chess, as well as serving as a contrast for the Red Queen's habit of
confronting enemies head on.
• Tweedledee and Tweedledum:
Disney's cartoon twins in their
bright, primary color jumpers
look like clowns. The twins in
Burton’s movie look like thugs.
Absolem, the Caterpillar,
tells Alice how to grow
and shrink using the
mushroom upon which
he is sitting.
Plot
• Alice sits on a riverbank on a warm summer day,
when she catches sight of a White Rabbit running by
her and exclaiming that he is late.
• As he pops down a rabbit hole, she decides to follow
him. She finds a bottle marked “Drink Me”, drinks
and shrinks down to the right size to enter a small door.
• Unable to use the big key, she eats a cake and
becomes big again. As she is stuck, she cries and falls
into the pool of tears.
• She enters Wonderland and pursues the White Rabbit.
She meets a Caterpillar who tells her how to gain
control over her size by using a mushroom.
Part III. Adaptations
• Later, the Cheshire cat explains to Alice that
everyone in Wonderland is mad, including Alice
herself.
• She can realize that when she finds the March Hare,
the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse having tea together.
• Alice meets the Queen of Hearts and participates in a
strange game of croquet and in the trial of the Knave
of Hearts.
• When she realizes that Wonderland is a sham, she
knocks over the playing card court, causing her to
wake up and dispel the dream of Wonderland.
Part III. Adaptations
• Alice in Wonderland was first adapted for live
performances: a musical play by Walter Slaughter was
played in 1886 at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London.
• Later, the book inspired numerous film and television
adaptations. The first cinematic version was the silent film
Alice in Wonderland in 1903.
• The famous animation film from Disney, Alice in
Wonderland, was produced in 1951.
• Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton (2010) is an
extension of the Lewis Carroll novels Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The film
will use a technique combining live action and animation.
Part III. Adaptations
Part IV. Significance
The Tragic and Inevitable Loss of Childhood
Innocence
• Alice goes through a variety of absurd physical changes.
The discomfort she feels at never being the right size acts
as a symbol for the changes that occur during puberty.
• Alice finds these changes to be traumatic, and feels
discomfort, frustration, and sadness when she goes
through them. She struggles to maintain a comfortable
physical size.
• These constant fluctuations represent the way a child
may feel as her body grows and changes.
Part V. Significance
•
Statue of Alice in Central park, New York
Part IV. Significance
Life as a Meaningless Puzzle
• Alice encounters a series of puzzles that seem to have no
clear solutions, which imitates the ways that life frustrates
expectations.
• Even though Lewis Carroll was a logician, in Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland he makes a farce out of jokes,
riddles, and games of logic.
Death as a Constant Menace
• Death lurks just behind the ridiculous events happening
to Alice as a present and possible outcome.
• As the Queen screams “Off with its head!” she
understands that Wonderland may not be a ridiculous
world where expectations are repeatedly frustrated.
Part IV. Significance
Knowledge
• Alice often becomes frustrated by her encounters with the
creatures of Wonderland because many of them tend to contradict
her or tell her that she is wrong.
• The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, both nostalgic for their school
days, emphasize the importance of a proper education. They are
shocked at Alice's lack of knowledge about basic elements of their
educational system and about life under the sea. Both of them tell
Alice that she is quite stupid.
• In an effort to show the Duchess how intelligent she is, Alice tries
to demonstrate why one of the Duchess' morals is flawed. Pleased to
have an opportunity to show off her knowledge, Alice starts to give
the Duchess a lesson in astronomy. (The Duchess is not the least bit
interested in learning from Alice and threatens to have her killed.)
Conclusion
• Carroll’s feelings of intense nostalgia for the simple
pleasures of childhood caused him to feel deep discomfort
in the presence of adults.
• The
In the company of children, Carroll felt understood and
could temporarily forget the loss of innocence that he
associated with his own adulthood.
• Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D., by Anne Lyon
Haight, and Chandler B. Grannis, R.R. Bowker Co, 1978
claims that in 1931, the book was banned in Hunan,
China, because "animals should not use human language"
and it "puts animals and human beings on the same level."
References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Hatter
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland
• British Library: Original manuscript and drawings by Lewis Carroll
• GASL.org: First editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through
the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There With 92 Illustrations by
Tenniel, 1866/1872.
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/
• http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice
• http://www.bookrags.com/notes/aiw
• http://librivox.org/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-by-lewis-carroll
• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland
• http://www.lib.fit.edu/pubs/librarydisplays/bannedbooks/website.htm
Time to
say
goodbye