Week 11 Reading Notes: Alice in Wonderland Part A

Lewis Carroll is an incredibly creative writer. He puts Alice into the wildest situations with the wildest characters, and he creates equally wild ways for her to move from place to place. Alice as a character is fun to read about. She seems so innocent and curious. She speaks very properly for such a young girl, and she speaks properly to everyone and everything she comes across. I think she represents innocence and youth, and the story continues in a way just as crazy as her imagination. I find it hard to imagine how different items keep appearing to help her change sizes, and I find it odd that they all have different effects. I like the stream of consciousness writing style Carroll uses, and it is especially enjoyable as Alice is falling down the rabbit hole. The characters make this such a bizarre world to explore. The rabbit is running late, the caterpillar is smoking, the footmen are each with a fish head or frog head, the baby is a pig, and the cheshire cat is grinning iconically as it disappears. I admire Carroll's imagination in creating such characters. It certainly does make the story feel very much like a dream. I like the way that the cheshire cat responds to Alice's question about which path she should take. Alice has no idea where she wants to go or why, and the cat is really quite unhelpful. That could be a metaphor for life. Either way she goes, Alice is bound to meet exciting characters on her adventure. 

Illustration The Caterpillar by Sir John Tenniel from the Wikimedia Commons, found here.

I thought Alice's singing a poem with the caterpillar to be an interesting part of the story.

Bibliography: Readings from the Alice In Wonderland Unit Part A, found here.