Alice Definitely Got Ripped Off
November 16, 2009So far with this “an-Alice-is” process ,as Alice project 7 puts it, we know Alice is a little girl living ,for the moment, in her wonderland. Now let’s think about this word ‘wonderland’ for a bit. Doesn’t that make you think of magic, awe, happiness, joy, and things of that nature? Children fantasize about living in make-believe worlds all the time. Alice hit the jackpot with talking animals, flowers, and even cake that makes you change size!
It seems like this is no wonderland after all. For one, all the sweet talking animals, such as the white rabbit and mouse, portray older figures of authority for Alice. They talk down to her and are not necessarily her friends even though they help, directly and indirectly, guide her through Wonderland. These animals aren’t the imaginary friends Alice , as a little girl, would have dreamed of having, so why are they in her ‘wonderland’?
When I was a little girl I also dreamt of becoming so tiny that i could walk through grass and the blades would look as tall as trees while i made friends with the little bugs that came my way. Never in that dream did a lazy caterpillar smoking hookah, sitting on a mushroom (another drug reference) come into play. Why does all of this seem like a sick twisted version of a child’s dream land?
Also, what little girl doesn’t want to be a princess. Just the idea of royalty makes little girls squeal. Alice is just the same, a typical little girl. But what happens when she meets the queen, the most important royalty of all (speaking in chess terms of course 
)? She sees her ordering to kill people, and not just kill people, to cut off their heads. That is pretty gruesome if you ask me. The queen even threatens to kill Alice!
)? She sees her ordering to kill people, and not just kill people, to cut off their heads. That is pretty gruesome if you ask me. The queen even threatens to kill Alice!This whole fantasy world is not going the way real fantasies are supposed to. Nothing is going right for Alice and she can’t make sense of half this new world. Why is her wonderland the total opposite of what wonderlands are actually supposed to be? In my opinion, Carroll is trying to show the contradiction of this whole world by calling it ‘Wonderland’, when it very clearly is not one.
Christian Long
Katherine H.
Melissa H
Rivu D.
Alex E.
Sylvia A.
This is a very insightful post, Sylvia A. Let’s talk about your paragraph:
You ask the question “why is her wonderland a total opposite of what wonderlands are actually supposed to be?” Then you continue on to state that Carroll is showing a contradiction to actuality, noting that “this whole world” is clearly not what what it was thought to be…excellent point.
The fact that the idea of a “wonderland” is possible and sought after by us in the real world is a unique concept. From a young age, we are taught to dream and use our imagination to create unique bliss and develop artistic characteristics, yet our illusions never seem to achieve a tangible state of being. With females, it may be a princess and with males, it may be a superhero. The older we get, the less it is encouraged to pursue these thoughts and dreams of our “wonderland” where things will be as we imagined, but as our cognition develops, we are actually able to become more involved in creating our own wonderland! Does that make sense? Basically, we are older and more able to manipulate certain stimuli in our lives in order to create certain responses…we create the things in our lives that we desire at the time.
The idea of a “wonderland” is present and alive in all of us. Think about it. Everyone has an idea of what they would like to make their lives the perfect, happy place. The secret that most have not considered is that along with being a complex process, there are many obstacles that must be faced before you eventually meet the goal. Many individuals may break down and reconsider their initial thoughts of “wonderland” well before they see it approach the horizon of life’s timeline.
I am proud of your group for raising intriguing and inquisitive remarks. Keep going! Dig deeper! You all have done a great job!
Going along the lines of what Hagen said, dreams and nightmares are never completely what we want them to be. You can start yourself “dreaming” about one thing and wake up in the morning remembering a completely different dream, or not remembering it at all. I also feel that Alice’s “dream” adventure through Wonderland is almost a subconcious reality check for her. As she goes through Wonderland, she feels like she doesn’t know who she is anymore when she is really learning more and more about who she really is, she just doesn’t recognize that new personality breaking out of her.
In another sense, though, it makes you think of why Carroll would be telling this to a little girl that should be having great fantasies of being a princess and magical worlds? It could be that, in a sense, he is warning her for the future with the authority figures she will have later in life. He is teaching her how to deal with them, or in this case how not to deal with them.
well when you have dreams, are they everything you want them to be?
Yes, all little girls have fantasies about being a princess and living in a magical realm, but in the case, Alice is dreaming (or so we think.) This does seem odd that Carroll would say ‘wonderland’ because i do agree on how wonderlands are supposed to be joyful. That is strange that he would fill wonderland with such strange and crude things that i would never imagine to be in a wonderland. Maybe this is not her wonderland, but someone elses. Maybe he is making Alice walk in someone elses shoes.
Alice’s ‘wonderland’ is not a normal dream for a girl, I agree, but dreams are not always what we want. One can dream about things that are not necessarily ones that they wand, the best of all examples would be nightmares. Nightmares are definately not what we wnat to experience, yet we still dream them at times. We learn that Alice is in fact dreaming, which means that her ‘wonderland’ may not be “wonder” in the fact of a wonderful, exciting land, but “wonder” in the sense that this world has incredible talking animals with odd personalities.
This may simply be a normal dream. Not a bad dream, or a good one, but one that is in between. There are phenomenal animals and reality changes, but Alice does not live lavishly or have power. Her dream does not embody one of wonder and excitement, but it is still a dream nonetheless.
I do agree that Alice’s dream is not a typical dream that a child would want to dream about. We must remember though, that dreams are not always what we want to envision. We may not want to dream these, and they may not be fantastic, but it is still a dream about an alternate reality. The dream is still intriguing to kids, but not the ideal dream.