A Disappointing Ending?

Lewis Carroll may have started a trend with his ending to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I for one have seen quite a few negative reactions to how Carroll intended his wonderland to all just be a dream. I found it slightly anti-climactic myself. The ending has also been accused of being unoriginal and being a sort of cheap way to get out of finishing the story. These days, quite a few stories end in such a manner, and most are met with a negative reaction. But I think there is a reason that Carroll ended his book the way he did, and Ill try my best to explain it.

When reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland you have to keep in mind that this book was published about 144 years ago. That’s a very long time, and since then, our society has changed multiple times as a whole. That being said, dream endings these days are somewhat cliché you could say. They aren’t necessarily loved by the mass population. But what about 144 years ago? Ending a story in such a manner would have legitimately shocked the reader and it was somewhat of a breakthrough concept. Obviously the idea of ending something in a dream was popular back then, because everyone copies the idea today to the point where its become so cliché that some people who read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland today actually expect the book to end in a dream.

If the idea of ending a book in a dream was such a new and breakthrough concept back when Carroll pioneered the idea, then you really can’t accuse Carroll of ending the book in a dream just to get out of making a legitimate ending. Carroll was incredibly original with his idea, in fact he started a trend with it. You can find quite a few movies and books that end in the exact same manner today, and you might be able to blame Carrol for that. But there is another, more significant reason I believe that Carroll wanted to end his book the way he did.

If you were to give this book a purpose for its existence, the first thing you would probably say is that its sole purpose was to exist to entertain Alice Liddell, and if you want to broaden that statement you could say it exists to entertain children and adults alike. Now if you were to give this book a focus, many people might say the focus of the book is Alice. However lately I’ve been wondering how the book is such a success if the focus were to be Alice, because if you ask me she’s somewhat devoid of a personality. Then I came to the realization that the focus of the book isn’t Alice, it’s the wonderland shes in. If the focus of the book is wonderland, then why does Carroll really need to show how Alice gets out of it when he can just end it in a dream? Lets face the facts, if Alice were to  just find a way to escape wonderland, which would mean it actually existed, it would leave a plethora of plot points that Carroll would have to clear up, and that takes away from the focus of the book. Alice’s sister would ask where she was, Alice’s family would be concerned and who knows, they might go looking for the rabbit hole that Alice fell down. All of this would be completely pointless to Carroll’s story. He most likely realized this, and honestly he wasn’t really left with any option BUT to end it in a dream.

Whether you like the ending or not, Lewis Carroll was on to something 144 years ago with his finish to Alice’s adventure. If you think the ending is just a cheap way to get out of thinking of an actual ending, then that might be because today’s society has molded your mindset because the idea was actually somewhat of a breakthrough 144 years ago. And to be honest, if you don’t want wonderland to be something that doesn’t exist, Carroll did you a favor and wrote a sequel.