Newsflash! WE Have Become the Guinea Pigs Now.

Whoa. I know this is mind boggling. One minute I’m trying to think of a final blog to post before I have to depart from my beloved Alice project *sniff sniff* and then it comes to me like BAM.

During English class today, the final day of Alice, Dr. Davis and Mr. Kellam came into our class to observe us working for the first time. It was just like any normal day in class, but I was definitely having some writer’s block. Thinking, thinking, thinking…I have analyzed everything to the best of my ability and to be honest I’m getting a bit sick of that a word.

Once I stop focusing on Alice to clear my head, I notice Dr. Davis and Mr. Kellam.

Surprisingly they were analyzing us! I never noticed how truly unique this project is because I’ve been apart of it since day one. To outsiders, this must be a really remarkable thing to see, teenage students working on laptops in a classroom that is more like the editing floor of a newspaper, than anything else. We are diligent and determined. The outside world has become so fascinated with us, what we are accomplishing, and this new direction education is taking. It really didn’t hit me until now.

While we have been putting Alice under a magnifying glass, the outside world has been putting us under a high-power microscope! It’s a bit nerve-wracking to know that the world is watching you, and maybe you think I’m exaggerating when I say world (Hey we’re top 3 on the second page of Google! I would say that’s pretty huge.). By world I mean just other people, the public. It’s a big deal when your work goes form just being graded by a single teacher that you may or may not care about, to creating something that will last forever that anyone in the world can find and judge for themselves. It makes this project much more powerful.

What really takes the pressure off is focusing on Alice. It’s like we are peeking in on her life, while others are peeking in on us.  “I always feel like somebody’s watching me ”, that is the song that just came to mind as I’m thinking about this overlap of observation and analyzing. It’s something we as a class have never really talked much about before because Alice was our many priority, but now that we can step back from it, we can see what we’ve accomplished and how other people perceive us.

This is like freaky experimental-type teacher stuff if you ask me. We are in our own bubble, our own Wonderland, because we are Alice and we have always been, we just hadn’t  noticed. Once we wake up from this dream, the on-lookers will discover the legacy we have left, and finally analyze US.

P.M.S

Cool your jets people, I know what your thinking.  No I’m not talking about some girl’s time of the month, this is still entirely related to Alice. It’s just a coincidence that the acronyms are the same, not my fault!

What I’m talking about is Post Madness Syndrome.  Alice probably has a good case of P.M.S. when she comes back home. How do you go back to real life after an experience like that? Dream or not, to Alice ,Wonderland was real.  Now every time  she passes by a white rabbit she will try to follow it, or even talk to it. There will always be remnants of Wonderland around her. They will be everywhere she looks and anywhere she goes, because Wonderland had so many things that were present in her real life as well. She has been mentally changed forever, and no one else will understand her.

She will probably go to her mum and try, unsuccessfully, to describe the world she has just lived in. And her mom will say “Alice dear, it was just a dream. There’s no use in talking nonsense, it’ll get you no where in life”. But I feel her  new enlightened type of thinking, that will develop as she  matures, will take her places in life.  Her mother is somewhat ignorant in a sense. She has no knowledge of Wonderland, so she has no reason to empathize with Alice, let alone believe her. It’s like a child telling stories of a Boogeyman or imaginary friend.

This is a sad fact because Alice won’t have anyone to share Wonderland with…or will she? Alice’s sister had a dream of Alice’s dream at the end of the story, but who knows if their two dreams were anything alike? Perspective changes the story and Alice’s sister is older.  Whatever her perspective, at least Alice will have someone to share her journey with, because it’s just too much for her mother to comprehend at her point of maturity and adulthood.

Waking up from her dream is also like metaphorically an awakening of something inside her. A new Alice wakes up and I doubt her connection to Wonderland will ever fade away.

Happily Ever After…

So in my blog Curiosity Killed the Alice my parting words were “and they lived happily ever after…”. This got me thinking about Alice’s happily ever after. Is Alice happier after her journey to Wonderland? Would she have been better off never chasing that white rabbit?

We all know this is significant for Alice but I don’t think she does. Children rarely understand the impact certain events have on them. Even though it was just a dream, it was a powerful one with many hidden messages that would take her a very long time to uncover and comprehend. I bet that years down the line Alice is still realizing new things about that journey to Wonderland she took so long ago. I’m not sure if happy is the right word to describe Alice after she awakens from Wonderland. I think a better phrase is ‘in awe’. It’s like a kid that just saw Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy; something that seemed to pop right out of their imaginations and into their real lives.

Staying with the idea that it’s something Alice has always dreamt of, but never expected, was it really what she wanted? Like my fellow blogger Abbie P., I’ve found some lyrics that remind me of Alice.

“What kinda dream is this?
You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don’t wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)”

This is from the song “Sweet Dream” by Beyonce that replays constantly on the local top 40 radio station (uhh..that I love of course!). While I was jamming out doing blogs I heard it and I instantly felt the connection to Alice in that part of the song. First of all “What kind of dream is this?” That’s the question we’ve all been trying to answer from day one, when Alice fell down the rabbit hole. It goes on to talk about the contradiction, is this just a dream or a nightmare? It’s funny though, because the song still uses the word beautiful to describe the nightmare and I think that is similar to Alice’s situation. Yes, this Wonderland is a bit nightmare-ish, but it is still beautiful in it’s own way. All of the hidden tid-bits of symbolism and social commentary are truly genius and that’s what makes Wonderland so amazing. The last line of those lyrics really hits me, though. Even though this is something scary and new to you where you don’t know what to expect, you STILL want to be apart of it, regardless of the risk. This just proves that the experience and journey are much more valuable than the end result.

So, I don’t think Alice lives ‘happily’ ever after. That’s not quite the emotion I felt when I finished this story. When I ended Alice’s journey with her I felt a sense of relief, that it really was a dream, disappointment that it was over and a feeling of growth and maturing of Alice and myself.  It was almost like that moment when you watch one of those feel-good movies and you sit there and sigh, thinking about what a great story it was and replaying certain scenes in your mind and appreciating the director’s (or author’s in this case) creativity. So amidst Alice’s fumbles and stumbles through Wonderland there was some light at the end of the tunnel.

• What did you think of the book as a whole when you were done reading?
• How did you feel when the journey to Wonderland was over, and we were brought back to reality?

Curiosity Killed the Alice

Oh, Alice. She is a dare devil. Falling down rabbit holes and getting lost in a mysterious world is not the normal agenda of a 7 year old. Didn’t Alice’s mother teacher her anything? When we’re little we are told ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and ‘don’t walk down dark alleys at night’ (in this case it would be a dark rabbit hole). Alice must have missed this little lesson on life because she has no inhibitions.  She’s out there talking to any old animal she meets on the street AND all with out adult supervision. Tsk, tsk, shame on Alice. She thinks more of the short-term and not the long-term consequences of her choices.

Just like a child who wants a cookie before dinner, they don’t think of what they’ve done until they are sitting there with a mouth full of chocolate chip and their hands caught in the cookie jar. Somewhere down the road in Wonderland between the creepy caterpillar doing drugs and the queen obsessed with execution, Alice must have regretted her decision. Even with all that regret, she didn’t have the slightest hesitation with going deeper into Wonderland. She may have worried a bit, but she never faltered on her decision to keep moving forward.

I’m surprised her curiosity outweighed her fear of this strange place she’s now stuck in, but at the same time I’m not. This has been a common theme for stories for so long. Children get carried away by their overwhelming curiosity and end up in some terribly scary situation that they somehow get out of by good luck and some secretly acquired knowledge. Like that little story Hansel and Gretel, where the kids get lost in the forest. They innocently make the mistake of going deeper into the dark woods until they’ve reached the point of no return. They get into a sticky little predicament where a witch is trying to secretly kill them and stick them in an oven, but with their child-like form of intuition-esque knowledge and know-how they escape the witch with their lives and they all lived happily ever after…

Do you see the similarities?

New CoverItLive Post!

This is a CoverItLive session our group did discussing the trailer for the new series on the Syfy network called “Alice.”

Its a new spin on the old classic story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Click Here

The Ugly Truth

During Alice’s encounter with the Duchess, she realizes the Duchess’ obsession with morals.

“Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it” she says (page 91)

Though many think the Duchess doesn’t make any sense, I find truth in her words. Not in the sense that every little thing that comes out of your mouth has a moral, but the morals themselves.

“Tis’ love that makes the world go round!” or “Birds of a feather flock together.” (page 92)

All of the morals the Duchess talks about are true and there is meaning in them. She is reminding Alice of these universal truths. Alice doesn’t focus on the morals though. She focuses on the fact that they don’t make sense in the context of their conversation, but it’s Wonderland. By that point in time, Alice should understand that not everything will make clear sense, but she should look at the elephant in the room. It may be hard having the truth mixed up with all the nonsense and unexplained happenings in Wonderland, but she should look at the bigger picture to realize what the Duchess is really trying to say. The Duchess serves as a metaphor for Truth. Even though in some situations you may not want to hear the truth, or try and avoid it like Alice is doing, it’s always there staring you in the face.

Alice also describes the Duchess as “very ugly” (page 91). Why does the truth always have to be ugly? Is it because it’s human nature to not want to hear the truth? Or is it because the truth is too hard to face? Society still feels like this. There’s even a movie called “The Ugly Truth” ,so mainstream America is profiting off this fact. Maybe thats why Carroll made this Wonderland. Maybe he covered up the truths and ideas he wanted to convey with the playful idea of a little girl named Alice going on a journey to Wonderland because it is just too hard for people to take the truth at face value. Maybe if we start ignoring the things that don’t make sense in this story and start paying attention to the things that do make sense we will enjoy and understand this book much better and it will be perceived the way Carroll intended it to be.

Liddell’s Lasting Impression On Us

So far this analyzing process is going great I think. Our brains have been getting critical analysis workouts for the past 2 months, but:

• What is The Alice Project doing for us?
• Where is this going to take us?
• After all of this is over what will happen?

This project is much too unique for me to ever forget.

It’s given us a chance to have some creative control over our work and also brings in the factor of professionalism. This is much more sophisticated and effective then writing an essay or taking a test over the chapters of this book. We can use or time how we deem fit and try to find out what this book means to us. Our thoughts are not pushed in a guided direction by our teacher. We only see this book from our perspective, which can be both a positive and negative aspect of this project. When we would like to collaborate ideas its easy because we aren’t doing this alone. It’s a group effort and teammates are a great help. I don’t know how much motivation there would be if we didnt have balanced teams going into this project.

I don’t think this project would have been the same if the book hadn’t been Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, either.

Sure, there are many poignant pieces of British literature out there to dig in to, but this story is different. It feels like a metaphor for us, as students. We are kids who are willing to follow our own curiosity down the rabbit hole to see where this project takes us. When you think about it we’re all Alice. We all have that desire to understand things new and foreign.  Luckily, for us that does not involve murderous queens, over-emotional turtles or angry little white rabbits.

When we’re done and the finishing touches are put on and the final project is being reviewed, it still won’t be over. This website will always be here. People will always have the opportunity to come here and take part in what we did. So this is sort of like a lasting legacy of all of our efforts. This project has been secretly motivating us to question things from now on and find out for ourselves the meaning of things we encounter in life.

Dont Blame Us; We Just Can’t Help It!

So I’m sitting here thinking of a blog to write, brainstorming, reading other posts, and commenting. One of the most common themes I’ve read about is the fact that we are over-analyzing Carroll’s work, and the many different ways you could approach that topic.

My question is WHY?? Why in the world do we do this?

Whether this is a legitimate children’s story or a critical look at society masked by a kid-friendly plot, its really irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what this story is or what it became as Carroll’s mind developed it. Whatever the end product was we would’ve judged it: not just because of Carrol’s sketchy personal life (even though it did people more than enough to chew on), but because its a piece of art. Whenever someone puts out their creation for the world to see, they’re giving license to every single person to interpret it the way they please, so anything Carroll had planned for this story really doesn’t matter. Its human nature to pick apart things especially when we have no connection to them.

For example, earlier this year we wrote an essay over the story Beowulf. Mr. Long had always put special emphasis on the importance of a good title, so it wasn’t surprising when he devoted one whole day to evaluating our titles for that Beowulf essay in class. On a large screen at the font of the class were our own titles we had come up with and one by one we discussed them (the titles being anonymous and from other class periods of course). Once we got comfortable with the process the constructive criticism turned slowly morphed into strictly negative feedback. This could be seen as a sort of subtle and accidental psychological experiment on how we react to others work and our willingness to criticise others on the spot.

I feel this ties back in with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, because that is what society did to this book and it was inevitable.

It’s like dumping a piece of meat into a tank of hungry piranhas; they’re going to attack!!! (If they actually eat meat, I really don’t know. They just have sharp pointy teeth that scare me.) This judgmental attitude we carry may look wrong and close-minded. I see good intentions behind this. If there is something we see in this book that we don’t like or understand, we immediately jump to the opportunity to criticize it, but I don’t think our goal is to tear this story apart.

It is to understand and to be able to understand, we first try to dig deeper, dissect it and try to see how Carroll put these pieces together so eventually we can put the pieces together ourselves.

Alice Definitely Got Ripped Off

So 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!

 

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.

Leave the Little Guy Alone!

elfwood.com

In Chapter 4, The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, everyone is sacrificing Bill to figure out what this unusual creature in the White Rabbit’s house is. From Alice’s perspective, she hears silly little talking animals. From the animals’ point of view they are incredibly frightened and confused about this giant, with limbs protruding out of the house’s windows. To get information on this unknown specimen ,known to us as Alice, they sacrificed one of their own people for the sake of knowledge. They all side against Bill and make him do all the serious and dangerous work. They threw him down a chimney! Alice can see the maltreatment of poor Bill as well when she says

“Why, they seem to put everything upon Bill.” (page 42).

When Bill gets kicked back to them by Alice their attitudes totally changed. The common phrase went from ‘Bill, help!’ to ‘Help Bill!’ They manipulated him and used him. They obviously don’t see any importance of Bill’s life because anything could have happened to him. From comments such as

“How was it old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us about it.” (page 43),

the animals don’t seem to care as much about his well being as they do about what he found out from his little trip down the chimney. First they order him around and then they rick his life just to get their questions answered.

This sort of hierarchy exists in the real world as well. Your status is what determines what happens to you in life and looking at poor Bill, I can tell he got the short end of the stick. With Bill being the socially weakest amongst the animals with his “little feeble squeaking voice” (page 43) how do you think this is reflected upon society? Why does society always pick on the little guy? From the little boy with glasses at the school playground to the quiet guy at work who never seems to get ahead- its universal. The strong pick on the weak and the little guy never has a voice. Carroll may be trying to let us know about this unfair side of human nature and gets us thinking about how we treat other people.