Not A Chance

To me, the croquet game was very strange. It seemed that the Queen was going to win no matter what. If someone was winning or was making her mad, which was almost anything, she would say “Off with your head”. By the end of game Alice is one of the only ones left. I think that Carroll is trying to say something about the government of that time. The queen was probably very hot-tempered and never really got anything done.

Also if anything went wrong or she didn’t do something right, she would blame it on someone else. This makes me think that the queen of that time always blamed her mistakes on someone else. We find out later that even though the queen would say off with your head, that the people were never executed. I think that Carroll had to do this because it is a children’s story. If he didn’t then all of the kids would be upset and they wouldn’t like the story. Also he could be saying that the queen always made threats to people but never followed through. I think that Carroll is using the croquet game as a metaphor for a lot of different things that were going on during his lifetime.

Interesting Subjects

While reading chapter 10, I thought it was pretty interesting how Carroll named the subjects of the lobster.

All of the subjects that he had were pretty similar to our subjects. When the lobster asked Alice why they called it lessons, she had no idea. The lobster said they were lessons because the time spent each day lessened and lessened. I think Carroll put this in there because he had to have some comic relief. The story is starting to get boring so he had to put something in there that would be funny. The Lobster had many words that were spelled different so that they could mean different things.

One thing was the Porpoise.

He used this to say purpose. Saying porpoise out loud sounds pretty funny when you know that it means purpose. To me, it seems that Carroll is starting to run out of ideas at the end of the book. He really can’t find anything to write about and why should he? He is a math teacher. But other than that, I think that Carroll had a fun time playing around with all of the different ways that he could spell things wrong but people would still understand it the way he wanted to. Some of those were Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

Summary

As we are getting very close to the end of our project, I thought that I would write a blog about it.

This project has really helped me understand Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Before reading this book, I had never read or seen the movie. I heard that it was really good, but the people who said that only remember that when they were little. I think that that age is the best time to see the movie or read the book. The book is meant for children so I think that you need to read it when you are a child. Reading the book as someone who is going to analyze it and someone who is trying enjoying it are two completely different things. If you are trying to analyze the story, you cant really enjoy the fact that it is a children’s story.

The first time I read the story, I thought that it was a really fun book to read. But then as I went back over it to try and analyze it, it turned out not to be so much fun. Like a bunch of critics said, ” Don’t try and over-analyze the book”, I believe that it is true. I think that Carroll meant for the book to be a children’s book, so anyone who is trying to over-analyze it is trying to prove that they are smart by finding metaphors and analogies that Carroll never meant to put in there.

But besides that, I think that this project was very fun because I got to explore Wonderland and find all of those metaphors and analogies.

The Duchess

During Alice’s time in wonderland, she is presented with many different challenges. Alice meets the duchess and notices that she is very ugly. The duchess said that there is always a moral. As I was reading Sylvia’s post, The Ugly Truth, she talked about how the Duchess represents the ugly truth. I think that this is very true because you don’t always want to hear the truth. Even though Alice did not want to hear the morals, the duchess told her anyways. The duchess told Alice many different morals and here are a few. “Tis’ love that makes the world go round!” and “Birds of a feather flock together.”

The first moral can represent that if everybody loves everybody than there will be no problems. If there are no problems than the world will go on smoothly. The second moral is saying how everybody of the same race or gender come together. If you were in a room with a bunch of different people, they will separate with race or gender. A real world example that I can think of is Jail. I think its weird that I think of jail but normally you will separate due to your race. You could not like those people but you would still join their group. I think that Carroll used the Duchess in order to put his morals in the story. Many great writers use their stories to express their thoughts and this is an example of one of them.

No Parents, Huh?

As I was reading Alex’s blog, Stories Linked, about relating characters in the book to people that were in her real life, I came across something interesting.

Carroll never relates any of the characters to her parents. She relates her brother to the baby that turns into a pig. That makes sense because he thought that all boys became pigs. Next he put the children’s mistress in there. She was a mouse which makes me think that either he didn’t like her, or he thought that Alice didn’t like her. Next I want to point out that he never mentions Alice’s family.

Is this because he was so obsessed with her that he was only focused on Alice, or because he wanted to be her family so he didn’t put hers in there?

I think Carroll not putting Alice’s family in the book makes me think that he hated her family. They were the ones who got to be with her all the time and he didn’t. He didn’t like this so he never mentions the family in the book. Another thing I think is weird is that Alice is never missing her parents in the book. Does Carroll put this in there because he hopes that she will forget about them and want to be with him? Carroll was a strange man who was obsessed with a little girl and hated her family.

Is That It?

Like Deron Molen’s post, Game Over Alice,I have been talking with some of my friends and realized that no one liked the ending of the book. It just ended very abruptly. She was in the court room then the cards flew up in her face and she was awake. It kind of reminded me of how a bunch of my dreams end. When you’re getting to the best part of something or something is about to happen to you, you wake up. I think that this is was what Carroll was trying to do. A lot of people don’t know how he could of ended the story like that.

Also I think that maybe he was just running out of ideas. I mean he had written a great book so far so maybe he had nothing left. Lets not forget though that he was only a mathematician and didn’t just sit there and write books all day. Besides that, the ending just really bothers me. It was a great book and it was starting to get really good and we were all wondering how she would get out of wonderland, but then it ended. After a while, I don’t think that Carroll even liked the ending of the book. This is why I think that Carroll decided to write another book, Through the Looking Glass. To wrap it up, I will leave you with question, was Carroll trying to simulate the ending of our dreams or was he running out of Ideas?

The Caucus Race

Back to chapter 3 when Alice and all of the animals land on the bank, all they can think about is getting dry.

First the mouse thinks that it has a good idea to get everyone dry. Some people think that the mouse was to represent Miss Prickett, the children’s governess. If this is true, then it says something about Alice’s life. I think that it means that this Miss Prickett was always the first person to think of an idea or something. The governess must have always think that she was right and that she had the best idea. Also, Miss Prickett being a mouse may symbolize that Alice may not have liked her so that is why she is a mouse and not one of the other animals.

After the mouse’s idea fails, the dodo bird suggests the caucus race.

A caucus race symbolizes the government of that time. Like the race, the politicians would just run around thinking that they were going to get something done, but never would. Also when the mouse’s idea fails, it can be interpreted that Alice’s governess was hardly ever right. As I was browsing through some website I came across another idea about the caucus race. It said that the race can signify that there is no meaning to life itself. The animals eventually get dry, but they do not follow a path or understand what they are doing as they do it. That can be seen a little bit during Alice’s little time her in wonderland. Like when Alice is trying to get out of wonderland, she has no reason for drinking out of the bottles or eating the cake. The caucus race can be seen as having many different meanings in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Who are You?

The caterpillar is a very interesting character in the story so far even though hee has only been introduced to the story for a single chapter.

At first during their conversation, they both have trouble understanding each other. Alice has the most trouble comprehending what the caterpillar is saying. He asks questions that she has never really had to answer before. When the caterpillar asks “who are you?”, she does not know how to answer it. I think that Carroll is playing with thoughts during this meeting. He takes the most simple questions, but turns them into a more deep question that is hard to answer.

The caterpillar puts emphasis on the words you and me in his sentences. I think that this is Carroll trying to ask deeper questions. By having the caterpillars asks short questions but emphasizing you and me allows us to think about it. It makes us take a question like, “who are you?”, and try to really understand who we are. The caterpillar smoking the hookah allows the caterpillar to ask whatever it wants without any question. Like in ancient times, the philosophers would take drugs to get in a dream or trance like state in order to understand the deeper meaning of things.This is probably why the caterpillar is asking “who are you?” and not just “who are you” like what is your name.  The “who are you?” quote was a catch phrase during London at the time of his book, so this is probably why Carroll uses this phrase in his book.

Pig Boy

In chapter six, Alice has a tough time trying to get into the house. Her and the footman have a long conversation about her getting in. The footman questions her as to why she knocks. I think that this is Carroll questioning why we do some things. He is saying that we do things that we really do not need to. Like in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when she is knocking on the door even though the footman is outside. She does not need to knock because he is outside and the people inside would not be able to hear her anyways. Other than that, I do not know why Carroll would put that scene in the book.

As I was doing my blog, I read an interesting post, The Peppery Pig, from Brendon in Group 9, about the baby turning into a pig. Another point about that scene is that is is a reverse of the Duchess’s quote in Chapter 9,”Be as you would seem to be.” The baby was not as what it seemed to be. It turned out to be a pig which is strange for Carroll to have a baby turn into a pig. Is he saying that all babies end up turning into pigs? Carroll is hinting that babies will grow up and turn out to pigs. At first, the most interesting thing to me about that scene is that Carroll would contradict his idea, “Be what you would seem to be”, and the baby turning into a pig. But then I realized that the baby turning into a pig does not contradict his idea at all. The baby turning into a pig is what he says is supposed to happen. So after further analyzing, I had to change my thoughts, and I realized that Carroll had not contradicted his ideas after all.

Who Am I?

During Alice’s time in the tunnel, she could not remember who she was. She thought because she did not feel like herself, than she was somebody else. She thought to herself about all of the girls her age that she could have changed to. For some reason this is not unusual to Alice. Throughout most of the book, Alice has had a wild imagination. Almost nothing seems weird or unusual to her. And just because she did not feel the same, she immediately thought that she was somebody else.

First Alice thought that she was her friend Ada, then Mabel. She then quickly realized that she was not them because of their physical appearance. She then starts to go through the table of multiplication.

This is very weird on two levels.

First there is no reason for a girl who just fell through a hole to be thinking about multiplication and second she is so wrong. I do not know what Carroll is trying to tell us by Alice forgetting all that she used to know.

Is it because she has to forget everything she knows to be able to understand this new world she is going into?