Essay: Alice in Wonderland

I chose the Alice and Wonderland unit for this week because I wanted to refresh my knowledge on this fantastic classic! When I a freshman in high school, I remember that was my first time actually reading the story for myself. It was so weird and random but their symbolism was what really drew me in. For about a month I analyzed the story for my own benefit just to determine why Lewis Carol wrote a story with such a ‘farfetched’ theme and storyline for the time. I remember reading that he wrote the story for his children or grandchildren. I heard another version of a story I found was interesting because in the story everything is the same except Alice is older and took some type of drug so she began to hallucinate. The cheesier cat is actually her conscious and tells her to kill everyone in wonderland. When she wakes up, she realizes she actually killed real people. I also remember one of my friends saying that he did a bunch of psychedelics while writing his book, but that is more than likely untrue. Having all this knowledge of the story of Alice and Wonderland caused me to be even more interested in because there were so many weird things associated it that caught my interest.

            The story itself is a fantastic classic that I believe everyone should read at some point in his or her life. It is a story that both children and adults would love because the story seems to make no sense for our world but for Wonderlands rules, it made all the sense in the world. It lets all people, no matter how old, extend one’s creative mind and think of things outside the box of our rules in our world.  I am very glad this unit had this story and I hope people who had never read it before were able to take the opportunity to do so this week since it is such a great novel!

Alice in Wonderland by Jessie Willcox Smith (1923) 

Week 11 Storytelling: Lost in Wonderland

Alice and Courtney were the closest of friends and did everything together especially going on adventures. The two girls always loved to venture from others and find their own fun. One day, there was an adventure that they would never forget because it was so weird

A few weeks ago, the girls walked along the desired path in their favorite forest while they talked about their days and other small talk until they came across a new path that was branched off from their own. It caught their attention and decided to follow it down into the deeper part of the woods.

They noticed something peculiar when they saw a white rabbit in the distance because it was running toward them form the opposite end of the path. The two continued to walk forward, towards it. It puzzled both the girls because they had never seen a rabbit attract to humans. Once the rabbit was in site, the two could see that the rabbit not only started to run on it's two hind legs but also was wearing a suit and carried a pocket watch in his front right paw.

During the time the rabbit passed between the two girls, he said, “I’m late, I’m late!” After he spoke his final word, the two girls looked at one another and everything around them turned black and they began to fall into a hole in the ground. Once they landed, they noticed they landed on a bed of red playing cards that were the same size as the girls.

 Once they got up from the ground of cards, they looked around to see that they were in a different place. The flowers began to move as well as the trees and it even looked like they had faces on them. Terrified, the girls ran the opposite direction and ran into a caterpillar that sat on top a mushroom in the middle of the forest.

 The mushroom and the caterpillar were bigger than both of the girls. Something really strange, thought the girls, was the fact that the caterpillar was smoking a hooka. After he was aware of the girls, he slowly raised himself up from lying down to face the two. As he spoke, his words would spell out in the air by the smoke that escaped his mouth.

“Who are you?” He waited for their reply but they were too stunned by the talking and smoking caterpillar that they found themselves speechless. The caterpillar sighed, for he grew impatient. “You shouldn’t be here,” he continued, “you need to leave. Quickly, leave behind the mushroom.”

Without hesitation, the girls followed the caterpillar’s suggestion and went around the mushroom. Once behind the mushroom, they found a hole in the ground that looked like it was slowly closing up so they decided to jump in as fast as they could.

The two then popped out of a hole in the ground and found themselves on their normal path in the woods. Ever since that day, they two girls refrain from going into the forest.

Down the Rabbit Hole by John Tenniel (1865).

Author's Note: I used a story from Alice in Wonderland called Advice from a Caterpillar to form my own story. I used the same character name, Alice, and the life size caterpillar smoking hooka on a big mushroom. I also used a phrase the caterpillar said in the original story, "who are you", and the rabbit's phrase "I'm late, I'm late" since I thought it fit in that part of my story. The rest of the story I made up keeping in mind the theme of the original story. 

Reading Diary B: Alice in Wonderland

The more I continued to read the story of Alice in Wonderland the more I remembered how frustrating the story was. All of the characters are short in their answers, they always answer in questions and they make Alice look unintelligent. Firstly, Alice ran into the Mad Hatter, March Hare and the Dormouse in A Mad Tea-Party story. Alice sat down at the tea party that was only filled with chaos, frustration and time wasting riddles. After all the confusion and weirdness form all the characters, Alice left. But during the time she spent with the Mad Hatter, March hair and door mouse was more than what she thought. In their conversations, the Mad Hatter refers to time as a person and from then on, all Alice had known had been flipped upside down. For example, the Mad Hatter recited the “twinkle twinkle little star” song but he said it all wrong. Alice said that it wasn’t the right way but the Hatter didn’t pay mind to it and thought she was being stupid. They continued to treat Alice like that so she was finally so fed up. Later, she found the garden (in The Queen’s Croquet) of hearts in wonderland and found out how artificial all the rules as well as the garden was because the roses were painted red. It is within this story when Alice finds her true potential. But her newfound power got her into trouble and caused her to go to court ordered by the Queen of Hearts. After the court hearing, she woke up and it was all a dream.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Charles Robinson (1907)

Reading Diary A: Alice in Wonderland

This week, I chose to read the unit of Alice in Wonderland because it was one of my favorite stories when I was a child and one of my favorite Disney movies. I remember in middle school I read the Lewis C. Carol version of the story but I didn’t remember all of it’s connect, which is why I chose to re-read this story to remember the content. The first half of the unit is of course the first half of the story from Alice noticing the white rabbit with a watch, going down into the rabbit hole, being in an unfamiliar place and changing body sizes in the drop of a hat. But one part of the story I really want to focus on for my storytelling this week is the Advice From a Caterpillar. In the section, Alice meets the hookah smoking caterpillar that tried to seek guidance and help from him only to come out frustrated. Alice didn’t like how the caterpillar continued to ask who she was because, from all the transformations she went threw during the day, she had no idea who she actually was anymore. The caterpillar asked Alice to recite a poem, “Father William,” which is about the importance of having moderation in one’s life. When she recites it, she doesn’t remember it correctly and the caterpillar called her out on her mistake, which caused Alice to become angrier. Before the caterpillar leaves, he tells her that each side of the mushroom distorts the body, big or small. Alice tried both sides and grew very small then extremely tall. Her neck stretched into the trees, causing one bird to think she was a serpent.

The Caterpillar by Sir John Tenniel (1865)