TITLE
OF WORK Edition
: Level: |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Demetra Unabridged
edition |
AUTHOR |
Name:
Lewis Carrol, the
pen-name of Charles Dogson (1832-1898), a lecturer of Mathematics and
Logic at Oxford University. |
KIND OF NOVEL ( |
Fantasy
|
SUMMARY |
Alice
is a little girl who, bored of a summer afternoon, decides to follow a
white rabbit down a hole. After a long fall she comes to a world
without rules (or with its own). She tries to make sense of what
happens using the notions she had learnt from adults. But there they have
absolutely no use. From the moment she arrives in that land, her body
changes size many times, in a way she cannot control. In Wonderland she
follows a path full of non-sense and puzzles, and during her journey she
meets mad characters who drive her into
a serie of incredible situations. A mouse tells her his sad tale, a
caterpillar teaches how to grow bigger and smaller, thanks to a mushroom.
Alice has to manage with a March Hare and a Hatter, who had a quarrel with
Time and are always at tea-time. She plays criquet using a flamingo at the
Queen of Hearts’ Criquet-Ground, with hedgehogs as balls and
cards-soldiers as arches, and learns to dance the Lobster Quadrille from a
Mock Turtle and a Griphon. At the end, when she’s called to give her
evidence in a strange trial, she wakes up and finds herself in the same
boring summer afternoon during which everything began. |
SETTING |
TIME:
The
Victorian age PLACE:
Wonderland,
a place where there is no logical rule and, according to the Cheshire Cat,
“everyone is mad”. ATMOSPHERE:
The
atmosphere in the book is extremely strange, you can never even imagine
what’s going to happen. |
CHARACTERS |
Description:
Alice
is a little girl who cares a lot about being a good child, speaking in a
proper way and not misbehaving. She always tries to show how much she
knows to be like adults. Everything she had learnt is turned into a pun in
the magical wonderland. At the end of her adventure she will be able to
look at life with new eyes. The Cheshire Cat always
grins. He follows Alice during her journey through Wonderland. He likes
appearing and disappearing suddenly. The
Queen of Hearts
would like to see everybody executed. She likes playing criquet, but she
claims to win. Nobody can go against her will without risking his head. The
White Rabbit is
a courtier. His house has been destroyed by Alice’s giant growth. The
Hatter and The March Hare quarrelled
with Time, so they are always at 5.00 p.m., and they drink tea the whole
day. The
Duchess
has a child who turns into a pig. She always find a moral in everything. The
Mock Turtle and the
Griphon teach Alice to dance
the Lobster Quadrille. “ A mock turtle is what a mock turtle soup is
made from.” |
THEMES |
Alice’s adventure in Wonderland
is a fable in which the adult world is shown illogical and authoritarian
to children. Alice is not a fictitious character, but a real girl who
Carroll met when he taught Logic at Oxford university. The book is also a
parody of the contradictions of Victorian
society. |
PERSONAL
COMMENTS (give
your opinion but substantiate !) |
I
had never read a book like this before. Except Alice, in this tale no
character makes sense by himself, and everything is part of a bigger
painting. You always have to search deeper and deeper to find the real
meaning: Wonderland could look like a comic dream, but it’s an
authoritarian world, full of nonsense and absurdities. I worship nonsense
and games on words, and the entire book is showered with them. Reading
this story, as Alice herself would say “ I was terribly puzzled”.
|
POINTS
YOU HAVE SELECTED FROM THE TEXT |
“
Mine is a long and sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice and
sighing. ”It’s a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad ?” and she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tail was something like this: “Fury said to
a mouse, That
he met
in the
house,-
“ Let us
both go
to law:
I will
Prosecute
You.-
Come, I’ll
Take no
Denial;
we must
have a
trial:
For
Really
This
Morning
I’ve
Nothing
To
do.”
Said the
Mouse to
The cur,
“Such a
trial,
dear Sir
With no
Jury or
Judge,
would be
wasting
our breath.”
“I’ll be
judge,
I’ll be
Jury,”
Said
Cunning
Old Fury:
“I’ll try
The Whole
Cause,
and
condemn
you
to
death.” Andrea
Del Maschio |