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

    

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