Analyzing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a book many call a work of nonsense, but if looked at in more detail, it is found that Alice is in fact a book that can be interrupted and analyzed. The book revolves around a girl named Alice. Alice is an interesting character in contrast to the hectic world she finds herself in. In a land inhabited by irrational thinking creatures, Alice provides the reader with a coherent and logical outlook. As Alice journeys through the land, she encounters a varied array of different characters, mostly characters in the form of talking animals. The first character she is aware of is the famous White Rabbit. The white rabbit is a symbol of the life of many adults. Lewis Carroll uses the White Rabbit to symbolize the fast paced mentality of adults in contrast to the carefree child hood of Alice. This is a reflection of Carroll’s own desire to be associated with childish things as oppose to boring adult obligations. Alice's socializing with the bizarre creatures puts her into odd situations that even she can't decipher what's really going on, though she always tries to make some sense of the nonsense around her "Alice learns that she cannot expect to find logic or meaning in the situations that she encounters, even when they appear to be problems, riddles, or games that would normally have solutions that Alice would be able to figure out." (SparkNotesEditors).

There are many themes in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, each one is significant. Through out the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice goes through a varied amount of size changes. Each time she changes size, she is never quite satisfied with the result. This is a symbol of the changes that occur during puberty."The theme with Alice growing and shrinking into different sizes could reflect the ups and downs of adolescence with young people sometimes feeling adult and sometimes quite the opposite. The hesitation so typical of adolescent girls is reflected in Alice's thoughts: "She generally gave herself good advice (though she very seldom followed it)." (Maata).

Works Cited

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” SparkNotes. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 6 May 2010.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/citing.html

Maata, Jerry. "An Analysis of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Alice-in-Wonderland. March 1997. Web. 6 May 2010.

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/explain/alice841.html