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British Literature III
Group 7 Report
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Hana Hsieh
Irene Lin (late)
Michael Chiang
Lilian Chu
Andrew Wu
Shao Chen (late)
Cynthia Su
Outline Background
The Relationship between Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll
The Relationship between Alice Liddell and Prince Leopold
Theme of Analysis and Plot Overview
Analysis of Selected Events and Encounters The Caucus-Race
The Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat
The Mad-Tea Party and the Royal Garden scene
The Trial
Multimedia Presentation Discussion and Conclusion
Background:
The Untold Story of
Alice In Wonderland
Michael Chiang 498200290
Relationship between Alice Liddell
and Lewis Carroll
Missing Diaries- “Cut pages in diary document”
Photographs of nude or semi-nude girls taken by L.C
The Liddell Riddle
Pedophilia? Benevolence?
Missing diaries
The disappearance of four complete volumes
and around seven pages of text from Dodgson's
13 diaries
In 1853~1863. –(starting composing love
poetry)
The missing page (27 June 1863)
Conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the
11-year-old Alice Liddell (27 June 1863)
“Cut pages in diary document“
Gossip---with Liddell family's
governess as well as "Ina", Alice's older
sister, Lorina Liddell.
The "break" with the Liddell family
has nothing to do with Alice Liddell?
Photographs of nude or semi-nude girls
Dressed in beggar garb,
off-the-shoulder neckline,
liquid posture, and her
frank suction gaze…
The Liddell Riddle A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening in July --
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear –
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden gleam --
Life what is it but a dream?
Alice Pleasance Liddell
Pedophilia? Benevolence? In Victorian society… not unusual for men like Lewis Carroll to have close platonic
relationships with young girls like Alice.
not uncommon for young girls like Alice to be photographed
scantily clad.
not unusual for close platonic relationships to end at the age
Victorian parents started looking for suitable husbands for
their daughter.
During his lifetime Lewis Carroll supported numerous charities with a focus
on helping poor children and young women. He believed passionately in the
importance of educating girls beyond domestic duties.
There are a number of possibilities; a romantic interest
in Alice, speculation that he attempted to propose
marriage to Lorina, Alice’s older sister or, that he was
only befriending the children in order to get close to
Miss Picketts, the children’s governess. Or…
Relationship between Alice Liddell and
Prince Leopold
Prince Leopold, the youngest
son of Queen Victoria
“Commoner” vs. Prince
Prince Leopold
When Alice married to Reginald Hargreaves she named her
first son Leopold and he named his daughter Alice. Perhaps
they were both thinking of the sage advice that the Duchess
gives Alice in chapter 9
Theme of Analysis and Plot Overview
Theme of Analysis
Alice’s adventures through Wonderland could well be seen as a process of socialization and a young girl’s struggles with puberty.
Alice changes size many times in the story and encounters many strange characters and events that forces her to question society. What do the events signify, and what does she come to realize?
Alice’s Overall Changes
Alice’s height: 120 cm
1. Shrink: 25 cm Bottle– “Drink me”→too short to reach the table.
Alice’s changes
2. Grow: 275 cm Cake—”eat me”→goodbye feet
3. Shrink: 12.5cm The fan→swim in her tears →Caucus Race
4. Grow: unknown size Little bottle→grow too much in the Rabbit‘s house
6. The chin was pressed against her foot Mushroom→one side taller , the other shorter.
5. Shrink: 7.5cm Cake→escape from the house
7. Her neck is higher than the tree. Mushroom
8. Back to normal: 120cm Mushroom
9. Shrink: 22.5cm Mushroom: in order to get into the little house
10. Grow: 60cm Mushroom─→attend the Tea-Party
11. Shrink: 30 cm Mushroom→ get into the beautiful garden
12. Grow: 120cm Don’t know why→wake up
Analysis of Selected Events and Encounters
Analysis: The Caucus-Race
Lilian Chu
Outline
• Shows the absurdity of life
• Meaningless of life
• Alice’s learning of the real life.
• Alice’s Reactions
An Absurd Game - No exact shape of the race-course. “First it marked
out a race-course, in a sort of circle”
- No starting line. “…all the party were placed along the course, here and there.”
- Does not define the beginning and the end. “There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked.”
- Dodo announces the over of the game randomly.
- Dodo decides the winner and the prize provider by his will.
• They try to find a winner in the end, which does not really matter.
–They forget the purpose of the game is to dry themselves!
• Does running really makes the clothes dry?
• Also, “caucus” in England stands for a political meeting, so Alice is understanding the absurdity of politics, and the grown-up world.
Meaningless of Life
• Life is just like the circle of the race-course
– Chasing each others
– Running without knowing the beginning and the end.
– No judges
– Everyone gets something.
Alice’s Learning of Real Life
• There is no fairness
– No time for Alice to learn the rules and then play the game.
– No righteous judge.
Alice’s Reactions
• Just follow what other animals do / ask
– Play the game without thinking if it is useful
– Offer the prize as others ask her to do so
– Try to be as grave as other animals do when accepting the prize
Analysis on the Caterpillar & Cheshire Cat
Hana Hsieh
498200305
The Caterpillar
Chapter V: Advice from a Caterpillar
Ignore Alice at first 1. sits on a mushroom 2. smokes a hookah pile
Treat Alice with contempt 1. keep questioning her about identity 2. correct her recitation of a poem
Advise Alice to eat the mushroom if she wants to change her size
Dialo
gue ab
ou
t IDEN
TITY
Caterpillar: ‘Who are YOU?’
Alice: ‘I—I hardly know…, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’
C: ‘What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!’
A: ‘I can’t explain MYSELF… because I’m not myself, you see.’
C: ‘I don’t see.’
A: ‘…; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.’
C: ‘You! Who are YOU?’
A: ‘… I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for then minutes together!’
IDEN
TITY
Dia
logu
e ab
ou
t A
DV
ICE
Caterpillar: ‘What size do you want to be?’
Alice: ‘Oh, I’m not particular as to size; only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.’
C: ‘I DON’T know.’
A: ‘Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger… three inches is such a wretched height to be.’
C: ‘It is a very good height indeed!’
A: ‘But I’m not used to it!’
C: ‘You’ll get used to it in time.’
C: ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.’
C: ‘Of the mushroom.’
AD
VIC
E
Symbols Caterpillar – It represents the threat of sexuality for its phallic shape.
Mushroom – Alice needs to master the properties of it to control her fluctuating size.
Puberty (adolescence)
Alice’s confusion of identity and her fluctuating sizes
The Caterpillar’s advice about the
mushroom
Undergo the process of “puberty”
(adolescence) and face the adult world
Alice has been questioned about her identity and keeps changing size.
Learn to control and adjust herself to
different environment (socialization)
The Caterpillar advises Alice to eat the mushroom for changing size.
Cheshire Cat
The Illusive ‘Cheshire Cat’
Appears its head in the air Listens to Alice/ causes a fight
Sits on a bough of a free Has conversation with Alice
Sits on the hearth Grins from ear to ear
Givin
g Dire
ction
(witty)
Alice: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cheshire Cat: ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to go to.’
A: ‘I don’t much care where –’
C: ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.’
A: ‘—so long as I get SOMEWHERE.’
C: ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that if you only walk long enough.’
Teac
hin
g th
e R
ULE
S th
ere
Cheshire Cat: ‘… Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’
Alice: ‘But I don’t want to go among mad people.’
C: ‘Oh, you can’t help that;
we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
A: ‘How do you know I’m mad?’
C: ‘You must be or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Cheshire Cat in the Croquet game
Alice’s awareness of the “nonsensical rules” of the Wonderland (adult world).
Cheshire Cat listens to Alice, but leaves a trouble her by
causing a quarrel.
Alice’s change: Realization of the RULES
Cause: Alice learns the “mad rule” from Cheshire cat.
• Teenagers’ often face new rules ruled by adults in their world.
Consequence: Alice was unsure about the rules, but still bears that in mind.
• Teenagers can’t accept new rules at first, but they will remember them.
Alice’ response: Alice realizes the “mad rule” during the game, so she decides to overturn it finally.
• Teenagers find those rules are nonsensical, so they develop their own rules.
Analysis on
The Mad-Tea Party
&
Royal Garden Scene
• Attends a tea party with the Hatter, Hare, and dormouse
• The Hatter and Hare quarrel with her
• The dormouse is abused (squashed, made to tell a story, stuck in teapot, etc.)
• They argue about Time
• The Hatter and Hare give riddles with no answers
• Alice comes to see the tea party as the “stupidest” ever
• Alice finds a door in a tree
• She enters by using the mushroom to make
herself a bit shorter, and enters into the
garden of the King and Queen of Hearts
• A garden is an artificial form of nature
• Beautiful and mysterious, but fake (painted
red roses, in particular)
• The queen orders nearly everone to be
decapitated, but eventually we learn that no
one actually is.
Her power is not real
• They play croquet, very frustrating process
The game rules of upper-society are bizarre
• The Cheshire Cat appears, and the Queen
cannot do anything about it.
The Queen has no control over a character
who has more insight then she does.
Even in the highest of social positions,
everything is nonsense and bizarre.
Analysis on The Trial
Events
• After the Mock-Turtle and Gryphon
• Someone has stolen the tarts
• Absurdity of King’s attire
• Jury (Absurdity of note-taking)
• Hatter (Alice starts to grow)
• Guinea pigs
• Duchess's Cook
• Alice (Knocks over jurors)
• Letter
• Alice’s rejection
• Alice is first aware of how silly the King
dresses, and she knows the setting of a trial
(judge, jurors)
• Alice comes to realize that the jurors know
nothing. They can’t be sure of remembering
even their names, and when she shouts
“stupid,” they write it down.
Carroll is mocking the trial setting of society
• The Hatter is the first witness
• The King bullies him. Threatens him with his
life.
• The King makes the jurors write down
irrelevant things.
Alice sees the absurdity of the trial process
• The guinea pigs are “suppressed” for cheering randomly.
Perhaps representing the ignorance of most of the populace, and how easily they are influenced. Also reflects how the upper class abuse the lower class.
• Alice starts to grow as she watches the Hatter
being questioned.
She feels indignant and can see through how
unjust and absurd the whole thing is. Her insight
makes her grow; see is now an observer
• Eventually, she overturns the jury
• Rejects everything as “a pack of cards”
• The cards attack her, and she wakes up
Multimedia Presentation:
Alice in Wonderland and its
Contemporary Influence
Discussion and Conclusion
Discussion
• At the end, Alice wakes up after she rejects everything as “a pack of cards.” In your opinion, what does "a pack of cards" mean?
Discussion
• After Alice wakes up, she reeturns to reality. Does she continue to believe that society is just like “a pack of cards”? Or does she go back into society conforming to its rules?
Discussion
• The “pack of cards”
→ the Victorian society is just a “game”
→ the people in power make the rules, everything is nonsensical and absurd
• But Alice doesn’t reject society as a pack of cards.
• After Alice wakes up → she learns that the whole society is like a pack of cards, but her sister still imagines her with children, which means that perhaps she continues to follow the rules society sets.
Conclusion
• The changes and encounters Alice goes through can be seen as a process of socialization and struggles with puberty.
• The Caucus-Race, Mad-Tea Party, and Trial enlighten her on how absurd, unjust, nonsensical, and tyrannical society is.
• The Caterpillar and Cheshire Cat shed light on how Alice comes to understand herself and her direction in life. She also understands that rules are arbitrary.
• Alice escapes wonderland by rejecting everything, but once she comes back to reality, we are left to ponder whether Alice views her own society also as “a pack of cards.”
Thank You Very Much
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