Alice in Wonderland

Presented to:

Paola Esther Erazo

Presented by:

Walter Cisneros

University of NariñoLic. English and French

IV semester2010

Introduction

After reading such a particular book as Alice in Wonderland, I can say that is a book that didn’t fill my expectations, but that has a very original way of see the world that takes us to a ravel into the imagination but the book also has many fails such as the inconsistencies in the book’s plot or unnecessary dialogs but the important of this story is that invites us to travel in the best place ever, our own minds.

SUMMARY

CHAPTER ONE: DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE

This history begins with a picture of Alice with her sister, Alice seems to be baby-sitting her sister and she is reading a book with “no pictures or conversations” so Alice was very bored and besides she felt very clumsy because of the hot day was that day.

Suddenly, a white rabbit whit pink eyes and wearing a waistcoat appeared right before Alice’s eyes, it was so intriguing that Alice didn’t thought it twice and followed the little rabbit leaving behind her sister, she followed him until he finally got to his rabbit-hole, she took a look inside this and suddenly she fall down, down and down in a endless well.

While Alice was felling in the well she started to think things about her life, her cat Dunah or what was happening in that hole and things like that. Then she finally got to the end of this hole and she was in a room with a three-legged table with a little key on it, she tried the keys on several doors an finally opened one of the, but it was too small for her so he looked around and in the same table she found a bottle with a liquid inside, the bottle has a paper that said “drink me” after think it she did it and she reduced her size so he went to the door and she found it locked, when she wanted to come back for the key, it was over the table, to far for reach it, the a cake was over there, she ate a bit, as nothing happened she ate the whole cake.

CHAPTER TWO: THE POOL OF TEARS.

Now the cake has had an effect and Alice’s size is now more than two meters, she was able to hand the key and open but she couldn’t go throw the little door. As a result Alice started to cry and cry, she cried so much that suddenly there was a pool made of tears of thirty centimeters. After that the white rabbit pass in front of Alice but he did it so quick that left his gloves an his fan, Alice picked it up started to fanning herself, she began to grew down because the fan was magic but she was again too little and the key in the same table.

Alice started to swan up to the shore, in the way she found a mouse and tried to make a conversation with him, both Alice and the mouse get to the shore and stayed there, they also could see a lot of weird animal trying to get out of the tears-pool including a Dodo.

CHAPTER THREE: A CAUCUS-RACE ABD A LONG TALE

The animal finally got to the shore but they were all wet, so the mouse started to count them a very nonsense story, saying that this would help them to get dry but nothing happens so the dodo purpose a race, they did it and at the end of the race all were already dried, an animal asked who had won and what were the prices, all the animals were awarded and also Alice.

Then accidentally Alice named her cat Dinah which made everybody left and suddenly Alice was alone again, even the mouse had has left her alone, but he changed his mind and came back. Then asked to the mouse why was he afraid of cats and dogs and the mouse started to tell her his story. There a rare confusion between Alice and the mouse because the “tale” has two meanings in English.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE RABBIT SENDS A LITTLE BILL.

In this chapter, we can see that the last part of the previous chapter has no connection with the first part of this one. Alice was alone again and suddenly she saw the rabbit again, he was looking for the fan and the gloves desperately, and when he saw Alice, he confused her with his keys keeper, Mary Ann and send Alice to his house it look for the fan, Alice, because she didn’t want to make problems with the rabbit just went to his house. Alice entered and in the rabbit’s room found the fan and another bottle, she concluded that that bottle would have an effect on her so she drank it.

She started to grow so much that she didn’t fit in the room any more and was stocked there, when the rabbit got to see what was going on he saw a hand going out of the window, he decided to ask for help and suddenly the lace was crowded with animals trying to decide what they were going to do, then they started to throw little pebbles that entered to where was Alice she ate them and reduce her height, next she ran out of the house, far away of that place a dog scared her and she throw a stick of wood while she was running away, she ran until she got to a mushroom that has a large caterpillar on it, it was smoking and it didn’t take notice of anything.

CHAPTER FIVE: ADVISE FROM A CATERPILLAR.

The caterpillar asked Alice who she was, Alice were so confused because of so many changes she had have that couldn’t answer this question in grand part, then they had a little discussion about Alice’s forgotten thoughts, after that they were at the beginning wondering who Alice was.

Alice wanted to come back to her original height, so the caterpillar helped giving her the mushroom he was on, he said that one side of the mushroom will make her grow up and the other will make her grow down, after try several times and have an argue with a pigeon Alice finally was the right height.

She walked away and found a house of one meter and a half maybe, she wanted to know what was in the house so she eat mushroom again till she was one meter height.

CHAPTER SIX: PIG AND PEPPER.

After having the solution of how manipulate her height, she kept looking for the garden at the beginning. Alice got close to the house but suddenly a footman arrived to the little home and Alice hide, another footman opened the door and the first one had an invitation to the duchess from the queen for play croquet.

Alice wanted to got in the house so she decided to ask to the footman, but he didn’t wanted to so Alice entered to the house by herself, inside she found the duchess holding a baby and with her cat Cheshire beside her. They have a little conversation and she introduced her cat, gave the baby to Alice so she take care of him and left saying that she was on her way to the queen’s castle. The baby transformed into a pig and Alice left him free and got into the forest, deep in the forest the cat Cheshire appeared before Alice.

She asked him where she should go, and the cat said that either to the house of the March Hare or should go with the Hatter, Alice decided to go with the Hatter.

CHAPTER SEVEN: A MAD TEA-PARTY

Alice finally arrive to the March Hare house and found that outside of the house there’s a large table whit the Hatter, The March Hare and the dormouse. She sat whit them and started to talk about very confusing things like time or that they were in an endless tea-party. Here is an affirmation of what I will say in the part of the work about that the entire part of this story that develops on this world is timeless:

Alice finally found the door way to the beautiful garden and entered in there, it was the croquet garden of the Queen of Hearts.

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND.

When she was finally in the ground of croquet she found three cards that was painting roses, they were doing that because the rose-tree supposed to be red and it was white, then the queen appeared and saw the big mistake the cards had made and she said “off with their heads!!!” a characteristic phrase of her. There was a complot to save this three guys by Alice’s and other people’s part.

The queen invited every one, including Alice, to play croquet. This game had very rare things such as they didn’t use crocked-sticks to play but flamingoes and hedge goes instead of balls and cards instead of arches so they marked the way of the game, this was a continuous argue and the Queen was always saying: off with her head, off whit his head.

The rabbit was following Alice and say to her that the duchess was at prison, next the cat Cheshire appear and Alice was very happy of having someone known for talking, but as the Queen was like she was ordered to off with Cheshire’s head, Alice take vantage of that and said that the cat was from the duchess and the queen ordered to release her, when the duchess arrived the cat had gone.

CHAPTER NINE: THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY.

Alice and the duchess have a very polite and calmed conversation, till the Queen arrived and say to her that she must leave or she will lose her head, so, the Duchess left the castle. Alice was very happy of being alive after so many people that the Queen send to kill, by contraire the queen invite her to know the mock turtle for she to hear his story, so both Alice and the Duchess went to a place of the croquet-ground where a gryphon was sleeping, the Queen woke him up and said to him to take Alice there, to mock turtle’s place. Then they arrived there, there was a turtle but he has parts of other animals, very bizarre. The turtle started to tell a story about his school. He finished and the gryphon asks him about the games.

CHAPTER TEN: THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE.

As a response of the last question the turtle told Alice an the gryphon a story about a lobster dance under the sea, he sang this son for a while, then they ask Alice what was his story, so Alice told his story whit the rabbit and the Hatter an so long, the chapter finishes when the turtle started to sang another song about soup and far away the queen screamed something about a judgment. The gryphon took Alice and both ran away up to the castle.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WHO STOLE THE TARTS?

In effect, they got to the castle and found a court, twelve animals were the jury, they were in front of the queen and the king, the accused were the knave, and the white rabbit was dressed like the announcer of the court of justice. The testimony of the Hatter and the March Hare were told, those testimonies were really out of point, because they started to talk about the tea and things like that, as them didn’t make their points the rabbit had to call to the next witness, Alice, who hadn’t realize that had been growing.

CHAPTER TWELVE: ALICE’S EVIDENCE.

The final chapter of this story, after all the adventures Alice had lived, she found herself in the one that will be the last, she was at that moment in front of the

Queen and the King as a witness, she didn’t noticed that she finally had recovered her original height.

The session of the court started whit a question of the King, he asked if Alice knew something about the tarts. She answered that she didn’t, after an long argue between them, the rabbit presented a new evidence that the King ordered that be read, the rabbit did it, it was a poem, here said that the tarts were effetely stolen but in the same way the tarts were gotten back. When they looked at the table the tarts were there but the Queen wanted the knave been punished, so Alice, as she was very tall, wasn’t afraid of defends the knave against the queen, the Queen, very offended, ordered that off Alice’s head, when the soldiers were about to catch her, Alice woke up, and she was laying on her sister’s.

She recounted her dream to her sister, whit every detail she could remember. The tea tine arrived and Alice had to leave. Alice’s sister rested in the same place and started to dream, she dreamt about everything had happened to Alice. The story finishes with this scene, and making a consideration of Alice’s child-hood

CHARACTERS

Main characters

Alice is the main character of this story, is who lives in flesh all the things that had happened in the book, she is a little girl when she goes to wonderland and has no knowledge of this world. She is a blonde girl with big eyes, she is very curious and smart, and seems to be that she wants to be older because his analysis and argumentation level are quite good, she also cries a lot because of the circumstances, this made her the child he is and not a very mature as she wants to be.

The white rabbit is a time-maniac character is the cause of Alice felt on the well, is a rabbit that is nervous and always in a hurry. However, he is confident enough about himself to contradict the King of Hearts. In a way, he is some kind of a guide through Wonderland for her, only unintentionally.

The Caterpillar is sitting on a mushroom while smoking a hookah, when Alice first meets him. The Caterpillar actually teaches Alice how to cope with the difficulties she encounters in Wonderland. He teaches her how to change size by eating the mushroom and to adapt to her environment when needed.

The Cheshire Cat is the cat of the Duchess. Alice meets it when she leaves the Duchess house, and finds it in a tree. It constantly grins and can disappear and reappear whenever it likes. Sometimes it disappears and leaves its grin behind. The Cheshire Cat is the only character in Wonderland who actually listens to Alice. With his remarks, he teaches Alice the ‘rules’ of Wonderland. He gives her instruction in how things work down there.

The Hatter is one of the members of the Mad Tea Party. Later he also appears as a witness during the trial. He occasionally is very rude and provokes Alice during the tea party. When he is called upon by the Queen, he is very nervous and frightened.

The March Hare is holding a tea party with the Hatter and the Dormouse. The party will continue forever, as they live in a frozen time. Later on, the March Hare is a witness during the trial.

The Queen of Hearts rules over Wonderland and is a tyrant - violent, authoritative and dominant. She likes to play croquet with flamingoes and hedgehogs as mallets and balls (but only when she wins, and by her own rules) and constantly orders that people’ been off when something isn't to her liking (although these orders apparently never are actually carried out). She also has her own ideas about how trials should be conducted, and is feared by all other Wonderland inhabitants because of her lack of patience and explosive character.

The King is The Queen of Hearts’ incompetent husband. She completely dominates him. The King doesn’t have much notion of how a trial works, but is rather stubborn.

Alice’s sister has not a name, or is not mentioned at least, she is elder than Alice and in the beginning of the story she’s reading a very boring book (according to Alice). In the end Alice wakes up in her lap and tells her adventures. She lives Alice's adventures on her own.

Secondary characters

The Knave of Hearts he carries the crown and is later accused of stealing tarts. His character doesn’t go beyond.

Dinah is Alice’s cat, she says Dinah is very cute and like to play with everything, he likes also to catch mice and birds.

Mary Ann is the White Rabbit’s housemaid. She isn’t physically there in the book but the Rabbit made a mistake, confusing Alice with ann.

The Mouse is this is one of the creatures that fell into the pool of Alice’s tears. He tries to dry the others by telling them the driest story he knows.

The Duck also fell into Alice’s pool of tears.

The Dodo is another creature that fell into the pool. He suggests doing a Caucus race to get dry.

The Lory Also fell into the pool.

The Eaglet as well as the other creatures also fell into the pool of tears that Alice has made.

Pat is an employee of the White Rabbit. The Rabbit orders him to get Alice’s arm out of his window.

Bill is a lizard and also employed by the White Rabbit. He has to go down the chimney to get Alice out. Later he is a member of the jury during the trial.

2 Guinea pigs they are part of the group that tries to get Alice out of the Rabbit’s house.

Puppy very playful, and as Alice is very small he almost runs her over.

Pigeon she mistakes Alice for a serpent because of her long neck. She tries to protect her eggs.

The Frog-Footman he serves at the house of the Duchess.

The Fish-Footman he brings an invitation from the Queen to the Duchess’ house.

The Baby constantly howls and sneezes because of the pepper. When Alice takes it outside it turns into a pig.

The Cook makes soup with too much pepper and throws things at the Duchess, the baby and Alice. Later he is a witness in the trial.

Five, Seven and Two: They’re painting roses red because they planted white by mistake.

The Flamingos and hedgehogs: they are used as mallets and balls during the game of croquet.

The Gryphon he takes Alice to the Mock Turtle.

The Mock turtle seems to be very sad and constantly sobs. He tells Alice about his schooldays. And I think he presume of being wise

The Tortoise is a character that doesn’t appear in the story, is the mock turtle’s teacher.

The twelve Jurors are creatures that act as members of the jury during the trial of the stolen tarts. Among them is Bill, the lizard.

SOCIO-CULTURAL SETTINGS

Making some research on the Internet I found many interesting things that make me conclude several aspects of the socio-cultural development of this particular story, this story was written in the time in which is developed, this means that in the years that Lewis Carroll were writing this story are the same that in the ones Alice is living. The book has an amazing concordance with many important

dates in history, such as the development of Darwin’s theories, the industrial revolution or even the invention of the railroad.

In plain Victorian era Lewis Carroll creates Alice, inspired in his friend Alice Liddell who was born on 1852 so, in base of this date we can bear out the date of the publication of the book that was on 1862, when Lewis were 30 years old. As I said Alice in Wonderland is first placed somewhere in the UK at that space at the time line, as the nationality of Lewis is British is supposed that the history is developed there, people were very polite, talking about culture, and her clothe were a combination of gothic with classical style, the tea time were very respected men were gentlemanly but very male chauvinist, women were polite and demure, then we have the other settings that is Wonderland’s that is absolutely timeless, a world where there is no present time, it isn’t night or day, rain or sun, and maybe the time is based on the characters wishes, as example the Hatter:

The place is totally taken from the imagination, cause it has several scenes where impossible things happens such as the tears pool or the croquet played with animals as instruments, the culture is almost the same the only thing that change is that the situation is based on a magical timeless place, and the characters are not fine in their minds.

Alternate ending

I tried to make the text look like the original one, taking the same format because I think it gives to the read a little bit more verisimilitude.

XII. Alice’s evidence

After the completely absurd declaratory of the Hatter and The March Hare, the jury, decided that the Knave was not guilty, the Queen and the King agreed and sent him free, he ran so hard and so far that nobody saw him again in Wonderland. “¡Alice! You girl come here and tell us what do you know” said the Queen.

That moment Alice was in front of the jury, and the queen and the king were accusing her of had stolen the tarts, “you, little girl, you are the one who have stolen my tarts” whit a very angrily tone, the queen hit him with his elbow... “our tarts” remarked the king. “what? That is a very nonsense accusation, I didn’t’ even know that you have food in here, you know” said Alice. But Alice had no evidence that proved other thing, actually the queen and the king neither, but it was their world, and if Alice didn’t have anything in her defense her head would be cut off.

“since you have arrived here, a lot of very strange things have happened is not rare that the tarts are disappeared... maybe in your mouth...” said the queen.

“¡Absolutely not!” said Alice almost screaming. “I would not be capable of such a thing, I am putrid in money, and if I want to eat something I don’t need to steal it.”

At that point, everybody was very angry, and all started to complain about Alice’s culpability.

“¡STOP!” a very desperate voice screamed, the Hatter was out of his mind (more than usual) “stop, this mustn’t continue, this whole story have been crazy enough and I refuse to continue like this, ¡come on! This is not Colombia, the legal system couldn’t be like this, and this is not Somalia were for a piece of food everybody kills each other, this... is... not... Sparta! You can’t go around cutting heads like a crazy goat, ¡this is Wonderland people! Everything is possible in here, you have this entire feast and are crying for tarts? This is the most ridicule argue I ever had, you know.

In his madness, his insanity, even his lunacy, he was right, and the silence filled the room, no body talked for a minute or two, they were just thinking on what the Hatter said. “I will not tolerate this behavior in my court” said the Queen “this is my court and... off with her head!!!” but when the guards were for Alice, she was gone, as well as the Hatter. They were running out of wonderland, Alice realized that she was in love of Te Hatter and decides, while everybody was thinking, to live in some place where they can live happy and make any sense this story. The rabbit is living now with Alice’s sister, and the march hare is having the tea with the duchess, the endless tea that in wonderland is possible. The Queen and the King are in a madhouse because they became crazy looking for this people, and wonderland now is a great fantasy world.

THE END