Kandiah 1

Shampave Kandiah

Alstot

Exploration of Children & Adolescent Literature

2 December 2019

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland​ Oral Essay & Presentation

In ​Alice's Adventures in Wonderland​, author Lewis Carroll utilizes main character Alice

to illustrate both the joy of cherishing and sharing memories that a child’s imagination can

fabricate as well as the struggle of growing up and departing the childhood they treasured so

dearly; he does so by maintaining a constant influx of instances in which Alice can experience

the joy or a struggle throughout the novel.

The joys of childhood can be seen within the first few pages of ​Alice's Adventures in

Wonderland.​ On a hot, humid day filled with boredom, Alice impulsively follows an extremely

worrisome rabbit and cascades down a rabbit hole. During this fall, Alice begins to drift off into

a trance of disinterest, purely due to how long it was taking her. Alice kept herself in high spirits

by realizing (quote) “ after such a fall as this, [she] shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!”

(end quote) and that she’ll be seen as brave among her household. Alice reaffirms this, by

claiming her family members won’t say anything quote “even if I fell off the top of the house!

(Which was very likely true)” (end quote) (Carroll 14). Carroll uses the terms “tumbling down

stairs” to depict how such a miniscule instance in childhood can be seen of importance to a child,

as Alice compares a simple “tumbling down stairs” to an extensive and possibly alarming

plummet into a burrow where the destination is unknown. Additionally, the terms “tumbling

down stairs” can be relatable to the reader, as it is extremely common among children to fall
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down, linking Alice’s fall to the childlike tendency to be clumsy and not have a sense of balance.

This instance that Carroll weaves into the story can be seen as a joy of childhood, as Alice

cannot wait to tell her family the experience of falling into the earth, which she is positive they

will praise her for. This sense of anticipation of the validation Alice is soon to receive is viewed

as a joy of childhood, as it makes a child feel exultant when they perform the same or a similar

act. Furthermore, Carroll continues to assert instances of the joy of treasuring a delightful

recollection through Alice’s journey all the way to the end of the book. As Alice wakes up from

her exciting fantasy, she excitedly recounts her dream to her attentive sister. Alice’s sister agrees

with her, that (quote) “​was​ a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's

getting late.” (end quote) This prompted Alice to run along to the tea awaiting her, with the

dream fresh in her mind and realize (quote) “what a wonderful dream it had been.” (end quote)

(Carroll 142). The author utilizes the statement made by Alice to emphasize how enjoyable Alice

had found her travels, it made her so jubilant that she summed up how she felt after she

recounted the events her imagination concocted to simply “a wonderful dream.” Moreover, this

is a common pattern seen in children: when they experience something that brought them joy,

they continue to recount the events of the experience to come to terms with how they felt about

it, and then summarize that within a few words, as Alice did, as she summarized her adventures

just as a “wonderful dream.” Carroll uses Alice as a figure for children reading the story to depict

the joys of childhood by providing a multitude of instances in which Alice can express pure

happiness from the dreams her mind has created.

Alice’s struggles of childhood appear shortly after she experiences her first joy in the

novel. After reaching her imaginative centre of the earth, Alice is too small to reach the key that
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leads to Wonderland. As she begins to cry, her attention is diverted to White Rabbit, who is still

scared of the outcomes of being late. As she is ignored when she speaks to him, Alice questions

the entire environment around her. She wonders if (quote) “she was the same when [she] got up

this morning?”(end quote) and that she remembers feeling a little odd. Alice ends her wondering

with the comprehensible but heavily loaded question of “Who in the world” was she (Carroll

24-25). Carroll uses the term “this morning” to show the readers that while Alice is still a child

and is straightforward with herself, so she only sees change from the “mornings” to the nights of

each day. In addition to that, the author uses the term “world” to signify that Alice is beginning

her transition to an adult, as she is abandoning the childish behavior of thinking the “world”

revolves around her and begins to become conscious of the idea that there are multiple people in

the “world” and she has to find her place in it. This is a common childhood struggle because as a

child it is extremely overwhelming to mature into young adults, to leave their dream “world” that

they find so enjoyable, and to be shoved into the scary “world” of adulthood. This struggle

becomes more evident as the novel progresses, and the novel ends with Alice breaking her

imagination and opening her eyes into reality. As she is in the jury, extremely infuriated with the

unlevel playing field, Alice yells out in anguish. Her words echo in her mind, filled with fury and

realization that the jury was (quote) “nothing but a pack of cards!” (quote) which causes the

dream to end and wakes Alice up to a harsh reality. Carroll uses the terms “nothing but a” to

emphasize that Alice is no longer able to fantasize about real life items, to create tiny stories for

them. She loses her precious imagination and once fascinating, animate objects become boring

and lifeless. Alice snapping back to reality can be an internal struggle of childhood, as one part

of her hopelessly wants to be forever in Wonderland, meeting these unique characters (this is
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subconscious of course). While her main focus is to get home, she doesn’t realize that she has to

abandon the entire daydream. This can disappoint a child and signal their transition to adulthood,

in which children realize that they cannot have everything they want in the world, and have to

choose one choice over the other. The realization of her entire dream being nothing but a pack of

cards is extremely influential to her life experiences as she will continue to analyze bits and

pieces of her dream throughout her life.

While children continue to struggle through the choppy waters of life, they must realize

that these struggles are what make the joys that much better. Thus, while the transition to

adulthood can be a harsh path, it is beneficial as simple joys are much more valuable and prized,

which makes childhood a distant but intimate memory.

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Barnes & Noble Books, 2004.