Alice in Wonderland: A Critique Paper

10-4SRAlcoriza (Group 1)

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson or better known as Lewis Carroll, was an

English author, poet, mathematician and photographer. In 1865, he wrote the
story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which made him famous and known.
The story is about a wild and nonsensical event that Alice, the main
character, went to. The author describes things from a perspective different
from ours, a child’s perspective. It’s told as if we see the world through her
eyes, where the world’s full of fun and silly logic.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland starts out as Alice is sitting by the

lake with her sister. Her sister is reading books with no pictures so she got
bored and fell asleep. In her dream, Alice sees a white rabbit that jumps
down a rabbit hole. She follows the rabbit. In Wonderland, she experiences
many wild and bizarre adventures, many of which are illogical and
unexpected. She then meets a hookah-smoking caterpillar, attends an
endless tea party with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. She plays croquet
with a flamingo for a mallet and hedgehogs for balls while the Queen tries
and fails to execute almost everyone present. At the Queen’s behest, she
meets a Gryphon which takes her to the sobbing Mock Turtle. She’s then
called to be a witness in a trial of the Knave of Hearts, who is being accused
of stealing the Queen’s tarts, the Queen demands Alice be beheaded, which
is when she realizes the others are just a pack of cards and get woken up by
her sister.

Chapter one and two presented a theme that as children’s physical

body changes during the puberty stage, they become upset. When they
become adolescents, they become childish as if they want to return to
childhood. The theme presents an irony where children want to grow but
when their physical body changes, they are not comfortable and when they
grow to puberty they act like a child. When Alice became small, she was
worried on how she could reach for the key, and when she grew big, she was
worried on how she could fit into the beautiful garden’s door. Just like other
children, she worried herself about her physical changes.

The story’s characters are uncommon. Instead of people as characters,

Lewis Carroll uses animals such as rabbits, rats, caterpillars, flamingos,
hedgehogs, griffins, and turtles, and objects like cards.
 The plot of the story is confusing. The lack of a consistent storyline
framework is a flaw. The story can be erratic, with rapid shifts between
scenes of frenetic activity and moments of quiet reflection. This
unpredictable pacing can disrupt the flow of the narrative and make it
challenging for readers to become fully immersed in the story. Also, some
elements of the story are introduced but never fully resolved, leaving loose
ends and unanswered questions.

The story’s setting is hard to visualize if you have a narrow imagination.

Such as the March Hare’s house, the door-lined hallway, and the entire
Wonderland. It is also inconsistent because in paragraph 14, it was
mentioned that Alice wanted to get out of that dark hall. How come that dark
hall was dark when it was mentioned in paragraph 11 that the hall was lit up
by a row of lamps hanging from the roof?

The conflict of the story begins when Alice follows a rabbit down a hole
and finds a crazy and unusual person and places. Alice goes to the rabbit’s
world trying to figure out and get home but it seems as if she is being
rejected and offending the creatures in that world. Alice struggles through
the puzzles of this world and just wishes to go back home. The conflict ended
when Alice woke up and realized that it was just her dream.

The story used British English spelling and examples were centre,
flavour, and labelled which are spelled as center, flavor and labeled in
American English. Which is uncommon for readers nowadays because a lot of
books now use American English.

In conclusion, its main purpose is to simply send a message of how

different a child’s imagination is from an adult’s logical and definable mind.
Such as describing things as magical and confusing, void of logical
reasoning. Which is perfect considering the target audience is of a younger
age. The story Alice in Wonderland shows that life is confusing. Many
situations in the story relate to real life and how people put themselves in
situations where they don't always have a solution.