English 218 Discussion

"White Rabbit"

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your Head
Feed your Head!"

OK, lets get this out of the way quickly: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and LSD.

Of course LSD was not around when the book was written, so it is complete nonsense to state the book is about LSD. So where did that idea come from?

People who assert that nobody NOT on drugs could have come up with such a story are suggesting that people cannot exercise imagination. That's just silly. Of course nearly ALL of us can. If you've every made up a story for a child; if you've ever talked to a pet (you don't have to admit to it, but you know who you are); if you were ever a child (that should apply to just about everyone) with an imagination, you have/had the capacity to make up fantasy stories. Carroll was good at it, and if you study the biography, you will find the roots of many of the elements in his fantasy novels. Why then, do so many want to assume the author was taking drugs, and what is the origin of the ALICE/drugs connection (exploited later in a book called Go Ask Alice, which many of you will have read)?

The LSD connection comes from an album (remember albums?) called Surrealistic Pillow (one of my faves, by the way) by the Jefferson Airplane. One song, "White Rabbit," compared an acid trip to Alice's journey through Wonderland. Since the group, at the time, was part of the Ken Kesey, Grateful Dead "acid trip" scene in San Francisco, they may well have understood time/space shifting, surreal conversations with inanimate objects and animals, distortion (growing/shrinking) and the like. But Grace Slick and the rest were/are neither literary critics nor credible biographers; it was just an idea; it was not a fact or even a real claim backed by any evidence.

Most of the authoritative biographers show no history of drug use by Lewis Carroll, and when you consider most of his work was in very controlled subjects (such as calculus), it was unlikely that the Oxford don was a druggie.

So, please, no drug interpretations for the question below.

Answer the question below.

Alice in Wonderland and its companion, Through the Looking Glass, are considered by many to be the greatest children's book of all time. Volumes have been written praising (and villifying) and analyzing the books.

What is this book all about? What does it mean? What does it suggest about the nature of fantasy? You'll want to cite specific incidents, even specific lines, from the book to back up your analysis.

Obviously, there are many logical ways to interpret the book; focus on just one. There's no one right answer. All that I ask is that you back up your interpretation with details from the book which show a consistent pattern.

To give you some ideas, here are a couple of possible approaches; you are not limited to these:

Jack Zipes made extensive analysis of Alice's adventure as a birth/growth drama. The trip down the rabbit hole and swimming in the pool are seen by him as the emergence of a newborn from the birth canal surrounded by amniotic fluid. It's an interesting idea. Consider just how much of the book is about reaching different stages of cognition which are attended by growth spurts. And the characters gradually move from animals (stuffed toys in the nursery) to humans whild Alice gains more or less and then more control of her surroundings. Expand on this idea looking for logical examples in the work. Note: you would actually be better off not using secondary sources for this topic because you would not have much original to say.
Examine Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a story symbolizing a young girl's search for identity. Consider the position of a child in society, the rules and behaviour she is required to submit to. Discuss her attempts to make sense of the social situations, the "mad" actions and language she encounters. Also look at her constantly being challenged and eventually asserting herself in the end. Be sure to include documented quotations from the novel to illustrate and support your ideas.
The Alice books are both examples of social satire. There are digs at many areas of Victorian society (politics, aristocracy, education, customs, etc.) in the book. Discuss this idea citing several elements being satirized, and be sure that you include quoted passages from the book to support your analysis.
Consider the possibility that the Cheshire Cat is right and that Alice really is mad (insane). This interpretation might be inviting to students with some background in psychological disorders because you'd want to compare behaviors (and possibly hallucinations) to typical textbook psychology cases. You would want to analyze the book in much the same way you might pick apart a movie such as Sucker Punch.
Much of the success of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is due to the works extensive wordplay. Show how this fantasy (or its sequal, if you've read it) uses linguistic games, revisions of popular sayings and poems, philosophical notions and social conventions reduced to absurdity, for much of its humor and satire. As always, quote and document actual passages to illustrate your points.
The story is a dream story, so what conventional dream imagery (and symbolism) do you find? The book has elements of a card game (the sequal is more like a game of chess), so what game imagery do you find in tne novel? There are lots of other ways to interpret the story.

Discussion 4: Classic Children's Fantasy