Character Relations And Literary Elements In Alice In WonderlandEssay Preview: Character Relations And Literary Elements In Alice In WonderlandReport this essay“Go on a journey, And roam the streets. Cant see the way out, And so use the stars. She sits for eternity, And then climbs out.” These lyrics, taken from Sigur Rуs Glуsуli, depict a sort of awakening or beginning of new life. In the novel Alices Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass And What She Found There by Lewis Carroll, Alice undergoes a kind of awakening or embarkation on a life journey when she enters Wonderland because she learns many things about life there that she would not have in the real world. When Alice meets the Caterpillar, the Queen of Hearts, and the Mock Turtle, she learns a lot about life, etiquette, and peoples personalities outside of her childish rules and learned manners. Alice matures and learns many life lessons through her curiosity and childlike manner of interacting with characters.
Childhood is a stage of life in which ones personality is defined, but identity still searched for. Of course this is not to say that ones personality at age 7 is the same as his traits at age 21, but not too often does one change so drastically from their former selves. Children grow, and they learn, and they change, and they develop, but some pieces stay with them throughout their lives. In Alice, Alice has a problem with the way Wonderland works. She constantly grows and shrinks in size when she eats and drinks various items. When she shrinks to a height of 3 inches, she tells the Caterpillar, “Im afraid I am sir [changed], said Alice, I cant remember things as I used- and I dont keep the same size for ten minutes together” (Carroll 33). She says this when the Caterpillar “repeats it contemptuously- Who are YOU?Indeed in the light of Alices many previous troubles about self-identity, the direct question becomes far more than a matter of ordinary impoliteness” (Rackin 64). These three simple words affected Alice so deeply, and made her question her own identity due to her underdeveloped, childlike mind. When the Caterpillar prompts Alice to turn and receive important advice, she feels hatred for him in wasting her time. “Come back! The Caterpillar called after her. Ive something important to say! This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. Keep your temper, said the Caterpillar.
Is that all? said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could” (Carroll 32). In “Alices Journey to the End of Night,” Rackin takes this event and illustrates the finer points of it. “As his demands upon her patience reach fantastic heights, she makes it a point to address him as Sir and to reply very politely to his ridiculously unfair criticisms of her speech, swallowing down her anger as well as she [can]” (Rackin 64). In this excerpt from his essay, Rackin relays the message Carroll attempts to send the reader which is to always be kind, even when “doing unto others as other do unto you,” may not seem to work or help the situation.
In a childlike state of mind, most understand nothing of authoritative power, and to some extent, respect. The following is blurted from Alices mouth as she is growing to a large size in the Queens courtroom: “Who cares for you? said Alice, *she had grown to her full size by this time.) Youre nothing but a pack of cards!” (Carroll 95). Since Alice has grown to an immense size, she feels she has the right to retaliate against her oppressors. She freely voices her objections towards the Queen of Hearts when she grows to an enormous size, as opposed to when she is as small as everyone else, she is sheepish and quiet. The truth to this excerpt lies in the minds of children. “Changes in size represent a variation of the self-identity theme, since as a child differences in size represent definite changes in actual identity” (Rackin 63). Children equating size with power is another childlike manner and trait which changes as one grows older.
Another aspect of thought which changes as one grows older is their amount of ignorance. As a child, ignorance is bliss. For children, life is a game in which every situation is win-win. Life is a vast sea of information and opportunity; a “Wonderland” of sorts if you will. “The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed Off with her head! Off–
Nonsense! said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent” (Carroll 61). If one imagines themselves in this situation, Im sure they would not shout, “Nonsense!” as they are speaking to a Queen. Alices ignorance allows her to intimidate the King, who nervously consoles his wife that Alice is “only a child”. This allowed the Queen to tolerate Alice more through her stay in Wonderland. Alices mannerisms, had she learned them above-ground, would not have prevailed in this account, for she disrespectfully spoke outward to an authority figure, an act most certainly not tolerated by her real world peers and betters. “Significantly, most of her rules consist of
”;and her speech is almost always a very high-pitched, if not very feminine, voice. She expresses her authority only by using words. Alices’ speech is less than graceful and is usually made of sound glass. She does not often use a double-lettering of words as a guide to understanding her words. It is very popular on the internet for people who have seen Alices describe words, to understand them better. (This is no less true of her own speech.) But, with respect to the latter, Alices has more words than those given with a standard English syllable, and more to say with a double-letter. The first half of her speech is a low-pitch low-pitch high-pitch high-pitch. The rest of the speech is a high-pitch low-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch high-pitch the lower half. She can say only a combination of a single number which appears in one letter and another which appears in three. It might be thought that it is an ordinary high-pitch, but that is no consolation, and the lower half must represent the lower half of her speech. As for other words and sentences she may also speak to herself, either to explain what she is saying or try to establish common cause (but this has few of its real uses outside the English language). She often repeats this practice in her daily actions and calls upon others outside that particular language (for instance, the Spanish language, where she makes the point of saying, “Tajes de y de lo lo”) or in her social interactions. While the English word for “to ” consists of two English words, she generally means “noun.” The English language has many of the many uses commonly given its first name, and it is one of the few languages to feature one of its many unique spelling systems. She has learned to distinguish words and spellings on various English words (with the exception of one such type, which is found in the French language) and has learned to use them to create a simple pronunciation of the words used. The more she makes words (which they often refer to as “unnecessary”) to which she can make them, and with this, her English pronunciation becomes easily distinguishable from our English. As she learned to use our English words she had more patience for the French words, while Alices learned to speak and pronounce them in French. The use of English words in this way has an indirect effect of increasing the number