In Conclusion

The Alice project is nearing its end and the late nights of blogging and commenting are over.

It’s been an interesting and fun journey through Wonderland. Everyone (including my group and I)  in the Alice Project have all discovered something unique about Wonderland. Whether it be finding meaning in the text, looking at music with Wonderland, or anything else. We have all analyzed, read, and re-read and finally the long journey is over. We have come out more knowledgeable then when we came in.

My only regrets are that I can’t do it again (and that the ending of Alice was lackluster). Alice is over for now.

You never know: we may do another Alice Project over another book. I wish I started the project like how I am ending it, by working hard and writing like crazy. I myself believe I became a better writer and a better analyst due to the amount of work and thought required to do the project. I don’t think this has just happened to me, everybody seems to have become a better writer and a better analyst due to the project.

The ending of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was not as sweet as the end of the Alice Project is going to be. The Alice Project may influence some little kid whose roaming the interned someday. I don’t know. Perhaps the Alice project will be on the internet for a while. As Alice has grown we have also grown mentally and a little bit physically. As Alice has been curious, she has made us curious, not just about her and her journeys, but about her and the rest of the world.

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Time

Time is very important in our society today, the phrase “Time is Money” dominates the mentality of many citizens in our society. I also imagine it was also important in Lewis Carroll’s time too.

Time seems not to be a major in Wonderland, we are not given information about the sun rising or setting. The only reference to time I know of is the Little White rabbit saying something like I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late, the queen will cut off my head. Even then he doesn’t discuss time much, all he is saying is he’s going late. The rules of time in our world may not apply to Wonderland, being the nonsensical place that it is. It’s just strange for Wonderland to seem to have no concept of the sun rising and falling and a 24 hour day, but then again Wonderland is a crazy place where anything happens.

I assume the whole book occurs in daylight, because I know not of any reference to night. There may or not be a moon, it could be that Alice’s journey just takes a couple of hours so the moon does not rise in time. It’s strange how Carroll doesn’t put more references to time in the book. There may be more time references then just the rabbit saying I’m going to be late, because time is a very important factor in anything, and it seems strange how Carroll doesn’t reference time enough. Alice’s journey seems like it would take longer then a couple of hours, because Carroll doesn’t tell us of the amount of time that has passed by.

Time is an essential part of our lives and most likely it was important in Carroll’s life and it seems strange how he out time in Wonderland, but Wonderland is a crazy place so may have left time out on purpose.

Wonderfood

Some people have blogged about food and drink, and how it plays a major part of the book, they are correct.

Alice would not be able to go on her journeys without shrinking or growing bigger due to the effect of a food or drink. For example, after kicking the lizard named bill out of the chimney, a crowd of animals throw cake at her, which causes her to shrink. Then due to being small she meets the Caterpillar and continues the rest of her journey. Carroll uses food to change Alice’s size, which transitions her to other parts of her journey.

Why is food and drink so important in Alice in Wonderland?

Maybe because Carroll liked food or the real Alice personalities may have been influenced by food. Another scene in the book where food plays an interesting part is the part where Alice goes to the duchess’s house and she is in a bad mood because of the pepper. Later on after she meets the duchess in the house, she meets her again, and the duchess is nice not mean like she was while the pepper was around.

I think Carroll is playing around with the idea that sometimes food can influence personality. People’s personalities can easily be influenced by the smell of good or bad food. If something smells bad people will most likely act worse and usually when the food smells good people act better then if there was no smell or the food smelled bad.

Lewis Carroll uses the Duchess as an example of the personality change due to food. It also seems strange that Carroll showed the duchess changing due to the presence of pepper, but she doesn’t show Alice’s personality change due to a change in the food and drink that she consumes or is around.

Wonderland

While thinking of a blog entry, I went on you tube and searched Wonderland for no reason except curiosity.

I found many music videos about Wonderland, from Earth Wind and Fire to the classic Christmas song. Then I started thinking about who first coined the term Wonderland and after Google searching and looking through Wikipedia.

I found out that it seems like Louis Carroll was the first one to use the term Wonderland. Itt may be possible that my research was wrong, but I don’t think so. Probably there has been a person who said wonderland before Lewis Carroll did. Even if they did it seems like Louis Carroll is the first person to make it a widely known term, from what I could find out.

The term wonderland has been used in so many things, from books to songs to plays, and it all started from Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland.

Why did the term Wonderland become so popular?

Perhaps it was just a catchy phrase and it caught on or the popularity of the book also made the phrase popular. It’s similar to that of Twilight, before the books came out people didn’t say the word twilight a lot, but now the word is said quite a lot among teenage girls and everybody else, due to the popularity of the books and movies.

A book or a movie can make one word or phrase very very popular, There are many examples, Arnold Schwarzenegger popularized the phrase “I will be back” in the movie The terminator. Whenever someone hears that they think of the governor of California and robots. Would this term have been popular without the accent of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the popularity of the movie? I highly doubt it.

The term Wonderland has become an iconic word that is usually associated with the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Without Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the term Wonderland would not be as famous as it is today.

Will She Remember?

Anybody that has finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will know that Alice’s adventures end with Alice waking up and the reader discovering that adventure was all just a dream.

Most people have dreams, experiences that seem real or seem out of this world, a dream an experience that very unique, interesting, and full of magic. But when that person wakes up, the magic disappears and the unique experience is forgotten. Sometimes somebody remembers their dream, their unique experience. Even if they do remember they usually remember only parts of it and as they get older they forget the dream. Alice is no different then any other person except that she doesn’t exist on earth, except in story. Assuming that she exists in story and in that story, she is a human person, and then she must have dreams, because almost every person has dreams.

So the question I would like to ask is: “Will Alice remember her journeys in Wonderland?”

Assuming that she is a human person and has dreams then she most likely would forget them when she woke up and even if she remembered, she would only remember parts of it most likely. Some people have talked about Alice maturing and growing within wonderland, but after a while the question that comes up is, “Will she remember all that happened in her dream and will that affect her in the real world?” It seems like and wonderland provides questions then answers. The answers to this question and many others most likely lies in Alice and the looking glass a book I haven’t read, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The New Wonderland

Mike Nathman recently wrote a blog about technology Technology Man’s Greatest Aid where he asked the question:

What if technology was incorporated into wonderland?

I commented by saying I don’t think it would work unless the wonderland of Alice’s time was changed to a modern one.

After this I watched the preview for Syfy’s “Alice”, where there is a modern Alice that is transported to what seems a more modern wonderland. Syfy’s Wonderland kind of had the same point I did; technology would most likely not exist in wonderland if wonderland was not a modern one. Due to Syfy’s Wonderland seeming to be more modern technology seems to be more important then in the original one. There are many technological things such as flying motorcycle things, moving ceilings and guns. There is even a scene in the preview of somebody on a bike following someone else and shoot what seems to be a gun.

So technology itself is more of a factor in wonderland.

It seemed like the original wonderland wouldn’t be able to have technology, because there would seem to be no place for it. This version of wonderland may work with technology due to this wonderland seems to be a modern wonderland not a 144 year old one. I’m interested to see what Tim Burton is doing with his version of Alice in regards of technology in wonderland. It seems like his Alice is not a modern one though, so flying motorcycles and guns aren’t likely to appear. By making Alice’s wonderland a modern one, Syfy has made technology a possible important part of the story.

The Wise Guy

Many stories have a character that mentors the protagonist and guides them.

This character is usually wise, confusing, mysterious and kind of old. I’m going to call this character The Wise Guy, not because they are smart-alecks, but because they are usually wise. Also The Wise Guy doesn’t always have to be a guy, it could be a girl, but usually it’s a guy so that’s why I’m calling it The Wise Guy. Mr. Miyagi, Yoda, and Don Corleone are some examples of Wise Guys, Mr.Miyagi guides Daniel san, Yoda guides Luke, and Don Corleone guides Michael Corleone.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the Wise Guy seems to be the Caterpillar that smokes the hookah pipe who guides Alice. He is confusing, mysterious, and kind of wise, however he is most likely not old. If he was old most likely he would be a butterfly, it could be that Wonderland being the crazy place it is caterpillars take forever to grow into butterflies and so the caterpillar may be old, but it really doesn’t matter.

In his encounter with Alice on top of the mushroom, he asks her many confusing questions, the most famous being “Who are you?” While asking these questions he confuses Alice quite a bit, which she mistakes as rude and tries to leave, but the caterpillar stops her and tries to help her find herself and guides her to the later part of her journey. He helps her and guides her, so he is a Wise guy.

The Cheshire cat could also be considered a Wise Guy, due to him being a very mysterious cat that helps Alice find her way around wonderland in a peculiar way. The Wise Guy is an interesting character in any story, he is the person who helps the protagonist grow and find their way in their world or dream world.

What Is The Meaning?

It seems that the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has no true meaning to it.

Alice goes through many adventures that collectively mean nothing. There is no flow and it seems there is no true objective or underlying theme in the book. There are many hidden meanings behind the characters and the situations in which the characters are put through. An example would be the book’s main character Alice. It is widely known that Carroll based the Alice in the book with a girl he met named Alice Liddell. Even though there are many hidden meanings, they don’t come together to form a hidden theme.

There is no common theme behind the hidden meanings, which is kind of strange considering books usually have a common theme or meaning and if they have a hidden meaning it usually comes together. For example Animal Farm, a book about animals that overthrow their farmer and rule the farm, the whole book has a story that flows and has a common hidden theme and meaning about Stalin and the era in which he ruled.

Alice doesn’t have a common hidden meaning throughout the book; it’s a jumble of hidden meanings that don’t come together. For example, the Duchess talking about morals, this has nothing to do with the mock turtles story, both have hidden meanings, and are in no relation with each other in hidden meaning or the story in general, the only thing they have in common is that there Alice is in the scene and the scenes are in the same book.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is not a satirical attack or a thoughtful analysis of something. It is a book about a girl and her random journeys that collectively seem to mean nothing and the hidden meanings behind the story seem to mean nothing together.

Hidden Meanings, Why?

The idea of over analyzing Carroll’s book and killing the magic of wonderland has been mentioned in a couple of people’s blogs. While reading these blogs and thinking a little bit, the question that came to me was

“Why did Lewis Carroll put topics in the book that could be over analyzed, have possible hidden meanings, and wouldn’t be understood by a child such as Alice?”

Originally the purpose of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was to entertain a little girl named Alice Liddell and later on was used to make money, even though it was simply made to entertain a young girl in the beginning. Carroll put many references to things that a child wouldn’t understand such as the caucus race, which most little girls don’t know is a political competition, not just a simple foot race with no winner. Why? Only Lewis Carroll knows, possibly he knew he was going to publish a book when he first told Alice the story so he added social and political references so that the book would appeal to adults as well as children.

Did he just put those references in it just because he wanted to, or something else?

No matter what reason, he did put social, political, and numerous references in Alice in Wonderland that a young child such as the original Alice could not have understood yet he put them in there for some reason.

Why Is Alice So Popular?

Today I was just resting on my couch watching Lie to Me and the main guy said, “Are you sure you want to go down this rabbit hole”. This sparked some interest in me because the show had nothing to do with cards, talking cats, or a foolish little girl, but yet it’s making a reference to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. There are many references such as this to the rabbit hole and wonderland in TV, movies, books, and many other things.

So naturally the question that comes up is “why is Alice so popular?”

Honestly I don’t know, but I can try my best to explain it.

First of all the book was immensely popular when it was first published 144 years ago, even Queen Victoria read it. However many books were popular in that time period, so how did Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a children’s book, manage to stay popular for 144 years?

I guess children and adults are enchanted by Alice’s adventures, the idea of a wonderland where the laws or our world don’t exist intrigues them, which causes them to tell their children and friends about the book who tell their children and friends and so on, which causes the book to still maintain popularity after 144 years.

Many people have blogged about being unattached to Alice as a main character, because we don’t know about her background and her having little personality. This seems to be a bit strange, because even though the book has a main character that is hard to relate with, the book has achieved a great amount of success and popularity. It is very strange how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a children’s book, has achieved a lot of success due to its story of how a innocent and foolish little girl falls down a rabbit hole into a land with no rules and wonder.