Why Not?

Last night Hersh, Jackson, and I did a CoverItLive session. The session went really well and we had a lot of good arguments that really helped with the questions that I had in the story. One of the questions was if it was good that there is a movie coming out for The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. We all came to an agreement that making movies out of books, takes away the reader’s imagination.

Also we had a good argument about the Cheshire Cat. We talked about how creepy it was that the Cheshire Cat kept disappearing. Also how the Cheshire Cat was always watching over everything in wonderland. Jackson made a good point when he said the Cheshire Cat may have been the God of wonderland. He backed that up by saying that the Ancient Egyptian’s used Cats as God like figures. Which then ties into the author because the author of of Alice in Wonderland was into supernatural things.

The last argument we had was about Alice’s dream. We all came to an agreement that it was very odd how Alice woke up, and her sister also knew about the dream. Which made the question of was it all really a dream? Or was it one of those dreams inside of a dream? Also maybe her sister was trapped in the same wonderland as Alice.

One of the questions that I have is, what is the Cheshire Cat? The Cheshire Cat is a very mysterious character in the story that we dont really know anything about. The Cheshire Cat gives off a very creepy personality by the way he is always looking over everything in Wonderland. Also the Chehsire cat is always disapearing. He also doesn’t speak very much. When he does speak, he says that everyone is crazy. Which is kind of ironic because he looks pretty crazy himself the way he is always smiling.

The Cheshire cat has a very creepy smile that makes him more like a trickster. Whats weird about this though is he never does any tricks or pranks on people in wonderland. “The grin like a Cheshire cat” was a common phrase when Lewis Carroll was alive. Cheshire was the county where Lewis was born. So that is obviously where Carroll got the character’s name. Why did Lewis Carroll feel the need to put this character in the story. What did this character represent?

In the English County of Cheshire it is said that the cheeses were sometimes molded into the shape of a grinning cat. Also there was a painter in Cheshire that would paint grinning lions on side boards all around the area in Cheshire. Why is it that this English County is so obsessed with grinning cats? Also in the story, the queen told Alice that all cats grin.

What is Lewis Carroll trying to portray with the character of the Cheshire Cat?

There are many things that interest me in The Alice in Wonderland story. Also there are many things that confuse me in Alice in Wonderland. One of the main things that have confused me is why Alice does not try to escape from Wonderland. Alice seems like she doesn’t feel that she is in a weird place. Its almost like she thinks everything is normal. For example, when she was falling, all she could think about was her cat and if it would be fed. I know that if I was falling for a long period of time, and I didn’t know where I was going, Im pretty sure I wouldn’t be thinking about my pet at home.

As Alice is in Wonderland, it seems that Alice doesn’t mind being there. She is not confused at all about just seeing a rabbit with a watch and how shes all the sudden in some very odd place. Why isn’t she confused? Why isn’t she trying to escape? I just found that very odd about how comfortable she is in a place that she has no idea about. When she meets very odd characters while she is in Wonderland, she still isn’t weirded out. I guess maybe when you are dreaming, everything seems normal. Still though usually in a dream there is a point in time where you know that you are actually dreaming. Alice never knew that she was dreaming, she thought everything was real. All I know is if I saw a rabbit with a watch run down a rabbit hole, first off I dont think I would follow it but if I did, I’m pretty sure I wouldnt be as comfortable in Wonderland as Alice was. Even when Alice was getting smaller after she drank the drink, she was still worrying about things that had nothing to do with her shrinking or getting taller.

All I know is, if I was in wonderland I would of tried to find a way to escape, especially after I saw all the weird things that were in it.

In the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, everyone is trying to compare Alice with the ” Hero’s Journey  steps, and they are trying to come up with reasons of why Alice is the hero.

For one thing, there are alot of steps that are missing in order for Alice to be a hero. Also I dont think that there is just one hero in this story. Even though Alice obviously didn’t refuse the call. She followed right after the rabbit which was the call in the story. Alice really doesn’t have any heroine qualities.

When doing the CoverItLive session, Hersh made a very good point when saying,

“Maybe alice isn’t a hero, or in this case a heroine. Sometimes a story does not need one clear hero but actually has several characters that make up one hero.”

I really agree with this statement by hersh because I think that there are many characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that make up one hero. The question is though, which ones make up a hero? Which characters meet the “Heros Journey” steps?

Jackson made a good point when saying,

“Alice is more like a guiding light as we explore Wonderland.”

Then Hersh followed up with that statement by saying,

“maybe she is the vessel that guides us, the true hero/heroines. Meaning that Alice helps us discover the real heros in the story.”

So then I asked,

“who are the heros/heroines?”

Then Hersh replied by saying,

“the heros are the reactions of the reader in this story. Their different reactions and actions are the effects of the book on the people.”

So really I think that the heros are different for everyone that reads the story.

Since this is my last blog entry, I would like to recap all the main things I have written about in my previous blogs.

Before I do that though, I would like to say that this project has really helped me better myself in writing, analyzing, and has really helped me understand symbolism in a story. I have never done anything like this before and it was a great experience. I really enjoyed doing this and I have found that I actually like to write. This project has really made me think and be creative, and has really made me get into the depths of things and analyze what the author is really trying to portray.

Now that I have talked about how this project has benefited me, I would now like to recap some of the main blogs I have written that I think are beneficial to what my thoughts are on this story.

One of the blogs I wrote about, I had talked about how I disagreed with there being adult humor in children’s stories. I gave off numerous movies that this has occured. Alice in Wonderland had humor that children really wouldn’t understand, and some adults probably wouldnt even understand.

Also I talked about how maybe Alice never really dreamt about wonderland. Maybe it was all real. After all her sister was able to name off all the events that had happened to Alice when she was in Wonderland. So maybe her sister was in Wonderland with her.

The Cheshire Cat was also something that I talked about. The Cheshire Cat is the reason that I know that Lewis Carroll used alot of things from his life and put it into a story and I talked about why in one of my previous blogs. The fact that Lewis Carroll had the imagination to put things from his life and leave clues of what they really meant, showed that this man was extremely creative. Lewis Carroll used a lot of symbolism and you had to really analyze the story to find out what the symbolism really meant even though some of the stuff he put in the story was very random, to us at least.

So in conclusion to all of my blog entries, I’m not going to say whether I think this is a children’s story or a story for adults. All I’m going to say is Lewis Carroll put a lot of imagination, creativity, and symbolism in this story and that is what makes the story magical.

Analyzing the Adventures of Alice in Wonderland is like politics. In politics you have two sides. You have the Democratic side and the Republican side. What I have noticed about politics is there is never really going to be a wrong or right. When the two sides are debating, each person always has a good reason of why the other person is wrong Now I know this doesn’t really make sense but think about it. One election year a Republican will be elected. Then the next time a Democrat will be elected because people say the Republican didn’t make the right decisions. So then a Democrat will be elected next, but then he’s not making the right decisions. So no matter what there isn’t going to be the right way because theirs always going to be a flaw in the system and people are never going to be able to make up their minds.

When analyzing The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland there are two sides. Some people think that it is a children’s story. Some people oppose that theory and think that it is an adult story with adult humor, and that the author really never meant for it to be for children. Now honestly who’s right? One side is going to come up with a good reason of why it is a children’s story, and then someone else will find something to contest that reason. So really it’s alot like politics if you think about it. I know that analyzing the story really helps us learn more about Alice and her adventures in Wonderland and I think that that is what all of this is about. I think that analyzing something helps to broaden our minds and really makes us think deeply about the thing that we are trying to dissect. Whether we are wrong or right, analyzing the story still helps us really find out about ourselves and our capability to analyze certain things and then write about them. Even though there are always going to be two sides, we will still never know who is right. Which is what brings me to my point, analyzing this story is like politics.

In cartoons it seems like it is okay for there to be magic and its automatically a children’s story just because it is a cartoon. In movies like Aladdin, Cinderella, and movies like that, it has a lot of magic and creativity in it. Now The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland has a lot of magic and creativity also, but we seem to think that there is something more, just because there is a lot of random stuff. If you think about it though in the movie Snow White there is also alot of really random events that occur. Like when Snow white met the seven dwarfs, that was really random. In all fairy tails, there are really random events, and I think that is what makes it a children’s story because for some reason children seem to understand what is going on even if it doesn’t make any sense.

In Harry Potter, some people see it as a dark film. I think the reason is because it isn’t a cartoon. So picture Harry Potter as a cartoon. It wouldn’t seem as real and it would be more like a children’s story. Now Harry Potter has a lot of really random things in it but the randomness is what makes it so interesting and randomness is what helps us actually get into the story because of the magic that is in that story. If the movie wasn’t random or anything like that, then it would be some regular normal movie that is just like every other movie.

It is the movies like Snow White, Cinderella, and Aladdin that actually have drawn us in because of the magic and the creativity. I think that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland fall into this category also.

When waking up from a bad dream, there is always a feeling of relief. Except for Alice, this isn’t necessary a bad dream. It’s just a dream that seemed extremely real for Alice. Maybe almost too real. This dream that Alice had, had a lot of details in it, and Alice was able to explain all of those details to her sister without forgetting anything that had happened. Usually after you wake up from a dream everything is a blur.

When I was reading the story I didn’t know how it was going to end. After all it had been like 8 years sense I had seen the movie. So I was very curious as to how this could end. So when it all ended up being a dream I thought it was kind of funny. I thought it was funny because it would of taken a lot of creativity to keep the story going, and I guess the author lacked that creativity. There are other movies like that where it has all ended up being a dream. For example the movie Click, when watching Click, I was in the same situation as when reading The Annotated Alice. I had no idea how the producer of the film could end the story, but it all ended up being a dream, until the very end of the movie. Does it prove that Adam Sandler really wasn’t dreaming, because when he went back home the remote was still there.

I thought it was very odd how Alice could recite everything that had happened in her dream. Then her sister ironically had a dream about Alice’s dream. Which brings me to the question was it all really a dream?

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Dutchess told her that “everything’s got a moral you just have to find it”. This is something that I disagree with because there were times where the Dutchess would contradict herself. For example: The Dutchess told Alice that “Flamingoes and mustard both bite”, and then she tried to come up with a moral but unfortunately the moral had nothing to do with flamingoes and mustard biting. So there is proof right there that not everything has a moral, and the Dutchess just tries to make a moral out of everything that she hears.

While the Dutchess and Alice were talking, the Dutchess told Alice that she didn’t have the right to think. Alice disagreed by saying “I’ve a right to think”. The Dutchess replied saying, “Just about as much right as pigs have to fly. So the Dutchess completely contradicted herself in this conversation because in order to find the moral and the meaning in things, you have to be able to think. So there is another reason why the Dutches has no idea what she is talking about. The Dutchess is just someone in the story that is a symbol of a person that always thinks something has a moral, even if it makes no sense at all.

I think that people get too caught up in trying to find the moral and meaning of things. When really some things just don’t have a moral and a meaning. I think this book is a great example of that.