Why Not?

I’m noticing that Alice follows a strange path of mindset as she gets deeper and deeper into Wonderland.

When Alice arrives in Wonderland, she is confused by the strange new people, places, and events that take place. This is natural, as she has just arrived in Wonderland, and is sane. However, she eventually goes insane once she has spent enough time in this strange new world. With each passing moment, she is drawn deeper and deeper into the framework of Wonderland, and she slowly loses her “real-world mind” as she becomes sane in Wonderland. However, once it is time for her to leave, she slowly begins becoming saner and saner in the real world, until, at the point at which she is perfectly sound of mind in the real world, she escapes from Wonderland. This means that she becomes confused as she is leaving Wonderland, as well as entering it. Here’s a visual representation of this effect.

(Chart made by me)

This simple chart shows Alice’s sanity decreasing rapidly after she enters Wonderland, making a smooth curve as she reaches her furthest into insanity, then rising back up again to make her escape. Insanity follows a smooth path, and it is this that makes it such a slippery slope to descend.

I love music. I’m always a fan of interesting tunes, indie music, classic rock, and my closet interest, electronica. So I was ticked pink when, while doing my Alice homework, I made a harmonic discovery. An audio artist, by the name of Nick Bertke, has taken sounds from the animated Disney movie “Alice in Wonderland,” and, using only those sounds, has mixed together a fantastic, dreamy electro-pop song. Listen to it here, before going further (headphones are strongly recommended).

I love this piece of music. I think that the song flows well from element to element, and that the bass and the treble are mixed together well to provide a tone that is neither too deep or too high. I also think that the variety of sounds used, as well as how ingenious Bertke is in mixing them, is astounding. I really do think that as a semi-instrumental piece, it’s one of the best I know. While it is, in effect, a simple loop, it’s very pleasing to the ear, and I find myself coming back to listen to it time and again.

It also provides an interesting metaphor for Alice’s adventures. Alice, in her adventures, is broken up and pieced together. It wouldn’t be strange to see the chapters presented in an entirely different order. I think her adventures in Wonderland are so building-block like that they really could be shuffled and rearranged, at least some of them. For example, the Mad Tea Party could go almost anywhere in the story, as could the caucus-race.

I think that overall, the song provides a good analogy to the story itself. When the clips are shuffled around, the story too, can bend with the musical wind. The song and the story both provide an example of how almost anything can be bent to a common will.

Lewis Carroll is not the most conventional of writers. When he puts his pen to paper, cliches fall before him as he deftly maneuvers around trap after common writer’s trap. Metaphors rise from the ground in mighty pillars, climbing to the sky to become the framework of his planet, supporting the massive, expansive demesnes he creates. Connections fly from the earth, flying from his world to ours and threading themselves together in an immense web of correlation and understanding. Gracefully, he tosses a completed manuscript to the floor. The tome shudders, pauses, then expands upward and outward, covering the distance between worlds in mere seconds. In a few moments, a completed bridge lies between our rational world, and Carroll’s personal universe. In his world, as well as a growing part of ours, he is a god. It seems fitting that he has chosen to outsource his work, and to create a sub-god to watch over one of his worlds. This god is none other than the Cheshire Cat.

In ancient Egypt, there were more than a few gods for the people to worship and please. There were gods for almost all things that were necessary for daily life, and some of these overlapped. There were several gods of death, and almost all the gods had a strange backstory that would have each filled a book. One important goddess was Bast. Bast was the protector of Lower Egypt, and the goddess of cats. Cats were very important to all societies of the time, as they kept away vermin (and, in desert lands, snakes). No vermin = no loss of crops due to pests. Cats, then were revered by the Egyptians. Laws prevented any individual from harming a cat, on pain of death. Cats were so sacred that the Persians used cats as a shield in battle when fighting the Egyptians, who would not harm an deified species.

Because of this feline apotheosis, Bast has become one of the better-known Egyptian gods. It stands to reason, then that Lewis Carroll would have used the ancient Egyptian religion as a basis for deifying one of his characters.

The Cheshire Cat is one of the best-known characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for one reason or another. However, the cat is much more than a humble giver of advice. The Cat is always looking over all the other characters, stirring up trouble, and helping Alice along when she needs it. Seen here, the Cat is the source of the dispute between the King and the executioner.

It is obvious to see the omniscience in the picture. The Cat is not only pictured above the other characters, but is also larger than life. In all the mayhem, it’s a safe bet to assume that the Cat is not at all harmed in the scene, let alone executed or beheaded.

The Cheshire Cat is one of the most interesting characters in the entire book. Throughout the novel, he makes mischief, guides Alice, and oversees his subjects. While Carrol maybe the master of the Cat, the Cat is the master of Wonderland.

In chapter 6, Pig And Pepper, Alice is faced with an astounding and absolutely diabolical ethical dilemma. When she leaves the house of the Duchess, she is given the Duchess’s baby, to “nurse it a bit.” While Alice was in the Duchess’s house, she sees the baby being maliciously treated. The Duchess is shaking the baby, the cook is hitting it with frying pans, and the baby is sneezing left and right from all the pepper in the air. On top of all this, the Duchess calls the baby “Pig” at all occasions necessary (which is at any time she can manage). Alice, now, asks herself an impossible question. “If I don’t take this child with me,” she says, “they’ll kill it in a day or two. Wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?”

This is one of the hardest ethical questions that can be posed, but, unfortunately, it is a situation that often happens. The dilemma plays on two factors: the abuse of a child, and the acknowledgment that the child’s mother may have a real attraction, and that the child is their right to keep. Unfortunately, child abuse cases can leave a child in an orphanage, or in foster care, as the parents of the child simply are incapable of properly rearing a child. Although destructive, these separations are often the best thing for law enforcement agents to do, as it saves a child from years of maltreatment, and in the worst case, scenario, death. In these situations, I must say that I have to address each case separately, and cannot talk about them as a whole.

If a child is simply neglected by parents to the point at which they barely notice that it is there, I believe that the child should be separated from the rest of the family. In this case, if the parents don’t care about the child when it is with them, they shouldn’t care about it when it is not with their family. Another situation in which I would advise intervention would be the case of physical abuse of a child. When a child is harmed, repeatedly and purposefully, there is no reason for the child to remain with the family. I believe that the child would make a recovery when removed from the abuse of the parent.

One situation in which I would not advocate the separation of child and parents is when the child and parents do indeed have true affection for each other, but there is a barrier. This could be something such as alcoholism, a bad temper, or a psychological condition on behalf of either parent or child. Since these barriers can hopefully be removed by counseling and conditioning, I see no reason to leave the child to the fates of an orphanage.

This brings us back to the situation Alice is put in. I believe that since the child has been beaten, and maltreated, the child should, in fact, be taken away from the Duchess. Thankfully, the Duchess has cast it away herself, where the decision can be more easily made.

The Annotated Alice adds many levels of depth to the befuddling novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

However, by injecting all the new information and cross-text, it also removes some important elements of the novel: homework and discovery. You’re forced to do a lot of work to really appreciate the novel, but when you do, the sense of discovery and adventure is vastly rewarding. When a book with ambiguous meaning hits the shelves, critics swarm to be the first to pick all the nits. Within days, all aspects of the pristine novel are being looked at with a microscope. When you look at the analysis, you see almost nothing to do with the real text of the book, and merely a few randomly drawn conclusions. Over-analysis is one of the major enemies of a good book.

One thing that I absolutely abhor is the experience of finishing a good book, with a satisfying ending. I notice that there is an extra section at the back. “Neat,” I think, “this might be a preview of the next book in the series.” I turn the page, and am greeted by these words: Reading Comprehension Guide. This annoys me to no end. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen all as much with books directed towards more mature readers, but in the children’s books that I am (strangely still) compelled to dig out every once in a while, the emergence of these questions still feels to me like the desecration of a piece of art.

Still more annoying is the fact that the questions take away the “magic” of a novel. I understand that in everything there is an reason. This, however, is never a good reason to pick apart all the excitement and adventure in a book with questions such as “Why did (insert character here) do (insert action) with (insert other character), when he could have done…” and so forth. Yes, the questions make you think. Yes, they may increase your understanding of the novel.

But why can’t we, the readers who cling to all the words of action and adventure in a complex fiction novel, gain that understanding by discussing it with our friends in a non-organized and regulated fashion? One reason I dislike the concept of “summer reading” is that I know that excellent works of fiction and nonfiction will be dissected in a fashion that ruins the enjoyment of a book by turning it into work. When we take apart Alice, we are ripping whole “pages” of a sort from the book, by picking away all the magic from a story and replacing it with our own flat, mechanical, unoriginal words.

As E.B. White so eloquently puts it, “Analysing humor [or, in this case, literature] is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested, and the frog dies of it.”

On page 98 in The Annotated Alice, the annotator, Martin Gardner, notes that “Children find puns very funny, but most contemporary authorities on what children are supposed to like believe that puns lower the literary quality of juvenile books.” In this, he notes that the real judge of entertainment is those who the material is pitched to.

Why should I care if the entire audience roars at the comedian onstage? I still think he’s making idiotic wisecracks at the current political structure. This is why all reviews of, say, a new movie are different. No two people think the same. Of course, this does not mean that two people can think that the same thing is funny (or saddening, or disgusting, etc.). These large groups of like-minded people are the basis for a founding principle of advertising: demographics. Because of these large groups, advertisers, or behaviorists, can use the “shotgun” approach: pitch to a large crowd that contains your selected demographic(s), and something’s going to happen.

This, however, allows individuals who believe they know what’s best for everyone to be able to back themselves up with a general idea. In other words, demographics allow people to propose a one-size-fits-all policy to cover a certain group, with the reasoning being that since Group A has 50 people out of 75 that approve of X, then Group A approves of X. This, of course, fails to take into account the 33% of people that don’t approve of X. Another negative effect of demographics is that it also allows behaviorists to analyze populations as groups, not individuals. This is demonstrated by the fiasco surrounding the No Child Left Behind policy. Under this policy, all children are required to pass a certain test at a certain grade level. No exceptions. Schools that fail are put under review, parents withdraw their students, and mass panic ensues as the children in question are assured that yes, they are fantastic and unique. They are then shipped off to a special education center where they are force-fed studies until the parents are satisfied that the child is living up to their expectations.

When this concept of demographics is applied to kid’s books, it breaks down and grinds to a halt. No matter how much you want them to, your 7-year-old child will not sit down and crack open Tolstoy. Why? Because they don’t want to, that’s why. It’s not interesting.

Why have Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” books sold so well? Because little kids enjoy bathroom humor. That’s not going to change, no matter how many parents try to suppress their children’s juvenile antics. Read that sentence again. Parents try to suppress their children’s juvenile antics.

Children are juvenile, until they’re not. They then become mature. That’s a simple dictionary definition. You don’t have a child that is not juvenile. You’ve got to take life in stride, and accept other people’s definitions of “good.”Because of this, it cannot be assumed that all children think alike about puns. Similarly, you also cannot appoint yourself judge of a group that you are not a member of.