9-13 for 9-17

1.       

“’I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m growing.’

‘You’ve no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse.

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Alice more boldly: ‘you know you’re growing too.’

‘Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,’ said the Dormouse: ‘not in that ridiculous fashion.’” (AA page 114)

There are two riveting things about this quote. The first is that this quote demonstrates Alice’s ever-growing confidence in herself, which shows her growth since her first appearance in Wonderland. This quote is getting close to when Alice regains control of Wonderland, and by now, we have seen her become a stronger figure who is ready to return to the real world. The second intriguing aspect of this quote is not just the relationship between Alice and the Dormouse, but the fact that the Dormouse has a standard of what’s a good pace to grow. This sounds familiar to real life, when parents or friends expect us to grow at a certain pace. Parents, I suppose, want their children to grow up faster than the children do. Peers, on the other hand, can run into situations where their friends are moving on without them and are at a much higher, mature place in society. To some, that pace can seem “ridiculous.”

2.       

“’Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister […]” (AA page 124)

Note that Alice reaches full height as she is having the heated conversation with the Queen, pointing out that her henchmen are “nothing but a pack of cards.” This is where Alice regains full control of Wonderland, exposing the mad world as an illusion. Once she has control over the world, as opposed to be consumed and lost in the world before, Alice realizes that Wonderland is all a dream, and she wakes up back to her real world. This is all part of Alice’s epiphany that there really is no point to comprehend anything in Wonderland. What’s interesting, though, is that through the history of this novel, there have been students and literary critics who interpret certain visuals in Wonderland as symbols. What if none of those interpretations make sense because it is futile to understand everything in the novel? All of sudden, this novel has become very meta…

3.       

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.” (AA page 126-127)

This passage, being the final passage of the novel, gives a strong tonal shift from the rest of the novel. There is a nostalgic peaceful feeling throughout this passage, which is a strong contrast to the nightmarish atmosphere in Wonderland. Alice then goes on to imagine herself growing up and telling these fascinating stories to children who live simple lives. In addition to the nostalgic tone, there is a hint of melancholy, mainly because there is a longing for the “happy summer days” and an awareness that these days don’t last forever, just like Alice’s dream. This goes back to Bump’s comments about having a childhood and forgetting it when one reaches adulthood. All that’s left for many are the memories of a childhood.

4.       

“pegájiles” (x 292)

The Spanish translation of Jabberwocky had many interesting word choices –one of them is “pegájiles” as the translation for the word “slithy.” The word contains the prefix “pega,” which means glue, thus giving the reader a sense of stickiness or slime; it is a perfect clever choice to translate a portmanteau word.

5.       

“Er an-zu-denken-fing.” (x 294)

This German phrase in the German translation of Jabberwocky doesn’t correspond to anything in the original English print. Instead, this line appears to be a reversal of words, similar to the previous English line: “So rested he by the Tumtum tree.” Like how the Spanish translation offers a playful translation of the word “slithy,” the German translation re-orders its words to give a similar playful effect to the reader.

6.       

“The act of ‘translation’ allows this author to truly re-write a text, and to bring his own set of belief systems and rhetorical situation into the subject. Some might consider this interpretational re-writing of a text to be blasphemy in the case of Carroll because ‘Our immediate reaction when we encounter difference is to refuse that difference.’” (x 596)

This quote speaks to me tremendously because people criticize the everlasting hell out of film adaptations because they don’t seem to follow the original novels. What did you expect? The author of the novel was an artist and the director of the film is an artist him/herself. Did you really expect one artist to just completely copy another person’s work? This applies to so many different adaptations or interpretations of one source, whether it is a remake, a spin-off, or even a translation. Just like how the passage states it, audiences tend to “refuse difference” as an “immediate reaction.” I wrote an English paper about this last semester, concerning the film adaptations of 19^th Century Victorian novels. At the end of that paper, I concluded that having different versions of the same work is a phenomenal thing, because it offers different dimensions and perspectives to something we are familiar with. It is that variety that helps an original work age well. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the perfect example of this.