9-20 for 9-22

1.       

“She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day before – all because Alice had begun with ‘Let’s pretend we’re kings and queens;’ and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them, and Alice had been reduced at last to say ‘Well, you can be one of them, then, and I’ll be all the rest.’” (AA page 141)

I have a younger sister 8 years younger than me, and many times my friends or parents would comment on how I still have an ability to imagine stuff like children would. Back then, my mom would jokingly say how one child in the house is 12 (my sister) and how the other one is 13 (me, lol). Because of my brother-sister relationship, I can relate to this following passage concerning Alice and her older sister. Here, clearly, her older sister has moved past the phase of having great imagination, imagining a crowd of people. It definitely gave Alice some trouble in this scene, and it’s quite a familiar setup to have Alice fall into a magical world once again. You know what would be interesting? Imagine a story where the character who falls into a magical world is the older sibling, and the younger sibling is the one who doesn’t believe because he/she expects the older sibling to be grown up by now.

2.       

“’It’s no use talking about it,’ Alice said, looking up at the house and pretending it was arguing with her. ‘I’m not going in again yet. I know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again – back into the old room – and there’d be an end of all my adventures!’

So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once more down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill.” (AA page 156-157)

Alice’s behavior here is a bit influential and sympathetic, because I can understand how she’s thinking and where she’s coming from. Being in a magical world for the second time, Alice gets an impression that her time in this world is limited, and thus she wants to make the best of her time to explore. Another quote that highlights this is at a few pages earlier, on page 150. The way Carroll describes Alice floating through the hall, gently down without touching the stairs, shows a lightness and large sense of freedom in Alice. This fuels her enjoyment of this fantasy world. The language and word choice here makes me relate to Alice a lot, mainly because that sense of freedom is an extraordinary feeling, and it’s rare to experience that kind of feeling often. Now, in a world that lets me explore, I would normally be this enthusiastic to “get lost” on purpose, so long as the world I’m in doesn’t look… lurid…

3.       

“’Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,’ the Rose said: ‘but she’s redder – and her petals are shorter, I think.’

‘They’re done up close, like a dahlia,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘not tumbled about, like yours.’

‘But that’s not your fault,’ the Rose added kindly. ‘You’re beginning to fade, you know – and then one can’t help one’s petals getting a little untidy.’” (AA page 160)

In this scene, the living flowers comment on Alice’s appearance, claiming that she is too old. Based on their words, Carroll suggests that the flowers believe that youth is important for people, and apparently that Alice is already past her prime. This scene, actually, for some reason, reminds me of the flower scene in the original Disney 1951 Alice in Wonderland. That scene however has a different context of why the flowers “look down” on Alice –in the movie, the flowers, after being told by Alice that she’s not a flower, believe that Alice is a no-good weed, and they kick her out of their garden. Of course, the novel has something of a more layered scene that involves the idea of a foreigner coming in with her own beliefs about manners and how the world works.

The 1951 scene I talked about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9EW674OuqI

4.       

“’—then you don’t like all insects?’ the Gnat went on, as quietly as if nothing had happened.

‘I like them when they can talk,’ Alice said. ‘None of them ever talk, where I come from.’

‘What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where you come from?’ the Gnat inquired.

‘I don’t rejoice in insects at all,’ Alice explained, ‘because I’m rather afraid of them – at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them.’ (AA page 173)

This all presses the right buttons for me in terms of communication and identity. The passage comes from a thought-provoking conversation between Alice and the Gnat. The specific quote I chose, though, is more of an introduction to the main theme I want to talk about. Here, the Gnat asks Alice about insects and whether or not she likes them and are familiar with them talking. Of course, the interesting thing here is that Alice can’t help but constantly compare things she’s experiencing in the Looking-Glass World with things in her own real world. Afterwards, the two being discussing about the purpose of names of animals and of objects. The Gnat doesn’t understand the purpose of naming insects if they can’t respond when being called on. In response, Alice explains that names are a tool for communicating individuals to label and classify something. This then leads me to my next quote…

5.       

“So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arm. ‘I’m a Fawn!’ it cried out in a voice of delight. ‘And, dear me! You’re a human child!’ A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveler so soddenly. ‘However, I know my name now,’ she said: ‘that’s some comfort. Alice – Alice – I won’t forget it again.’” (AA page 177-178)

This is the scene that follows after Alice’s experience with the Gnat. Here, she interacts with the Fawn, and the interaction starts off friendly, that is, until the Fawn learns that he is a Fawn and that Alice is a human being. In shock, the Fawn darts off, leaving a poor upset Alice alone by herself in the woods. This moment helps Alice learn that names don’t just label. They also reveal how things work in the world in relation to their surroundings. The Fawn, upon remembering that humans are a natural threat to them, bolts away from this simple realization. The “name” triggers the action.

6.       

“A curious idea came into Alice’s head. Almost every one she had met had repeated poetry to her, and she thought she would try if the Wasp couldn’t do it too.

‘Would you mind saying it in rhyme?’ she asked very politely.” (AA page 296)

This quote stood out to me because I figured that Alice by now is driven nuts by all the characters who recite their experiences or their stories through poetry. I was a bit surprised, I guess, to see Alice recommending the Wasp to speak in rhyme. Maybe it is the repetitive nature of this segment that caused the episode to not end up in the novel at the end? That is definitely a question I asked while reading the entire interaction between Alice and the Wasp: Should this episode be placed back in the novel? In my personal opinion, I wouldn’t mind if it was, but I can understand the thought of this episode making little merit as a whole, mainly because there are a lot of things that happen in this episode that have been done before somewhere else, from the Wasp commenting on the closeness of Alice’s eyes to Alice attempting to “fix” the Wasp’s character. Other characters like the Gnat, the Frog, Humpty Dumpty, and the White Queen all come to mind before I think of the Wasp.

A letter from Tenniel to Carroll, concerning the Wasp chapter: