Fantasy and reality | Sunday Observer

Fantasy and reality

3 September, 2017

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, and it is set in Victorian England in the mid nineteenth century. The protagonist of the novel is a little girl named Alice. The novel centres on a dream which Alice has while falling asleep near a river bank. The dream begins with Alice seeing an anthropomorphic rabbit hurrying away. Alice impulsively decides to follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole and enters Wonderland.

The interesting chapters in the novel are titled “The Caterpillar’s Advice” and “A Mad Tea Party”. In “The Caterpillar’s Advice” Alice tries to recite a poem named “Father William” but forgets the lines which highlights her disoriented state of mind in Wonderland. Nevertheless, the Caterpillar gives Alice good advice when he tells her, “you better keep cool” and he also advises Alice about which side of the mushroom to consume in order to grow smaller or bigger in size. Alice undergoes many physical changes in Wonderland which perplex her.

In “A Mad Tea Party” Alice meets the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse. Alice has an interesting conversation with the three of them about the way in which language constructs meaning and the concept of time.

Lewis Carroll juxtaposes fantasy with reality, and Alice’s dream about her journey in Wonderland could be interpreted on a metaphorical level as her desire to escape the stifling social conventions and norms of the Victorian era.

 

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