Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

Alice in Wonderland, a story written by British author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll in 1865, is all about imagination. As early as the beginning of the tale, Alice, a bored ten year old girl, follows a white rabbit on a trip down a hole into a whole new world. An imaginary world with imaginary characters and animals told by a master of fiction whose story has influenced both culture and literature, especially the fantasy genre.

What a beautiful name for a place even if everything that takes place there is not wonderful. Still it is the starting point of the dream and it was born in Alice’s imagination, as the whole story is based on her fantastical dream. There, she meets lots of strange creatures, which are going to accompany her throughout the story, and the world she discovers is filled with paradoxical and absurd situations.

Alice is an explorer, an adventurer; she is also carefree and never worries about what takes place around her. When she sees a clothed rabbit with a pocket watch, she runs after him. When she discovers a bottle with the label “DRINK ME” on it, she drinks it and her body shrinks to such an extent that she can no longer reach the key to open the door and enter the attractive garden she has seen through the keyhole. Like in a dream, the situations happen as if they were true and the characters she encounters there (the King and Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter…) are imaginary but Alice does not seem to care. They are part of her story, even if the situations they are involved in are absurd: a caterpillar smokes a hookah, the Mock turtle sings while flamingoes and hedgehogs are used as mallets and balls to play cricket! No wonder Alice is considered as one of the best examples of the nonsense literary genre!

But, is Wonderland a surrealistic and colourful place created for innocent children like Alice, or is it the representation of a world inhabited by ominous characters, a place where Alice has been trapped, a place where logic has been left aside to the benefit of madness? Who knows? But do not forget that she wakes up before having her head cut off!

If a good tale needs to be set in an extraordinary place, well then Alice in Wonderland is a very good story and all the ingredients of the genre can be found in Carroll’s book.

Alice was first written for an adult audience, which means that imagination is not reserved for kids only, adults can dream, too. Indeed, most characters refer to real people who lived in the 19^th century (Gladstone, Disraeli…) and the story was told on a satirist tone. Carroll accepted to rewrite it and adapt it to a younger audience.

Thanks to the power of imagination, Alice can escape her world and create another one, even though some points of references (authority, law, order…) are present, but she can criticize and parody them. Thanks to his heroin, Carroll may thus denounce the absurdities of his time and lead his readers to think about the situation.

Alice in Wonderland is both a tale and a satire that any reader, young or adult will enjoy reading. So, if you still have not read this wonderful story, do not wait any longer! You will not regret it!