Of all the things that have helped me understand this novel more it would have to be the hooka smocking caterpillar and the Cheshire cat's conversations with Alice. One of the main things that helped me understand Alice was undergoing a transformation from a youth to an adult, in which she losses track of who she is, is the caterpillars question "who are you?" Alice replies something along the lines of its to hard to keep track with me changing sizes every ten minutes. This is symbolic of the transformation that all humans face in there life, the transformation from a child into an adult. All the expectations that society puts on children during the transformation from a child to an adult makes is extremely easy to forget who oneself truly is. This whole ordeal makes it extremely clear that themes in this book include; age, expectations of society, and self identity.
The cat also made it easier to understand the themes of the self identity by further questioning Alice about where she wants to go. Then saying that by simply going anywhere will always end up making you wind up somewhere. This conversation is also symbolic of the question humans all face when we get older, the question of what are we going to do with our lives. The cat then brings up another interesting point by saying if you keep on moving one will surly end up somewhere meaning that in life as long as we keep trying we will inevitably get somewhere.
Alice in these situations can be a very relatable character. As we being at the age when there is much more pressure put on our lives to deside who we are. But we must remeber that the book was written back in the days that women did not have nearly as many rights as they do now.
ReplyDeleteWe can view this as being child to adult, but we can also see this as how a female deals with being in a male dominated scociety. The queen representing the strong woman, and her coffusion representing the weak one.