Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a children’s fantasy novel. This book has been on my reading list for years, and I have read a few pages here and there. When I finally found the audiobook, I started listening to it. The story follows Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in a fantasy world that is unique and weird yet wonderful.
Alice is bored one afternoon in the garden when she sees a rabbit darting towards some bushes. His human-like actions intrigue her, and she follows him. The rabbit jumps down the rabbit hole, and Alice falls behind him. This is how she ends up in Wonderland. In Wonderland, she meets a lot of interesting characters.
When she gets to Wonderland, she is scared and confused. Then, she starts going through the doors to get to the garden she can see. Her size constantly keeps changing as she tries to eat the cake to get to the right size. This shows Alice’s confusion and worries over growing up. As children we expect the world to be different as we grow up, but it isn’t how we pictured it. Alice shrinks and grows throughout the story trying to find the right size for her situation. It’s a metaphor for the idea of growing up and how confusing it can be. Alice follows what her family and teachers have taught her about kindness, affection, and goodness. It bothers her when in Wonderland she comes across characters that are rude or make personal remarks. It is not what has been taught to her.
The adults in the novel and the wonderland characters try to sound wise and advise Alice. But, often their ideas are silly and even cruel in the queen’s case. Alice is an innocent child, so she looks at the adults in a certain way. There is a clear disillusionment and contradiction between how adults are expected to be from a child’s perspective and how they actually are two different things. These situations Alice finds herself in are shown as funny which they are, but it’s also dangerous. All this happens in the safe space of a ‘dream’ so that such themes are easier to explore.
I didn’t have any expectations of the book as such because I had seen the movie years ago. So, I was familiar with the characters. But, I liked it more than I thought I would. The story is mainly for children and is narrated through a child’s perspective, but it is engaging for adults too. Lewis Carroll creates an interesting world with wonderful and weird characters. I liked listening to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
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