The well-recognized book Alice in Wonderland was well received by multiple people around the world for it’s over the top story, wacky charaters and being one of those stories that you just turn off your brain and just read to read. But unfortunately, there are many people who overthink the book to have some “hidden” meaning or it’s a metaphor for something. like mental health or psychedelics. but im surpise that the people don’t speak about how Alice can be a “metaphor” for migrations. (and yes, if your wondering why i would say this let me cook for a second because I have my own reasoning for it) when it comes to most of the theories and proposals that people give to the book, I want to give my proposal and shift some people’s perceptive from mental health to migrations.
RUNDOWN COURSE.
so we all know the story of Alice in Wonderland ( or at least I hope) but for those who don’t know. The book is about a little girl named Alice, who, out of sheer BOREDOM decided to follow a strange-looking rabbit that could speak. What follows is a wacky adventure of nonsense and fun, filled with strange creatures, wonderful worlds, and a girl who is in center (in an unfortunate sense). There is a second book called “Through the Looking Glass,” and while this post is mostly about the first book, I think I could give a short summary since the experience I had from the first book is the same experience I got from the second book. especially the second book follows the same structure as the first book, but instead goes down a rabbit hole in the hot summer day, this takes place in the cold winter night where she goes through a mirror get transported into a mirror world with more wacky creatures, strange enviorments and another crazy adventure for our unfortunate child Alice.
EXPERIENCE:
Now that we’ve got most of the summaries for both of the books, we can talk about some of the experiences that I’ve had with the book.
- confusion- for most of the time I was reading the book, I was essentially scratching my head because even though this was just a nonsense book, there were some things I was wondering, “Why the fuck would Lewis write this?” A perfect example of this is the conversation between both alice and the catipilllar
(conversation between Alice and the caterpillar from the 1951 movie of the same name. i would put in the text for it, but I need some help putting the pages)
when i first read/ saw this for the first time, i had to pause like 15 times, scratching my head because of the sheer stupidity of the conversation that Alice had, especially when you try to figure out what the fuck they try to say. (thank god this is just nonsense and you don’t have to take it seriously, because if we need to take this seriously, then Jesus, it would be an utter train wreck.) Now you’re wondering how this connects to migrations. well when you think about Alice’s first wacky adventure can be a one to one comparsion. think about it, you are “transported” (a.k.a mirgate) to a new world, and depending on how much you preparation you have done, there is a very good chance you would be in Alice’s sisuation constantly being confused about what people are saying.
TECHINQUES-
For starters, one of the things that Lewis used when he wrote Alice in Wonderland was a technique called reality shifter (Presenting an alternate reality in the form of an absurd or unrealistic plot, character, or storyworld). in the beginning of the book, alice was living in a reality that she is familiar with (via her family home with her sister. that reality will soon change when alice found the the white outside of the home, after which she went down the rabbit hole and her reality has shift from what was normal and mundane to wacky and bizzare. and while this isn’t about both the first and second book, the second book brings back the technique of the reality shifted as well, when she went into the mirror world. the second techinque that of the enigma (A plot element that is an impossibility) during her adventure within wonderland, there has been many enigmas that alice had to face, from muliple of odd coverstations (catipillar and at tea party with the mad hatter, as well as the conversation between her and the red queen) to obscue character desgin: w
(lewis carroll mad hatter desgin)
even to the design of some of the locations of Wonderland is an enigma for both the reader and alice herself
(The Tulgey Forest, home of the chesire cat. based on the 1951 movie of the same name)
Many of these enigmas, combined with the shifting realities from normal and mundane to new and out of the ordinary, give me the experience of utter confusion throughout the book.
