Category: Young Adult

Alice Transformed: Coursera Essay

Lewis Carroll*


In the beginning, Alice falls down a rabbit-hole, landing in a room containing a tiny key, a tiny door, and a large table. When she is small, the door is locked–she’s not allowed out. But then she grows very large…so large, she can hardly fit into the womb room anymore. Ah! Now she can reach the key! But the way out is so tiny! Luckily, she is taken up by a force outside of her control (a sea of tears) and is thrust into Wonderland.

This initial entrance into Wonderland is a metaphor for Alice’s birth into a new life. In Wonderland, she sees many unusual sights that amaze, frustrate, and/or delight her. The Caterpillar leads her to question her own identity—an elusive concept in the ever-changing world of Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat encourages her to be self-aware: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” The Cat is the only creature in Wonderland who recognizes his own madness! After talking to the Cat, Alice is less frustrated by the madness that surrounds her. She allows the Mad Tea-Partiers to entertain instead of frustrate her.

After the tea party, she again finds the room from which she was first thrust into Wonderland. This time, she does not hesitate. She confidently grabs the key, drinks the shrinking potion, and walks through the door–reborn as a new, confident Alice.

Alice is essentially “born” into Wonderland twice. The first birth is full of frustration and self-doubt. But the second birth is followed by self-confidence. She now applies lessons that she learned the first time around. For instance, she stops herself before telling the Mock-Turtle that she eats lobsters and fish. She confidently deals with the intimidation tactics of the Queen of Hearts, whereas she would have been frightened or angry before. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an allegory in transformation. It’s a story about growing up.

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Yes, I have done the unthinkable. Just to spite all those angry essay-format-Nazis, I have written *dum dum dum* AN ESSAY WITHOUT A THESIS STATEMENT. I hope you will all forgive me for this unkindness. 😉


*Images were taken from: 

The Confidence of Alice


As I said in my previous post on Alice (Alice, the Caterpillar, and the Serpent), Lewis Carroll used asterisks to denote metamorphoses in Alice. The last row of asterisks in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was when she shrunk back from a serpent to a reasonably-sized girl at the end of Chapter V. This sudden absence in transformative asterisks suggests that Alice is beginning to gain confidence in herself and to settle into the Alice she will be. 



Chapter VI introduces another well-recognized icon of the Alice books: the Cheshire Cat. The conversation that commences is probably the most sensible she has in Wonderland. Alice asks:

“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.  

Alice, in her newly acquired perfectly-sized body, is now feeling ready for an adventure. But she doesn’t know where to find one. The Cat, in the guise of nonsense, sensibly points out that if she doesn’t have a goal, she’ll be wandering aimlessly through life. This prods Alice into a decision–she’d like to meet more creatures in Wonderland, but she doesn’t want to “go among mad people.”

“Oh, you ca’n’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

The Cat is the only creature of Wonderland who recognizes that he’s mad! This self-awareness allows him to sensibly see the rest of the world as it really is–mad. I believe that, like the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat is Alice’s alter-ego. He represents the sense, self-confidence, and goal-orientation that arises from self-awareness. After meeting the Cat, Alice marches right up to the Mad Tea-Party and sits down despite the party’s calls of “No room! No room!” Later, in the Queen’s croquet ground, she stands proud and erect as the queen’s procession nears. Her companions lie quaking face-down in the dirt. The Queen interrogates Alice:  

“Off with her head! Off with–“

“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.  

Ever since meeting the Cat, Alice does not need to be over-sized to have self-confidence. Her responses to the Mad Tea-Party and the Queen are quite sensible and self-assured. Earlier in the book, Alice’s self-confidence fluctuated with size. But the self-assurance she demonstrates at the end of the book is unlike the childish spats she had when she was over-sized. Think of the incident in Chapter IV, where she was stuck in the White Rabbit’s house. Instead of sensibly standing up for herself, as with the Queen, she simply used her bulk to terrorize the White Rabbit and poor Bill. 

Alice also demonstrates a mature self-assurance when she bursts out laughing (twice) in the Queen’s croquet ground. Earlier in the story, Alice’s main emotions were tear-soaking-frustration, foot-stomping-frustration, timidity, and confusion. Now that she is self-aware, she can see the rest of the world as it is–amusingly silly. 
*Images were taken from: 

Alice’s Adventures in the Circle of Life

I read a critique that claims the Alice stories are allegories for puberty–specifically, Freudian analysis suggests that they are about Alice’s change from innocence to a sexual being. I’m generally skeptical of Freudian analysis, but was surprised when I read the first two chapters of Alice in Wonderland and found evidence that the book may, indeed, be about puberty. In fact, I noticed possible allusions to the entire life cycle, from birth to death. I don’t know if this trend will continue throughout the book, but here’s what I have so far:

Birth
In the beginning, Alice falls down a rabbit-hole, landing in a room containing a tiny key, a tiny door, and a large table. When she is small, the door is locked–she’s not allowed out. But then she grows very large…so large that she can hardly fit into the womb room anymore. Ah! Now she can reach the key! But the way out is so tiny! Luckily, she is taken up by a force outside of her control (a sea of tears) and is thrust into Wonderland. 


Puberty–Between the Age of Innocence and the Age of Reason comes the Age of Nonsense
Even before falling down the rabbit hole, Alice has noticed that she acts like a selfish child but reprimands her own behavior like an older child:

She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; 

In the rabbit hole, Alice feels small and insignificant (understandably, since she has shrunk down to several inches high). She has lost respect for herself and doubts the way she used to do things:

 “But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

Furthermore, her body keeps changing in awkward and embarrassing manners. Note the grotesque lengthening of her neck in the picture at the beginning of Chapter 2. Does this remind anyone of the awkward phases of growth, when body parts would suddenly become disproportionately too large or too small seemingly overnight? Even her voice sounded “hoarse and strange” when she recited the crocodile poem. These changes make her question her identity:

I wonder if I have changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I”m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’

I know that this question of identity will continue throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Although it may seem strange to suggest that a book about a 7-year-old is an allegory for puberty, remember that Charles Dodgson’s friend Alice Liddle, on whom our Alice was modeled, was just reaching the age of puberty at the time that the first book was to be published. Note a diary entry by Dodgson in May 1865:

Met Alice and Miss Prickett in the quadrangle: Alice seems changed a good deal, and hardly for the better–probably going through the usual awkward state of transition.*

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in November of that year. 

Death
There even a moment when Alice contemplates death: 

“for it might end, you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

Later, Alice terrifies the mouse by mentioning her kitten, Dinah, and how great Dinah is at catching mice. When Alice realizes her mistake, she quickly changes topics to a dog she knows…as she chatters on, she again blunders by mentioning what a fantastic ratter the dog is. Apparently this Darwinian eat-or-be-eaten philosophy continues throughout the two books. Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species just been published in 1859, and Natural Selection was the talk of the town. I will watch for Natural Selection allusions while I read; though, apparently, some of them were taken out of the original story and can’t be found in the published book.  

A continuation of this theme can be found here.

Image taken from http://www.mymodernmet.com/photo/the-circle-of-life

*From The Diaries of Lewis Carroll, ed. Roger Lancelyn Green, quoted in Alice in Wonderland: Norton Critical Edition (New York: W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1992) p279.

Renegade, by Ted Dekker


2012 Book 116: Renegade, by Ted Dekker (7/27/2012)

Reason for Reading: I want to finish up this series because it’s related to a set of books that I have been really appreicating

My Review
When Bilos betrays the team and disappears into the Books, Johnis, Silvie, and Darsal must rescue him. This is a really difficult book for me to review. I’m a huge fan of Ted Dekker, and I’m reading these books because they seem to be the glue that holds together his loosely related books: The Circle Trilogy, The Paradise Trilogy, and the stand-alone book Skin. However, I feel that this series of books suffers from two fatal flaws: 1) Dekker’s trying to be too clever and 2) Dekker’s hammering us over the head with a Message. The other series make sense on their own, this series does not. It’s wildly jumping around from unreal concept to unreal concept, without enough explanation or continuity. The ONLY reason I have an inkling of what’s going on is because I’ve read the other books. And that’s not as it should be. Furthermore, Dekker’s Message is much less subtle in this book than it is in his other works (possibly since this one was meant for teenagers), and the story gets lost in its Message at time. I will continue through this series because I want to know what happens for the sake of the other series. But I’m no longer enjoying it.

The Brothers Grimm Household Stories


2012 Book 115: Grimm’s Household Stories, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm; Lucy Crane translation (7/27/2012)

Reason for Reading: Fantasy and Science fiction Coursera text: week 1

My Review 
This is a short, illustrated collection of Grimm’s folktales. All of the most famous of Grimm’s tales are in there, without too many of the redundant same-story-but-slightly-different tales that you’ll inevitably come across in a longer collection. The illustrations are enjoyable. The translation has a few small errors (apparently), but overall I think it’s a good place to start with the Grimm brothers.


Essay for Coursera
Many critics claim that the Brothers Grimm had sexist portrayal of women in their stories. These critics ignore the negative portrayal of men that is also endemic in the tales. 
Despite misgivings, Hansel and Grethel’s father leads them into the forest to die. When they return, he leads them back out again because “when a man has given in once he has to do it a second time.” In other stories, like Aschenputtel or The Three Little Men in the Wood, the father conveys not one moment of disquietude at the injustice done to his daughter. Many men in the tales are spineless. In The Fisherman and his Wife, the husband returns time and again to ask the princely fish for favors for his wife—favors he does not wish for, and that he is terrified to request. In The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats, the wolf orders the miller to help disguise him. Despite the fact that the miller suspects the wolf, the miller “was afraid and did what he was told. And that just shows how men are.” The worst man, though, is the father in The Twelve Brothers. He’s willing to kill 12 of his boys to provide his newborn daughter with a larger inheritance!
These stories caricaturize the weaknesses of humans–both male and female. As the German-Swiss Nobel Laureate Hermann Hess said: “The literature of the tales and the legends refers us, often with frightening agreement, to something transcendent, to the very concept of the human race.”1These stories refer us to a deep-rooted fear of our own flaws, and they resonate throughout the ages because the most abhorred flaws of human nature have remained, in essence, the same throughout time.

1. Quoted on page 15 of: Bottigneimer, Ruth (1987). Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys. New Haven: Yale University.


Aside
It was really hard to get this down to the correct word length! I had to leave out so many fantastic examples of horrible snake-like men! As well as examples of brave women. After reading these tales, I’ve decided I don’t agree with the feminist analysis of these stories. Though I probably already had a skeptical bias.

One of the examples I really wanted to include was The Wonderful Musician. This guy had a marvelous power over fellow creatures…he played his music and creatures would come to praise him. These creatures would trust and revere him. However, he kept attracting animals that didn’t please him: a wolf, a fox, a hare. So he promised to tutor them, but deceived them and left them to die. When he finally found a man, he said: “At last! Here comes the right sort of companion. It was a man I wanted, not wild animals.” But the wild animals are more humane than the musician was. The wonderful musician is like a charismatic politician. One that can charm people during the election or important diplomatic meetings, and afterwards he does whatever he wants–essentially stabbing his supporters in the back. I could have written a whole second essay on this subject. 🙂


A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, by Valerie Zenatti

2012 Book 114: A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, by Valerie Zenatti (7/26/2012)

Reason for Reading: Reading Globally Middle Eastern Theme Read. 

My Review 
As a method of self-defense against increasing Israeli-Palestinian violence, feisty 17-year-old Israeli Tal writes a note and sticks it in a bottle. She asks her brother to throw the bottle in the Gaza sea, with hopes that she’ll meet a Palestinian girl and somehow put a personality to the people she knows must be behind the fence. What she gets is 20-year-old Naim, a scathingly sarcastic, but nice-under-the-surface Palestinian man. The book is a series of emails between the two, and as their understanding of each other grows, so does their affection for one another. This was a really sweet book. It was silly, as are all teenage romances, but actually believable (if you have faith in coincidence). I was surprised while reading because I’d originally thought the author was Israeli, writing for Israeli teens—but the book is written by a French woman who lived in Israel when she was younger. The target audience is therefore teens who do not necessarily know all the background in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This is something I appreciated, because I felt like I understood what they were talking about when they mentioned political and historical events. This is a quick, enjoyable read.

The Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer


2012 Book 113: Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer (7/25/2012)

Reason for Reading: The FINAL book in the Artemis Fowl series. At least it better be. 🙂 I suspect that he’s going to write a spin-off series, but that’s just my own thoughts on the subject.

My Review 
In this FINAL book of the Artemis Fowl series, Arty, Holly, Butler and friends must save the world from Opal’s last stand. The plot was fun, humorous, and a little silly. Overall, a good ending to a good series. This book isn’t up to scratch with the earlier books, but it’s better than some of the later books in the series. You should certainly read it if you’ve gotten this far in the series already! From the character development in this story, I’m GUESSING (personal theory) that Colfer plans on writing a spin-off series starring Miles & Beckett. If he did, I’d certainly check it out.

The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman


2012 Book 109: The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman (7/19/2012)

Reason for Reading: I was interested to see where Pullman was taking the Paradise Lost allegory

My Review
Lyra and Will finish up their journey (started in The Golden Compass) while desperately trying to dodge enemies and make the right choices. I enjoyed this book even less than the second book, The Subtle Knife, though The Golden Compass was in the “ok” range. I just didn’t feel attached to the characters of Lyra and Will, and I didn’t care what decisions they made. There was WAY too much Buddha-on-the-mountaintop both in the narrative and in the dialogue. I realize Pullman had a message he was trying to portray, and it wasn’t a bad message (if you ignore all the hateful representations of organized religion)–he wanted to say that you should enjoy and live life here on Earth. What is happening in the present is what is important. Build the “Kingdom of Heaven” here on Earth instead of always denying our fleshy bodies as we look to our afterlife. This is a reasonable message, but I felt as if I was pounded over the head with it–to the point that it was distracting from the action. Furthermore, the action seemed to stop half-way through the book, followed by a long philosophical denouement. I WAS interested in his message, and that’s why I continued the book after I didn’t like the second…but it was a long haul for me. I don’t really understand why this series is as popular as it is? But that’s just my opinion. *shrug*

A note on Pullman’s Message
In his 1998 article in The Guardian, The Darkside of Narnia, Pullman stated his opinion about the Narnia series: “there is no doubt in my mind that it is one of the most ugly and poisonous things I’ve ever read.” 

He didn’t like Narnia because of Lewis’ blatant Message. The ironic thing is, Pullman’s message is JUST as blatant, and in many ways just as hateful as he considers Narnia’s message to be (his representation of organized religion is very hateful). It is difficult for me to like the Pullman’s trilogy when I can’t help but see his Message and feel the full impact of its irony. It’s probably good that there are people out there who are able to ignore it! 🙂

In case you’re interested, there’s also a 2005 New Yorker article on Pullman’s inspirations for His Dark Materials. It touches on his views on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Far From Narnia, by Laura Miller.

Stuart Little, by E. B. White


2012 Book 104: Stuart Little, by E. B. White (7/10/2012)

Reason for Reading: Believe it or not, I have neither read this book, nor seen the movie. 🙂

My Review 
In this classic tale for children, the Little family adopts a son, Stuart…but he turns out to look very much like a mouse! As Stuart grows, he has many adventures within his home and, later, out in the real world. This is an adorable book filled with child-like adventure. Appropriate to be read to young children, or to be read by a 2nd or 3rd grader.

Infidel, by Ted Dekker


2012 Book 103: Infidel, by Ted Dekker (7/9/2012)

Reason for Reading: Second book in the Lost Books of History series

My Review 

May contain spoilers for the first book, Chosen
Johnis has discovered that his mother is still living. He risks his life to follow his heart–which tells him to rescue his mother from the Horde. This second book in the Books of History series follows directly on the footsteps of the first book, Chosen. Since the world is less new to the readers, this second book spends more time developing action and suspense and less time describing the world. Thus, it is a more enjoyable read. It ends, of course, with a cliffhanger, leaving the reader wanting to read the third book.