Getting Lost with Alice in Her Adventures in Wonderland...

As I sat reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it was hard not to get lost in Alice’s adventures along with her. No, to many of your disappointments, the Disney movie of “Alice in Wonderland” was not the original story! Lewis Carroll first wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 and following with the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There in 1871. The story was later adapted into many plays, movies and books with the shorter title, Alice in Wonderland. Many of the adaptations use pieces or characters from both the original and the sequel so it would confuse someone who just read the first story, for example the characters of “Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee” were only in the sequel, but are for the majority, in the movies of “Alice in Wonderland.”
Lewis Carroll was able to take a little girl’s dreams and imaginations to a new level when he wrote the story, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which is truly about a curious little girl looking for an adventure one afternoon until she discovers a whole new world filled with many adventures that she cannot wait to be a part of.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is about a little girl named “Alice who is bored with sitting on the riverbank with her sister, who is reading a book. Suddenly she sees a white rabbit, wearing a coat and carrying a watch, run past, lamenting running late. She follows it down a rabbit hole and falls very slowly down a tunnel lined with curious objects. She lands in a long hallway lined with locked doors. She finds a little key sitting on a glass table. Behind a curtain on the wall she finds a tiny door that opens with the key and leads into a beautiful garden. The door however is too small for Alice to fit through. Looking back at the table she sees a bottle labeled "DRINK ME" that was not there before. She drinks and it causes her to shrink to a size small enough to fit through the door. Unfortunately Alice has left the key high above on the table. She finds a box under the table in which there is a cake with the words "EAT ME" on it. She eats it, thinking that if it makes her smaller she can creep under the door and if it makes her larger she can get the key.
The cake makes Alice grow so tall that her head hits the ceiling. Getting frustrated and not to mention confused, she cries. Her tears flood the hallway. The White Rabbit runs by and is so frightened by Alice that he drops the gloves and fan he is holding. She fans herself with the fan and starts to wonder if she is still the same person that she was before. The fan causes her to shrink again. Alice swims through her own tears and meets a mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him but all she can think of talking about is her cat, which offends the mouse. The pool becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away. They all swim to shore.
The first question is how to get dry again. The mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race. The Dodo marks out a race course in a sort of circle and the racers begin running whenever they feel like it, and everyone wins. Alice reaches into her pocket and finds a box of comfits which she distributes among the winners. The animals then beg the mouse to tell them something more and he recites a tale about a mouse and a dog. Alice mistakes his tale for his tail. This insults him and he leaves. She starts talking about her cat again, which frightens the rest of the animals away.
The White Rabbit appears again and orders Alice to go back to his house and fetch him his gloves and fan. Inside, she finds another bottle and drinks from it. Alice grows so large that she has to stick one arm out the window and her foot up the chimney. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, a lizard named Bill, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. As Bill slides down the chimney Alice kicks him out with her foot, shooting him up into the sky. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes that shrink Alice down again. She runs into the woods, where she decides that she must get back to her right size and she must find the lovely garden. Suddenly Alice is confronted by a giant puppy. She picks up a stick and teases him with it until he is tired and she can run away. She comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a caterpillar smoking a hookah.
The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis. He asks her to recite "You Are Old, Father William." She does so, but it comes out with many errors. She insults him by saying that three inches is a wretched height to be (he himself is three inches tall). The Caterpillar crawls away into the grass, telling Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height.
A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, welcomes herself into the house. The Duchess' Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup which has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess and her baby sneeze violently. The Duchess tosses her baby up and down while reciting the poem "Speak roughly to your little boy." The Duchess gives Alice the baby while she leaves to go play croquet with the Queen. To Alice's surprise, the baby later turns into a pig, so she sets it free in the woods. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.
Alice becomes a guest at a mad tea party, along with the Hatter (now more commonly known as the Mad Hatter), the March Hare, and the Dormouse. In the course of the party, Alice reveals that the date is May 4 (which happens to be the birthday of her presumed real-life counterpart, Alice Pleasance Liddell). The other characters give Alice many riddles and stories, until she becomes so insulted that she leaves, claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to. Alice comes upon a door in a tree, and enters it, and finds herself back in the long hallway from the first chapter. She opens the door, eats part of her mushroom, and shrinks so she can get into the beautiful garden.
Now in the beautiful garden, she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because the Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice meets the violent Queen and pacifying King of Hearts. The Queen orders "Off with their heads!" when she sees the work of the gardeners. A game of croquet begins, with flamingos as the mallets and hedgehogs as the balls. The Queen condemns more people to death, and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then debates chopping off the Cat's head, even though that is all there is of him. Alice suggests talking to the Duchess, so the Queen orders the Duchess out of prison.
The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground. She is now less angry and is always trying to find morals in things. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which The Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game.
The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) "Tis the Voice of the Lobster." The Mock Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial.
At the trial, the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the tarts. The jury box is made up of twelve animals, including Bill the Lizard. The judge is the King of Hearts. The first witness is the Mad Hatter, who doesn't help the case at all, followed by the Duchess' Cook. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger when she is suddenly called as a witness herself.
Alice accidentally knocks over the jury box as she stands in alarm. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar "Off with her head!" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards. Alice's sister wakes her up for tea, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself” (Wikipedia).


Now I can take the first line of my blog and change it so it has a whole new meaning for the movie… As I sat watching Alice in Wonderland, it was hard not to get lost in Alice’s adventures along with her. The key word there is “lost,” which I was throughout the whole Disney movie. Walt Disney recreated this bizarre story in 1951 and adapted it for a film, which as I sat and watched it; I was just as lost as Alice was in Wonderland. Pretty much take the concept of Alice, her “wonderland,” some of the same characters, cue the corny Disney songs, put a blue dress and white apron on Alice, and you have the Disney version of “Alice in Wonderland.” Other than those similarities, the two works of art are very different. Disney was able to take a very complicated story and turn it into a mixed-up (and trippy in some parts), children’s movie.
Even though the movie confused me in many parts, I thought that Disney was very creative in what he did. He took Alice’s first line in the story ““and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”” So Disney gave her a whole world filled with “pictures and conversations,” though these “pictures and conversations” were beyond words crazy, but fun at the same time—it is a world full of “nonsense.”
I found it very interesting to sit and watch a children’s movie as an adult. I felt that I read into things that a child would never understand—many of them are probably misconceptions, but I just sat there and thought that there is probably a meaning behind each aspect of this film. For example, the famous “tea-party” scene. As I read about it in the story, you find it bizarre the things that are going on, but as I watched this scene come to life in the movie (which is different), I couldn’t help but think that the attendees (March Hare, Dormouse, and Mad Hatter) of the party were drunk! Personally, I do not think it was “tea” that they were drinking. They were discussing things like an “unbirthday” (which I am still confused about!) and they did not seem to explain anything, they kind of just rolled over or touched on subjects that they explained more in the book. I was a little surprised that Disney put that part in the movie intended for children and also the Caterpillar smoking the hookah along with the “beheading” by the Queen. I found it weird to sit there and watch these things and I found myself thinking whether children would understand these concepts or not.
As I watched the movie, I felt that Disney wanted to make it more magical, by adding the rocking-horsefly, the singing flowers and of course the most well-known line “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. No time to say hello-goodbye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late,” which was made famous by the White Rabbit in the movie, but that exact line was never actually in the book. They changed many little details in the movie that I thought were interesting. In the movie, Alice meets the Cheshire Cat out of nowhere; it just randomly appears, while in the book she first encounters it at the Duchess’s house. But in both versions, it does its job by telling Alice about the Mad Hatter. Many of the chapters in the story were left out completely or it was changed so much that it was barely recognizable in the movie: “Pig and Pepper,” “The Lobster Quadrille,” “Who Stole the Tarts?” and “A Caucus Race and a Long Tale.” Not even the reason why Alice goes to court in the end is the same. In the book her dream ends when she is called up to the witness stand to testify about who stole the Queen’s tarts, while in the movie she is there because she made the Queen mad while they were playing croquet. I guess it was a way to cut the movie down to 75 minutes instead of a 119 page book!

All in all, between the broom-dog; umbrella vultures; bird glasses and drunken “tea” party attendants, I didn’t know what planet I was on while watching the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. As Alice liked to say in the movie “it would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.” I agree with Alice.
For all of you that have not seen or read Alice in Wonderland, I suggest reading Lewis Carroll’s story before you see the movie. I have to say that part of the reason that I chose this story and movie is because I wanted to be able to compare the two to Tim Burton’s new version of the movie that is coming out in 2010. The trailer looks amazing and hopefully I won’t get as lost in the “Wonderland” as I did in the Disney one!



Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland
Lewis, Carroll,. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. New York, N.Y: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985.
Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Dir. Walt Disney. 1951. Videocassette.