Notes

When this happens, she is disappointed in herself because she is an educated and smart teenager. She likes to show off her knowledge and show that education is very important to her. She normally gets frustrated when others do not understand her, but her good manners prevent her from showing it. Although a teenage girl of her time, Alice is also creative, unique, imaginative, and curious. She is conflicted as she wants to let go of her old way of life and its ‘rules’ , but she is also too scared to let go of her old ways of life and live without worrying. She cares about her image and worries that other people will judge her harshly if she speaks nonsense. However, in Wonderland, she is not expected to act like the proper Alice that she wants to be in the Victorian world. Alice has a hard time at first of letting go of her old concepts and social structure, and adjusting to the new and unusual structure of Wonderland (if there is one) and does not realize that she is free to go her own way. In the beginning, Alice sticks to her proper ways even though she is given the opportunity to be creative but as the story goes on and Alice learns that she can be the Alice she wants to be without being judged. Although Alice is different and unique, she has a hard time accepting herself and who she is and does not want to change herself but as the story goes, she learns to like and accept herself, even if she is different.

Like I said above, Alice has been raised to act and behave a certain way and has not had of the freedom to be the unique and different. Yet in Wonderland, Alice is in a secure and safe dreamland where she can explore herself and discover and accept who she is. Although this is something she wants to do, she has a hard time transitioning to the wonderland way of life. Not only does she rarely speak nonsense, she does not like when nonsense is spoken to her, and anything that is said in Wonderland would be characterized as ‘nonsense’ or ‘rubbish’ since it confuses her and makes her think outside of her comfort zone. Although many of the conversations and quotes that are said in Wonderland are puzzling and pointless, Alice always wants to be able to understand everything that is said to her. She wants to have an answer to everything so that she can show off her knowledge or to prove a point. Therefore, it is hard for her to be in an imaginary world that does not make sense. One could call the characters in Wonderland idiotic, foolish, reckless, senseless, or stupid but although they say pointless things, Alice slowly accepts the fact that there does not have to be an answer to everything and that knowledge is not the most important thing and she starts to let go of her old ways and adjusts to her surroundings. She starts to become more of an individual.

Alice slowly starts to understand how Wonderland works and she notices that somethings are better without answers and that being smart in the normal world does not mean that she is smart everywhere. When Alice’s fixed perspective of the world comes into contact with the illogical world of Wonderland, her beliefs start to disappear and she starts to understand that logic does not always help and that being mad or having different opinions are good things. She realizes that lessons can be learned by living life and not only in classrooms. Alice encounters a series of puzzles that seem to have no clear solutions; this imitates the way that life can frustrate expectations and Alice learns that she cannot expect to find logic or meaning in all situations that she encounters. An example of learning something from something that on the surface appears to be nonsense is when she hears from the cat that she must be mad to be in Wonderland, although he does not state explicitly what mad means. “But I don't want to go among mad people, Alice remarked. Oh, you can't help that, said the Cat: we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. How do you know I'm mad? said Alice. You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here.”