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Alice Interpretations:
The Evolution of Alice Criticism

"Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.

 

What is Alice?

Well, this is an English Comps. And if we want to understand how Wonderland has evolved over time, a good place to look is in the critical interpretations of the novel. For scholarly interpretation actually has good deal of influence over the popular conception of Alice. For instance, when scholars began investigating Carroll's perhaps inappropriate relationships with his "child friends," Wonderland became a much darker place in the popular imagination, echoed in the recent adaptations like Camille Rose Garcia's Alice edition and Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland.

Even if you find the thought of reading literary criticism daunting and unpleasant, you still might find something interesting in this section. I have attempted to make these pages appealing to both the "novice" and the "expert." In this section you can also explore the Timeline of Criticism, to see how trends of criticism have changed over time. And it is actually a pretty interesting topic to explore, because, as it turns out, the question of "What is Alice?" is not such an easy one to answer...

 

Timeline of Interpretations

Click here to see how these different critical interpretations have evolved over time and reacted to prominent events in the development of the "Alice" myth.

 


Historical Interpretations

Image of Lewis CarrollBiographical:
Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is whatever Carroll thought it was.


 

Queen VictoriaVictorian:
Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is the product of the Social, Political, Philosophical, and Religious ideals of the Victorian Era.

 

 

Psychedelic ImagePsychedelic:

Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice describes an hallucinogenic experience, or at least one era certainly thought so.

 

 

Genre Studies (Structuralism)

Peter Pan CoverChildren's Literature:
Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is (innoncent?) entertainment for children.

 

 


Sudoku puzzlePlay:
Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is a game (especially for mathematicians).

 


Nonsense:
Question: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice explores the delicate balance between meaning and non-meaning.


 

 

Psychoanalytic Interpretation

Sigmund Freud ImageQuestion: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is the product of Carroll's superego trying to supress his id.

 

 

 

 

Feminist Interpretation

Feminism imageQuestion: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is about the oppression of women.

 

 

 

Reader Response Criticism

Manet "The Reader" imageQuestion: What is Alice?
Answer: Alice is whatever we think it is.