Analysis of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Book Report/Review Example

Boot title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Author: Lewis Carroll Introduction The book is about a young girl who wonders in a world of confusion, all the time interacting with different types of animals. The book has been selected due to its extensive narration of human animal interactions, which have different meanings altogether. Chapter summary Cap I: Down the Rabbit Hole The chapter starts with Alice and her elder sister sitting along the riverbank, where her sister is reading her a book that has neither dialogue nor pictures, causing Alice to be bored. In the process of listening to the book reading, she spots a white rabbit dressed in a coat that passes by, worried about the time. Alice follows the rabbit which ends up in a rabbit hole where there are shelves with books, drinks and snacks. However, it is a place full of confusion, where she does not actually end up doing everything she desires, thus finally dreams of her cat, Dinah. The human-animal interaction demonstrated by this chapter is that of cordial but non-productive relationship. However, this relationship is necessary for building the background of the rest of the story, which involves more interactions between humans and animals. Cap II: The Pool of Tears The second chapter of the book introduces more animals to the scene, through the struggles that Alice is undergoing to try and move out of the rabbit hole and back to the land surface. The struggle begins when she eats a cake she finds in the rabbit hole and grows bigger than the door size. It also causes her to momentarily lose her identity and memory, thus considers herself as a girl she knows, named Mabel. Struggling to get her identity and move back to the surface causes her to cry lots of tears which form a pool. While in the pool, a mouse appears and they start a conversation about cats and dogs that make the mouse help Alice and other animals that were trapped in the hole get out to the surface, so they could be narrated why the rat hates cats and dogs. The human-animal interaction in this chapter is both protagonistic and antagonistic. It is antagonistic at first, when Alice mentions cats and dogs to the mouse, but turns protagonistic when she promises not to mention them again, if the mouse helps her out of the hole. The role of this relationship is to build more foundation for developing the story and introduce more characters such as the Eaglet, Lory and Dodo. Cap III: Under this chapter, a temporary working relationship between Alice and animals is created, where the mouse sits Alice and all the animals down to give them the driest story it knows, so they can get to dry from the drenching water of the pool in the rabbit hole. The story telling changes into a caucus proposed by Dodo in which all animals win. Alice shares mints with the animals and they start chewing. However, her failure to pay attention to the mouse while telling the story causes the mouse to go away. In turn, she mentions her cat, Dinah, to the other animals which also vanishes and she is left alone very sad. The human-animal relationship here is of a cooperative nature, where Alice and the animals sit and listens to the mouse story, as well as participates in a caucus proposed by Dodo. The importance of this relationship is to contrast future relationships between humans and animals in the story. Cap IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill After she is left alone, the white rabbit appears once again, this time ordering Alice to go to his house and fetch his gloves and the fan. Still confused, Alice obeys the rabbit’s orders, but later wonders whether animals should order humans around, fearing that her cat, Dinah, might start ordering her when she is back home. In the house, she takes a drink that she found and transforms into a giant that can no longer leave the house. This causes the rabbit and other animals to confront her, throw pebbles to her, but they in turn change into cakes that she eats and shrinks so that she is able to move out of the house. The animal chases her around. The human animal interaction in this chapter is hostile. The importance of this relationship is to display the human perception that man is on top of the hierarchy and should not be ordered by animals. Cap V: Advice from a caterpillar The controversy between Alice and the animals aggravates, this time to involve a caterpillar she meets while running away from the other animals. While the caterpillar asks her who she is, she does not appear to know, and she cannot even recite a poem well when asked to. The caterpillar informs her to eat the mushroom it was sitting on so she could revert to her normal size, but she eats the side that elongates her neck. This causes a further confrontation with a pigeon which thinks she is a serpent. The human-animal relationship here is purely controversial. The importance of this relationship is to show Alice that humans are not always the once in top authority, while also making her aware that she is no longer able to know her real self. Cap VI: Pig and pepper In this chapter, Alice comes into contact with more animals such as the frog, the duchess, and finally the pig, which Alice asks what should be her next destination. The pig tells her she is headed to the place of a mad hatter and hare, where she retorts she does not want to interact with mad animals. The pig informs her that whosoever is in wonderland is mad, including herself. The human-animal interaction here brings Alice to a new reality that she is no longer herself. The relationship is meant to demonstrate both human and animals equal. Cap VII: A Mad Tea Party When Alice realizes that she has no more options than to continue wandering, she proceeds to the mad hare’s house. There, she finds the hare and the hatter taking tea, but they tell her she cannot sit with them, which she does anyway. A confrontation ensues between her and the animals; in relation to a riddle she was not able to give an answer to. Later on, she did not like another story that was later told by the Dormouse who is awakened by the mad hare to narrate a story. Feeling offended that she cannot answer their riddle, Alice storms out of the house. The human-animal relationship continues to be more confrontational in this chapter. The importance of this interaction is to show that animals are better than humans in certain instances, such as this one, where Alice could not answer their riddle. Cap VII: The Queen’s Croquet Ground This chapter is a series of confusing events for Alice, starting with the strange Croquet game played in the Queens Croquet field, to the arguments between the Queen and her gardeners. Eventually, the argument spreads to entail a word confrontation between the Queen and the King, over the execution of the Cheshire cat owned by the Duchess. The human-animal interaction in this chapter is protagonistic, with Alice trying to be the peace maker in a situation where the animals are confronting one another. The importance of this human-animal relationship is to introduce the new role of humans in the story as that of a peace maker. Cap IX: The mock Turtles story At this stage, the Duchess eventually change the nature of interaction that had developed to be consistently controversial, by establishing a cordial and friendly relationship with Alice, after its companion, the Cheshire cat, had vanished. Alice starts feeling uncomfortable with the sudden turn of events. Finally, she ends up in the mock turtle’s house, where she is introduced into a tale of the turtle life and education. The mock turtle explains that she used to be a real turtle and had a good education before things changed. The human-animal-interaction in this chapter is cordial, although the importance of the interaction here is for the animals to mock human advancement, for example through education. Cap X: The Lobster Quadrille In this chapter, Alice is introduced to a lobster dance by both the mock turtle and the Gryphon, while at the same time she is required to recount all her adventures. She narrates almost the whole story of her experiences in the wonderland, until she talks about the poem she was unable to recite for the caterpillar. She tries reciting it again but she also fails. This baffles the mock turtle and the Gryphon, before it is announced that a trial is starting, and the Gryphon takes Alice away. The human-animal interaction here is partial friendly and partial controversial. However, the essence of this relationship is to remind Alice that she has not yet come back to her real self. Cap XI: Who Stole the Tarts? The trial entails the case of stolen Queens’s tarts. Several animals are called into the stand to give their testimonies, but none of the animals appear to be able to give a good testimony regarding who stole the tarts. When it is found that none of the witness is capable of testifying satisfactorily, Alice is finally called in as a witness in this case. The human-animal interaction here is very minimal, entailing only Alice being called to testify in the case. Nevertheless, this relationship is important in the story, since it serves to show that no animal is competent than humans. Cap XII: Alice’s Evidence After Alice is called upon to testify, she denies having any knowledge of the matter, something that sparks controversy with the King. In return, the King calls for the evocation of rule 42 that required anyone with a height more than a mile high to go out of the court. Alice realizes she had grown more than a mile high and everyone was expecting her to leave the court, but she refused. The Queen ordered for her beheading, and it is at this point that Alice wakes up and finds she had been day-dreaming while sleeping on her sister’s lap. The human-animal interaction in this last chapter is confrontational, leading to the sudden awakening of Alice from her dream. The importance of this confrontational relationship is to pave the way for the ending of the story. Conclusion The human-animal relationships in this book are characterized by a mixture of friendly and confrontational interactions, which are either negative or positive in their outlook. There are sections of protagonistic human-animal relationships, where Alice and the different animals in the story cooperate to solve certain problems, and other antagonistic sections where Alice and the different animals are pulling in different ways. Nevertheless, both the protagonistic, friendly and positive relationships, and the antagonistic and negative relationships serve an important role in the story. These human-animal relationships serves the purpose of shaping the background of the story, introducing and eliminating new characters in the story at different stages, advancing the theme of human superiority over animals, and finally paving the way for the ending of the book, so that it can eventually be understood that the whole story is based on a fetish childhood dream. Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publication, 2006. 1-247. Print. Read More