adult

calendar

theme and motif's

THEME: lost childhood

MOTIF: teddy bear, calendar, adult/older man. 

words

wonderland
dreams
logic
suspision
puzzles
wordplay
nosence
lost childhood
imagination
victoria era
story telling
insomnia
stammerer
believe the impossible, defy the rules'

'believe the impossible, defy the rules'
gave readers the permission to let their imagination run wild.

he preferred to photograph without their mothers present so they would appear more natural. He also disliked the Victorian practice of dressing children up like small adults, arguing that the natural form of a child was beautiful and did not need to be covered up. He frequently photographed his girls nude, though he made a point of never taking frontal portraits.

He wanted children to find in his stories an outlet for the strict moralizing of the Victorian era. 


lost childhoods all round ?

http://www.victorianchildren.org/victorian-children-in-victorian-times/

http://myfivebest.com/the-dark-side-of-wonderland-the-scandals-of-lewis-carroll/

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild1.html

marilyn monroe

MARILYN MONROE’S CHILDHOOD INSPIRATION: “I WOULD PRETEND I WAS ALICE IN WONDERLAND…”

"When I was a little girl I would pretend I was Alice in Wonderland, looking into a miror, wondering what I would see. Was that really me? Who was that staring back at me? Could it be someone pretending to be me? I would dance around, make faces, just to see if that little girl in the mirror would do the same.

I suppose every kid’s imagination takes over. The looking glass can be magical, like acting, in a strange way. Especially when you’re pretending to be someone other than yourself. This did happen when I put on my mom’s clothes, tried to fix my hair as she did and powder my face with her big powder puff, and, oh yes, her red rouge and lipstick and eye shadow. I would imagine I was sexy, like the top movie star in those days: Jean Harlow.http://historiful.tumblr.com/post/2552816073

lewis carroll summary

Here is what we know about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. He was a mathematical genius, becoming a member of the Oxford faculty when he was just 24 years old. He loved logic, puzzles and wordplay. He was one of the best amateur photographers of the Victorian era, shooting hundreds of portraits before abruptly dropping the hobby after 24 years. And when he wasn't taking pictures or lecturing about mathematics or inventing yet another cipher, he was writing.

The stories, novels and "nonsense" poems in which Lewis Carroll specialized were originally written to entertain the young daughters of Rev. Henry Liddell, his dean at Oxford University. (Under the name Charles Dodgson, he published things like An Elementary Treatise on Determinants With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraical Geometry. Disney hasn't made a movie about that one yet.) His favorite of the Liddell girls was Alice. Alice inspired Carroll's best-known character, a spirited girl of the same name who falls down a rabbit hole and goes on a series of fantastic adventures. Carroll's stories were some of the most imaginative things ever written, and were an important inspiration for fantasy and science fiction today. Carroll was adamant that his stories contain no moral, allegory or otherwise important "message." He wanted children to find in his stories an outlet for the strict moralizing of the Victorian era.

Victorian social mores are key to the complex problem of Carroll's legacy. Lewis Carroll was obsessed with young girls. With their parents' permission, he took photographs of them, sometimes in states of undress (or no dress). He befriended them, playing with them at the seaside and taking them to the opera. Scholars are divided on whether he had pedophilic tendencies, though there's no evidence that he ever committed inappropriate acts with children.

As the King of Hearts might say, we will just begin at the beginning, go on until we reach the end, then stop.

edgar allan poe

reading to much into it

Consult any set of notes on the book and you'll see a slew of themes picked out: puberty, abandonment, the challenge of transition to adulthood, even the perils of authoritarian justice in the form of the Queen of Hearts.

But bearing in mind the nature of the birth of the piece, an off-the-cuff attempt to amuse a child in a rowboat, are people guilty of reading too much into it?

Richard Jenkyns, professor of the classical tradition at Oxford University, called Alice in Wonderland "probably the most purely child-centred book ever written" and said that its only purpose "is to give pleasure".

Katherine rivers- daughter of carrols speal heraprist

I shall always remember his beautiful twinkling eyes, full of love and laughter, as he told us wonderful stories…. And how Lewis Carroll loved the country, the woods, and the hay, and wove into his magic stories the flowers and animals we saw there! Sitting with his back to a big tree-trunk, with one of us on his knee – sometimes one on each knee – he would tell us for hours, stories of the Pixies. And every time he came, he had fresh adventures to relate.

Based on his own experience as an illustrator for the 1988 edition of Alice in Wonderland, Anthony Browne believes Carroll might not have been aware of the meanings found within his story.

"People interpret books in a logical way as they do dreams. They want it to have meaning. Alice in Wonderland is not to be read as a logical book.  There could be some hidden meanings in there, especially considering Carroll was a mathematician during his lifetime, whether he was aware of such meanings subconsciously or not."

'mathematical' game of croquet,

very devoted to his seven sisters, and I remember how very sad and upset he was when, one day, a wire came for him, telling him of the illness of one of them. Father soon drove him to the station, four miles off; and after that we were sad, too, for, his sister dying the next day,

two points here: "Arithmetical Croquet" is played in the head – it's a mind-game – and, as you will have noted, none of Dodgson's sisters predeceased him! Once you come across inaccuracies, all the rest is suddenly suspect.

social historical influences

The Victorian time period was also characteristic of a rigid class structure. This is displayed in his writing when Alice regularly insults the Wonderland creatures, especially the smaller ones.

The flowers in the film- methophor- insult alice for not being a flower, call her a weed etc

Queen Victoria reigned during this time period, so female dominance is  displayed in Carroll's writing.

the Queen of Hearts overcomes the  King both in size and power.

Punctuality era

-white rabbit and he’s watch ‘im late’!

eating disorder

Eating is  associated with sin by the means that a garden, in which a serpent is present, represents  the Garden of Eden. Alice, therefore represents Eve when she desires to eat the Queen's  tarts while there, even though she knows its wrong.

the Chesire Cat's grin  is the first part of him to appear and last part of him to disappear, therefore focusing  on the mouth.

The concequence of alice eating or drinking changes her size

Accusation of stealing the queens tarts – penalty of beheading

insomnia

I have a fairy by my side 

Which says I must not sleep, 

When once in pain I loudly cried 

It said "You must not weep" 

If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,

found a peanut 

pillow puzzle 

each alice story begins with her falling asleep 

not liking children

11 siblings 

'Throw them away.' 'Tie them in knots and send them into the wilderness.' 'Roast them well and serve them as appetizers for the main meal.'  - alices adverntures the baby is a nuscence beucase it crys to much turns into a pig and is left in the woods – jealous of attention

sadness

“It is very sweet to me, to be loved by her as children love: though the experience of many years have now taught me that there are few things in the world so evanescent [fleeting] as a child’s love. Nine‑tenths of the children, whose love once seemed as warm as hers, are now merely on the terms of everyday acquaintance.”

Through the looking glass – carroll is said to have based the white knight on himself, ironically he is the only one to show compasion to alice in the story but must leave her when she reachers the eight square (ches game) as she will take her role as the queen. –this could be a methphor for the way carrol felt he is left behind by children as they grown up but who once loved him.

struggling with self identity

“It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!” I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!”

It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

another narrative imposed on the book is the idea of grappling with a sense of self. Carroll led a very controlled existence, struggling with self-identity, a recurring theme in the book as Alice regularly expresses uncertainty about who she is after she enters Wonderland.

Caterpillar scene- alice gets angry trying to explain who she is