Exploring Wonderland

 
Thoughts about the rarely explored depths of Wonderland
This is an entry from my journal which date back a few weeks. Today I'm posting it here! 



Lewis Carroll wrote Alice's adventures in Wonderland for Alice Pleasance Liddell, and later was published for kids all over the world. It was implemented and adapted in many forms, out of which some became legends, like the Walt Disney's version.


There are hardly any one who hasn't heard of Alice in Wonderland during their childhood. As for me, this particular story wasn't something which attracted my great attention. Even when I grew up, I never took any effort to take a look at the details of this popular tale.

A panel from Batman:Arkham Asylum

Then, I happened to read a Batman Comic titled Batman:Arkham Asylum. More than the usual adventure, this was an out of box comic - set in a dark, vague atmosphere, it explores the nightmares in the irritated minds of Batman and his archenemy the Joker.
In the beginning pages of this comic, I saw a portion from Alice's story quoted:

Click to enlarge

At this moment, I was largely surprised to see the depth of an otherwise celebrated children's story. The words pictured the exact intensity of madness and chaos dealt within the comic. Right then i badly wanted to read Alice's adventures in Wonderland, and I kept pondering about the scope of the book's content.

The Tim Burton movie
Very soon, justifying my (late) admiration of the book's depth, I could see the trailer of the latest movie adoption of Alice by Tim Burton. The book goes through a number of crazy and weird characters out of their minds. The movie was brilliantly crafted to group these characters, to define relationships among them and thus to weave an excellent story.



Curiouser and Curiouser
Back to the topic, let us take a closer look at Alice in Wonderland.
The ideas in the story are so consistent even when they are ported from a childish sense to adulthood or to philosophy..
The flow of events in the book takes abrupt turns. Conversations are cut off at curiosity awakening questions. The book challenges everything conventional. At many points, we see the rules of language and grammar twisted acording to one's thoughts. Remember the opening where Alice says "Curioser and Curioser". This implies the freedom of thoughts. It is not necessary that we go by predefined rules to get at anything. Our mind has the power to be free. the jabberwocky underlines this idea in its complete sense.

 The Mad tea party

Adventures of the mind
Alice's story is of exploring one's own mind, and the world around. the little girl Alice jumps into adventures and risks and experience a series of wonderful things, in the Wonderland. Speaking of adventure, here's a portion from a letter written by Christopher McCandless, the aesthetic voyager, to his old friend:


So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

At the end of Alice's adventures, Lewis Carroll concludes it as the wonders of childhood:


..and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

This highlights the statement  "The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure".


Madness

"Anything's possible in Human Nature... Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy."
The God of Small Things

Alice is everyone. And Wonderland is all that world of crazy adventures waiting for us. On a deeper context, this amazingly written children's story takes in a bunch of basic philosophies of life. That's truly a lot of moral we can expect from such a simply told story!
There's no element of wonder in why people heart this book even when they're in their teens, in their twenties or even forties. If you haven't yet had a lucky chance  to read through these fascinating pages, do so at the next slightest opportunity. Wonderland - This is one place you'll blindly fall in love with!

10 comments:

  1. nice post.. loved the read :D
    haven't watched alice in wonderland yet -.-"

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wanted to watch Alice in Wonderland for Johnny Depp. That apart....et, I really appreacite your take on it.

    I keep pondering over matters like this. I was just thinking about the way we live just a couple of days back.

    Do we live for ourselves? Do we do what we really want to do? When have we given ourselves the ME time?

    It is true...most of us do live in unhappy situations, yearning if things will improve but dont really take any risk and explore the horizons beyond.

    Why? Fear of losing things we are habitual with, fear if we would survive in the unknown conditions, fear of what others would talk about us...And someone at some point of time has set some conventional way of living one's life and we follow it without raising a question or without wanting to tread the unknown path.

    Oops, this is a long comment. Seemed I hijacked your space. :-) Let me stop. Good one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Chocolate luver
    You should totally watch the Movie. Its the best and most creative adaption of the book yet. You'll love it. :)

    @ Insignia
    Well, big thoughts need lots of words, right :) Its very okay to hijack the comment space, thus.
    You pretty much concluded the main ideas in the post. If you feel like exploring more on this, you really gotta read the book 'Into the Wild'. Try it! :d

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you. I shall soon grab the book :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ Insignia
    You SHOULD read teh book. And then watch teh movie. And then spread the love around the world!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely et. Thanks for sharing these excerpts...Thought provoking to say the least...

    ReplyDelete
  7. @ Choco
    Yes they are.. and you really should read the book in case you havn't!

    ReplyDelete
  8. porcelainballerina rivka alice porcelainaballerina

    ReplyDelete