The story “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” is housed together with the story “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” in one book volume. In this case, I shall consider the first story only.
The story “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” was originally published in mid 1860s. It is the story of a young Alice after her dream when she fell asleep. After waking up, Alice relates the story to her sister. The story is about the series of events which take place in Alice’s dream when she fell asleep in the course of her lessons. In the dream, the young Alice was following a white rabbit down towards the rabbit hole. As she continued following the rabbit, she met several strange creatures in the dream, which left her in all manners of curious dilemmas. Alice found herself in a situation where there was a total failure of the application of common sense and the reverse was expected – the nonsensical. The story has no central storyline; however, Alice rapidly jumps from one strange encounter to another before she wakes up and relates to her sister the whole episode.
Carroll has managed to create very unique characters in this book. Alice has been depicted as a very superb heroine that everyone wishes to admire and emulate. Even though Alice meets all sorts of backwards and reverse adventures, there is the dominance of her sensibility and analytical reasoning. She always tries to reason out her way in spite of the prevalent unreasonable situations. For the continuity of the volume, the author created unique characters that the reader cannot forget. Such characters include the White Rabbit, among others. “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” is highly creative. Every animal in the story is talking including the rabbits. The animals talk to such objects as checkerboard pieces and flowers. Even though Alice thinks that this is a mere dream, the things are actually happening. Alice notices a white rabbit that is holding a watch, wearing clothes, in hurry, and talking and so, she decides to follow it. The whole which the white rabbit falls into, leads them to the wonderland – the land where all things are alive and talking. She gets amazed and continues to follow the white rabbit which leads her into the adventure where she meets very strange things. Finally, Alice realizes that she misses home.
As much as the book depicts high levels of creativity, the symbolism is so much exaggerated. The fact that everything talks in the wonderland is too overstated. The colorful image of the wonderland is also overstated. In reality, a rabbit can not possess the qualities shown of the white rabbit.
All through the story, Carroll has depicted a brilliant and excellent use of symbolism and word play. Almost all the symbols have more than one meaning in the story as the story has hidden messages. The story also includes the satires of some rhymes and songs of the times in England. The book can be best loved by young children due to its imaginative inspiration and the unique and extraordinary qualities. Adults can also love the book due to its jokes. The book therefore fits well across all age groups and I recommend it to anybody who would wish to read it. However, the edition should have the original illustrations.
