Analysis
n the following pages you can find several
deeper analyses of the origins of the texts and illustrations, characters, and 'hidden meanings' in the Alice books.
Origins:
- Story Origins - Things out of Lewis Carroll's environment that inspired him when writing the story of Alice in Wonderland. This page also contains some photographs I took on my trip to Oxford.
- Picture Origins - Things that inspired John Tenniel's illustrations
- Poem Origins - The original poems that were parodied by Carroll in his story
Literary elements:
On the following pages you can find texts about of literary elements in the 'Alice' books, which may come in handy when you have to write a school paper or something the like.
The purpose of these
pages is not to replace the joy of reading and analysing the books yourself, but
they are meant to be a helpful guideline to create your own understanding of the
stories.
- Themes and motives
- Setting
- Conflict and resolution, protagonists and antagonists
- Character descriptions
Interpretive essays:
All kinds of explanations for / interpretations of the books
(Please mind that the following texts were not written by me personally. References to the author and publication details can be found on the page itself.)
General discussion of the 'Alice' books
- Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books by Lewis Carroll
- An Analysis of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- To stop a Bandersnatch
Discussion of Lewis Carroll, the author, in relation to Alice
- "Lewis Carroll": A Myth in the Making
- about the tendency to create a myth around the name "Lewis Carroll", in stead on focussing on who Charles Dodgson really was. - The Man Who Loved Little Girls
- should we really frown upon Dodgson's nude photographs of children? - The Liddell Riddle
- about the missing pages in Dodgsons diary and his break with the Liddell family
What/who influenced Carroll while writing the story
- The Duck and the Dodo: References in the Alice books to friends and family
- The influence of Lewis Carroll's life on his work
Illustrations
- Tenniel's illustrations
- A Case of Mistaken Identity
- About the mix-up between the Knave of Hearts and Knave of Clubs
Poetry
Drugs and hallucinations
Politics
- The truth about "Alice"
- how Alice in Wonderland can be seen as a political satire about the Wars of the Roses
Philosophic reasoning
Mathematics
Other subjects
On the Lewis Carroll section of the Victorian web, you can find many more interesting essays about a.o. the social and political, religious and philosophical, economic, science and technological, and many other themes and contexts in the Alice books.
Also read about Carroll's relations to Victorian art and his use of fantasy.
