Human and Animal Interrelationships in Wonderland - Book Report/Review Example

Human and Animal Interrelationships in Wonderland Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a classic children’s story filled with vivid scenes that challenge the imagination. As a children’s story, it is captivating because of the colourful characters and the whimsical language play used throughout the book. I chose to work on this book because it was a childhood favourite of mine and know that there are a lot of animal characters in the book playing roles that do not really befit them. Chapter Summaries 1. While her older sister reads a book to her, Alice saw a rabbit running with a watch in his waistcoat pocket, hastily saying he will be late. Curious, Alice followed him as he jumped into a deep hole where she fell for a long time before landing. She daydreamed about her cat, Dinah, imagining they were having a conversation. As she landed, she caught a glimpse of the white rabbit turning into a corner. Following the rabbit, she gets to a doorway leading to a garden. A key opens the door to the garden but she cannot fit into that small door. She drinks the contents of a bottle marked “Drink Me” and she immediately shrinks to a size that can already fit into the door, but she forgot the key on the tabletop that is now too high for her to reach. She frets about it until she sees a piece of cake with a label “Eat me”. She eats the cake and waits for something to happen. The story begins with Alice’s attraction to a white rabbit which makes her very curious because of his odd appearance and behaviour, This chapter depicts Alice as an animal lover, as it relates her imagined conversation with her cat, Dinah. It shows that she is very comfortable with animals and may relate to them as if they were humans. 2. Alice grows enormously large as an effect of eating the cake. She became so upset with this change that she started to cry, literally creating a pool at her feet. Again, the white rabbit appears but hurriedly leaves, dropping his gloves and fan. Alice picks up his fan and starts fanning herself. Due to all the strange things happening to her, she questions if she really is Alice, and suspects that she might be Mabel, a dull classmate of hers, since she cannot remember the lessons she tries to recall. As she fans herself, she notices that she is getting smaller, so she fans herself some more so as to get her to the right size. However, she forgot the key again and stumbles into a pool of salt water, which was actually a pool of her own tears that transformed into a sea. She comes across a mouse, to which she talks about her cat and the subject of dogs, but the mouse becomes frightened. Alice called him back and promised that she will not talk about those animals anymore. The mouse helps her towards the shore and told her he will tell her why he hated cats and dogs. Other animals have also fallen into the pool which includes a duck, a dodo bird, a lory and an eagle. The dream-like scenes in this chapter again involves the presence of animals such as the white rabbit and a mouse that was afraid of cats and dogs. There were also other animals that joined in, but they seem to be irrelevant to this chapter. Alice’s interaction with the mouse showed she can compromise with other creatures in order to help her out of adverse situations. 3. Arriving on the shore, Alice and the animals tell stories and go on a Caucus race, however, they just went running in circles but were all declared winners by the Dodo. Alice hands out mints to everyone as prizes leaving her with nothing but a thimble as her own prize. Alice and the mouse have a misunderstanding about the mouse’s tale, confused with his tail, and the mouse walks out leaving Alice with the other animals. Then, Alice said she wished her cat Dinah was with her to bring mouse back and mentioned that Dinah also ate birds. This scared off the other animals, leaving Alice alone again. Alice was getting to know the animals and had fun playing with them but somehow, she could not fully relate to them as she was still hung up on her own world and longing for her real pet, Dinah to be with her in her new adventure. Although the animals were warming up to her, she still could not get everything right and still scares them away. 4. The white rabbit sees Alice and mistaking her for his maid, Mary Ann, ordered her to fetch is gloves and fan in the house. Upon reaching the house, Alice sees the gloves and fan and a bottle with a liquid with the label “Drink Me”. She drinks the contents and again grows to a gigantic size with her arms pushing out of the windows. The white rabbit tries to get inside the house with the help of his other servants, but Alice swats them away. A crowd of people started to throw pebbles at the house and Alice threatened them to call on her cat Dinah. The pebbles thrown at her turned into small cakes and she was able to eat some and it made her shrink to a smaller size that she can escape the mob and into the woods. Her tiny size worried her as a puppy stood over her, but she was able to run and climb up a giant mushroom. On top was a blue caterpillar smoking a hookah that seemed to have no care in the world. Being ordered around by the white rabbit was something odd to Alice, as she imagined her own cat Dinah doing the same when she gets back to her home. The animals in this chapter behaved like humans, including the caterpillar who assumed a pose of a bum. The only animal that behaved as expected was the humongous puppy that curiously smelled at her and eager to lick on the stick Alice gave him. 5. The caterpillar’s attitude turned Alice off as he asked her who she was and to recite a poem that he criticizes as all incorrect. The caterpillar advised her to eat one side of the mushroom to grow bigger and the other side to shrink, but did not tell her which side, left or right, so Alice tried one side. Her neck grew so long that she was mistaken for a serpent out to eat a pigeon’s eggs so she was attacked by the pigeon. Alice explained that she was not a serpent and the pigeon left her alone. Alice was able to eat the other side of the mushroom and she returns to her original height. As she walked in the woods, she searched for the garden but instead saw a four-foot-tall house. She ate more mushroom to make her shrink to a mere nine inches tall. A peculiar animal that a human can relate to is a caterpillar. However, in this chapter, it was the caterpillar who gave her some tips on managing her height. Trying out the caterpillar’s advice, at one time, she got in trouble with being mistaken for something else, and at the other time, made her into the size she wanted. After following the caterpillar’s tips, she was on her own to decide for herself. 6. Alice encounters more strange creatures like the fish footman who delivers a message to the Duchess to play croquet with the queen. The Duchess was singing a baby (which was actually a pig) to sleep while a cook hurls things at her while putting too much pepper in the cauldron. Alice also meets a Cheshire cat who keeps grinning and telling her nonsensical things such as meeting mad creatures in Wonderland. Alice sees the March Hare’s house and bit a portion of the mushroom again to make her grow bigger. In this chapter, Alice meets some busy characters who are always on edge. She encounters a head of a Cheshire cat who incessantly grins and speaks of things she finds difficult to understand. The duchess remembered that she had a croquet match with the queen and threw the baby to Alice. Alice discovers that the baby was actually a pig and let it go free. Alice did not feel threatened with the cat and the pig, because in real life, these are tame animals she may commonly interact with. 7. Alice joins a tea party with mad creatures such as the Mad Hatter and the March Hare who kept on arguing and even included Alice in their silly conversation. The Mad Hatter asks riddles that Alice cannot answer and the March Hare and Alice exchanged insults. Dormouse is another creature in the party who tells stories to which Alice asked so many questions about. As Alice leaves the party, she finds her way back into the great hall and eventually, the passageway to the garden. The animals in this chapter are the March Hare and the Dormouse who were uncharacteristically chatty with nonsense talk. Alice challenged them with her retorts and questions until they, too, got annoyed with her. 8. This is the scene of the croquet game of the queen who orders the beheading of just about anyone who blocks her way or in any way displease her. Alice plays with the queen and finds it weird that the croquet equipment was animals – the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets were live flamingos. The queen also ordered the beheading of the white rabbit and even the Cheshire cat who was already a floating head, so they wondered how it can still be beheaded. Alice realized that the queen was a mean and unreasonable person who did not have any regard for her constituents. Alice did not feel comfortable playing croquet with live animals used as equipment. She also felt uneasy that the white rabbit and Cheshire cat were among those who were ordered for beheading. She was getting irked by the queen’s behaviour. 9. After the croquet game, the queen orders Alice to visit the mock turtle. She is brought there by the Gryphon and she meets a very depressed turtle. The turtle tells her tales of his former schooling under their old teacher called Tortoise. The subjects they learned were unusual and became shorter each passing day. Seeing that Alice was puzzled, the mock turtle explained that they were called “lessons” because they “lessen”. Alice is accompanied by a legendary creature, the gryphon to see the Mock turtle. She immediately felt pity upon the Mock turtle seeing how sad he was. The Gryphon explained that the turtle just fancies being sad and it was no big deal. However, Alice still spent time listening to the turtle’s stories about his schooling and she enjoyed her conversation with both the turtle and the gryphon. They were like old friends, even if they are different creatures. 10. The mock turtle and the gryphon demonstrate to Alice a dance called the Lobster Quadrille where the sea animals dance with a lobster only to throw them out to sea. More silly conversation continues until they ask Alice to tell them about her adventures in Wonderland. A little while later, the Gryphon whisks Alice away when he heard the cry “The trial’s beginning!” Alice was getting more comfortable with the mock turtle and the gryphon that it seems that she was finally enjoying her time at Wonderland. They danced and swapped stories until she and the gryphon had to leave and get back to the trial. 11. The chapter on the trial for the Knave of Hearts who was accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts. The characters from the book were mostly present and as usual, caused a ruckus in the courtroom with nonsensical statements. The Mad Hatter was one disorganized witness, implicating other characters such as the March Hare, the Dormouse, etc. Finally, the White rabbit called Alice to the stand. The participation of the animals in the trial reflects the reality that courtrooms seem to be run by beasts who did not think critically about the proceedings of the trial. Alice tried to absorb it all, but she did not seem fazed that she was part of it. 12. This last chapter has Alice on the witness stand arguing with an illogical king and reasoning out to the court about the absurdness of all its rules. She has grown enormous again, making her feel more power over everyone even when the queen orders her beheading. She suddenly wakes up to find herself on her sister’s lap and realize that everything was just a dream. Animals had no significant role in this chapter. Conclusion The human and animal interrelationships depicted in this book did not reflect reality since the animals were given characterizations which were fictional. It was more of Alice’s reactions to those animals that were worth observing as she encountered odd animal characters. The book showed that a young girl like Alice saw animals as inherently friendly, but she was mostly disillusioned by their inappropriate behaviours. The only real human-animal interrelationship was between Alice and her cat Dinah, but it only remained in Alice’s memory. In Wonderland, she was surrounded by creatures who acted strangely, except for the puppy that curiously looked at her wondering what she was. It is assumed that when Alice goes back to her reality upon waking up that she will value her pet Dinah more because it did not have the complicated personalities depicted by the animals in Wonderland. However, having learned many things from her dream, she will appreciate reality more as she understands it better now, owing her learning from the various characters she encountered in her dream. Read More