Food, what? I thought this blog was supposed to be about Alice’s adventure through wonderland.”

If the above statement is what you’re thinking, sit down, relax, and keep reading.From an earlier entry I was developing, I got to food, and got a little hungry too. But in my hungry state I was still able to see that food plays a large role in Alice.

From the “ORANGE MARMALADE” to the Duchess’s pepper, food makes many important appearances in Alice. First let’s skip the random marmalade she sees on the shelf going down the rabbit hole and start off with the “DRINK ME” bottle. This triggers the story and Alice would not be the same story without it. It’s possibly the most renowned occurrence within the story and the only thing I remembered from seeing the movie when I was in preschool. This “poison” that Alice likens it to causes her to shrink to the size perfect to go through the garden door. But she left the key on the table which leads to her eating the “EAT ME” cake. Hmmm, more food huh? That’s right Carroll is again using food as a catalyst to something. Is it because kids like food, maybe? Could it be that food is sometimes seen as a temptation and shows that Alice is daring into making her decisions? Maybe that too. But Alice’s eating of the food does show some lack of decision-making skills which could lead to some trouble…

Away from the food and decision-making route, let’s go off onto the “you are what you eat from your head to your feet” area. When Alice is with the Duchess, the Duchess mentions some things about how food plays a role in peoples emotions and mental states. “Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people hot-tempered…and vinegar that makes them sour-and chamomile that makes them bitter-and-and barley-sugar and such thing that make children sweet-tempered.” Here we see another part of childhood in the sense that children would believe their parents after they told them that they would become what they were eating if they had too much of it. Your personality is who you are repeatedly. As Aristotle put it, “we are what we repeatedly do.”  Therefore, the temperaments of people are due to eating too much of one thing.

I don’t know if many remember the show “The Powerpuff Girls” where the nice, crime-fighting, super girls were made from “sugar, spice, and everything nice”, but this is another example of how food relates to character and actions. It also relates to how people are influenced by what they surround themselves with but that’s another entry for another day…

Yes you do.

In the United States and many other countries there are laws that determine a minimum age for certain actions. These range from alcohol to voting, criminal actions, and sex. The governments of many nations have decided that the people under these minimum ages are not able to comprehend these subjects. Therefore, they will not be able to make intelligent decisions. This results in poor decisions being made which can cause harm to those involved both directly and indirectly. In the state of Texas, you must be 16 years of age to use a motor vehicle. There have been many cases where people under this minimum age have attempted to use vehicles causing both harm to themselves and others. This is just one of many examples of why such laws are in place.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is going on a crazy journey through very crazy places. From The Queen to The Caterpillar, she’s met strange characters who would boggle anyone’s mind. This serves as a prime example about why there are minimum age laws around the world. Alice is going through this world which she doesn’t understand and does not know what to do. From the “DRINK ME” bottle to the Caucus-Race, there are many times where she has not dealt with things properly. At her young age, she has no idea how to deal with the situations around her and with maturity she would be able to better comprehend what was happening. You could argue that Alice’s new world is crazier than any real-life experience, but the real world is a crazy place and if you’re not ready for it, which the government has set out for you too be, it will get you.

In the first chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Alice there are many instances of  unreal happenings.  The one this entry will focus on is the White Rabbit. First of all, I personally have never seen a rabbit talking or any animal for that matter. Then, when the rabbit pulls out a pocket watch, the story truly seems like a joking, childish story, that hides the darkness within this beloved “children’s” story. But the Rabbit serves a greater purpose in the story than only giving the reader a character to start off with. If I saw a regular rabbit, I would probably think nothing of it and Alice probably wouldn’t either. But this Rabbit talking and his pocketwatch serve as a catalyst to the enire story. If he was just an ordinary rabbit, there’s a great chance that Alice would not follow him and would have taken a different path. And if you take it to an even greater extreme, Alice may have woken up from her dream-like state and the story would have been over. Without the Rabbit, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland happens completely differently or maybe not at all.

In the story, Alice was interested by the strange creatures and happenings she encountered. Carroll kept the girl in the story happy by introducing her to new ideas that she never thought of. The story would have been very boring, and the readers would not have liked it. But with these characters and happenings he keeps the reader interested to get other strange ideas across. Keep in mind that when Charles Dodgson was writing this story, that he was writing for the true Alice Liddell. He was attempting to keep interest of the small girl, using many strange characters. This attempt at trying to keep her attention is shown in how Alice within the story is attracted to the quirky aspects of the tale. So the many strange occurances within the story are all to keep it going and create a nice yet crazy environment.