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this is no Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll's book "Alice in Wonderland' is full of fanciful characters, each one adding a bit of humor and dimension to the story. When Alice falls down the rabbit hole she encounters various talking animals and an unusual Queen. Alice is the protagonist of the story, a little girl who goes on the adventure in Wonderland. The first character she meets is The White Rabbit, he reappears throughout the book and acts as Alice's guide, which is amusing because he doesn't seem to know even what time it is.

The Caterpillar is like a very wise man, which provides Alice with a way to control her growth. The Caterpillar who is not very friendly, is helpful by advising her to eat from the mushroom if she wants to change her size. The Caterpillar teaches Alice how to cope with the difficult situations she encounters in Wonderland. He shows her how to change size by eating the mushroom and thereby to adapt to her environment when needed. He is smoking a hookah on top of a mushroom. This character many felt was representing drug use with the hookah and the magic mushrooms which make her change size. This was one of the reasons cited for banning the book.

The book is very complex and has a lot of symbolism conveyed through the characters and setting. He intricately weaves a story using these characters and many more lesson ones to tell his story. His goal was to teach a lesson to children about growing up in an entertaining way. Each character teaches Alice something about life and growing up in a dangerous world.

This interesting tale gave birth to these phrases: “To see some Alice-in-Wonderland” logic (to find some sense in anything said) and “This is no Alice in Wonderland”, meaning this is not a situation where miracles happen

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Idioms from English Literature

Category: Literature

Total terms: 11

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