STUDY GUIDE #9: ALICE IN WONDERLAND Answer any four of the
following six questions.
How would you explain the longevity of this novel?
Why has it withstood the test of time and remained one of
the most frequently quoted books in the English language?
Do you think that it "means" something different to
contemporary readers than it did to Victorian readers?
Why/why not?
How would you describe the relationship between text
and image in Alice? Choose one or two particular images
and inspect them closely. What details do you notice that
might be important to an interpretation of the image?
Does the image complicate the text in any way? You might,
for ex., look at the Duchess and her cook (p.94; how are
the two adult women alike?), or Alice with the royals (p.
115; who/what is two-dimensional and who/what 3-D?), or
Alice in the Rabbit's House (p. 76; what might a
psychoanalytic critic say?) Alternatively, you might
compare one or two of Tenniel's images to Carroll's
original images in Appendix A. What is changed and how
does the new image affect the reader differently?
What is the relation between order and disorder in
this story? Between sense and nonsense? What, ultimately,
might the text be suggesting about these categories?
What does the editor of our edition suggest about
humor in Alice in the "Through Bergson's Looking Glass"
section of the introduction? What additional observations
can you make about the ways that humor operates in the
story?
As we began to discuss in class, this text has
recently be read through the lens of post-structuralist
criticism. Choose one of the following schools of
criticism: Feminist, Marxist, Psychoanalytic. What
aspects of the text might a critic of that school call
attention to, and what might s/he have to say about it?
(Hint: Marxist critics here might mention class relations
but would be primarily concerned with the relation of
humans to commodities).
Revisit the ending of the novel (not the ending of
Alice's dream but the final piece of the frame narrative
where Alice's sister seizes control of the narrative).
How might we "read" this section? Is there anything that
seems odd or unexpected about it? Why do you think that
Carroll ends Alice this way?
