As a child I don’t really remember hearing much about Alice and Wonderland, so reading it now as an adult was an extremely interesting task. While reading the story, I noticed that everything happening to Alice happened because she was curious. The whole reason why she ended up falling down the tunnel into wonderland was because she wanted to see more of the white rabbit. Even though she was a very young child, she was smart enough to recognize that seeing a rabbit with a coat and a stopwatch was something that was out of the norm. So, since she knew this she wanted to further explore this peculiar creature. Furthermore, in my opinion I also feel that Alice’s curiosity sparked everything that happened to her after she fell down the tunnel to wonderland. Since she wanted to know what was behind the small door, she stuck her head through it and found out that it was a beautiful garden. After this, she drunk a potion with a label on the front of the bottle that said “Drink Me”, not knowing what was going to happen to her after she drank it. However, her curiosity caused her to drink this mysterious liquid in a bottle, which started so much more chaos than she originally began with. Ultimately, toward the end of the first half of the book Alice began to wonder how to get anywhere away from all of the weird things that were happening to her in wonderland. So, I think after a while Alice began to appreciate the life she considered to be boring in the beginning of the story and she wanted nothing more than to return back home; however this furthered her curiosity even more because she started to wonder what she needed to do to get back home.
Tag Archives: curiosity
Alice in Wonderland
The stories of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland have always been a favorite of mine. I was excited to read Lewis Carroll’s book again from a different perspective now that I am older. One of the first things that surprised me was when Alice was drinking the “drink me” potion, and eating the “eat me” cake. Alice checks the bottle to see if it says poison, and when she sees that it doesn’t she drinks it. When I was younger this didn’t strike me as odd. Now, I think of all the different things that could have happened to Alice other than a change in size. In todays society it does not matter if a drink says poison or not because it could very well be drugged and very dangerous. The fact that Alice drinks and eats what she finds led me to start thinking about how crucial it is that Alice is a child. Any adult in Alice’s position most likely wouldn’t have followed a strange rabbit down a hole in the ground, let alone drink and eat random things they find along the way. A child can sometimes be seen as curious, and naïve. Alice doesn’t imagine this drink as dangerous at all as soon as she sees that it is not marked poison because she is naïve enough to believe that no one would purposely deceive her in such a way. Alice is also a very curious child, but still believes in things many people believe are impossible. Alice’s imagination and curiosity bring her to the amazing world of Wonderland where nothing is impossible. All of her adventures in Wonderland only happen because she doesn’t question whether or not this strange talking rabbit is real or not, but simply, where is he going?
Alice
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, throughout the story, Alice is very curious about the new things she encounters. We first see Alice being curious when she sees a rabbit going about while she is thinking about what to do. She finds it peculiar that the rabbit had a “waistcoat-pocket” (2) on and even pulls out a pocket watch from it. Out of her curiosity of this peculiar rabbit, she immediately follows him and even jumps in with him when he jumps down a hole “never once considering how in the world to get out again” (3). By jumping in without considering her next actions and the consequences of her actions, Alice appears to be curious because she follows her instincts to learn more about this rabbit which she finds peculiar. In the hole, she begins her journey exploring a new land. To these new things she always says “I wonder.” The usage of “I wonder” shows the reader that she is curious because she’s always questioning things and wondering about them. For example, when she’s falling down the hole, she says to herself, ” I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time” (4) thinking about what is going on. She continues to wonder her location. In addition, later on, she discovers a drink that makes her shrink. She thinks of it as a “curious feeling” (11). She didn’t fear for her life when she continued to shrink but wondered instead, “what [she] should be like [when she goes out] like a candle” (11). Therefore, with her constant wondering and disregard for her safety, Alice seems to be a very curious child.