Wonderland Manifesto
fz159810 on Nov 3rd 2015
Our wonderland takes place below NYC on the subway, specifically throughout eight train cars. Each car is categorized under one part of our binary, sane or insane. As our protagonist finds herself moving through each car in the beginning she will have a clear idea which car is sane and which car she deems insane. Our plan to mess with the binary is to have the cars get increasingly “mixed.” So by the time our protagonist reaches the last car she can no longer distinguish if she is in a “sane” or “insane” car. Since our wonderland is already extremely specific being only in a subway, the scenarios we will highlight will stem from this concept. We will include situations that we each may have experienced while riding the train, for example feminazi’s preaching about their beliefs, while also coming up with situations that would easily be deemed insane. For example, stepping into a car with no walls or something of that nature. The more extreme sanes and insanes will take place in the beginning of the protagonist’s journey throughout, while the more “grey area” situations will be towards the tale end where she can no longer differentiate between the binary. Our viewer would need to know what a “New Yorker” would deem “insane.” Living in ny we are accustomed to people, situations, and things that could be deemed insane to an outsider but most new Yorkers would not bat an eye at. So it is important that our viewer understands that what would seem insane is actually one of our sane scenarios. They would have to know basic subway logic, like how a subway car should have walls, basically common sense about transportation.
We decided to provide a sample of the story to give a feel for what our character is experiencing.
Reference from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “But I don’t want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.
Oh, you can’t help that, said the Cat: we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.
You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here” (Carroll, pg. 77). We felt that this quote went very well with our world. representing the growth of the protagonist in the story. The protagonist will go from cart to cart, initially not understanding anything of the world, and leaving the world possibly insane.
Work Cited: Carroll, Lewis, John Tenniel, and L. J. Bridgman. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell &, 1893.
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One Response to “Wonderland Manifesto”
I really like your sample chapter. The writing is quite nice, and the details about patterns and the same people getting on and off is very intriguing.
I think your reference to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a good one. It seems like you might actually have one of the characters say it in the chapter.
I also like that the repeated line is “I like your shoes.” It reminds me of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s shoes.
I think your manifesto articulation however still seems a little murky and unclear. Can you answer the following:
1) What governing principle of this world makes it different than our “normal” world? (You should answer this question without any mention of your protagonists.)
2) What is the situation of this website? (i.e. Is this a blog kept by the conductor? or a diary by the protagonists? or does the train produces it’s own periodic logs? like a self running Star Trek ship log?)
3) I think your Alice quote is very good, and something about it helps me to understand a little more of what you’re trying to do with this Wonderland. I think it would be good for you to go back to this quote; think about why it resonates with your group; and then try to redraft your Wonderland explanation so that it’s a bit more specific.