Lewis Carroll's Adventures in Wonderland provides a physical removal from reality by creating a fantasy world and adventure in the mind of a young girl. In this separation, Carroll manages to bend the rules of the temporal world. While this is evident in Alice's physical transfigurations, language and conventions provide further means of testing whether a world can defy the rules that are given didactically to children and become second nature to adults. Perhaps it may be an inevitable outcome given that Carroll was raised in a world that operates within a structured set of rules, but the "wonderful dream" seems to be particularly similar to the "boring reality" that Carroll attempts to escape (98 ). Fantasies seem to be forever limited by what reality allows the mind to imagine. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The opening scene provides a possible metaphor for Carroll's artistic endeavor in the face of these constraints: Alice opened the door and found that it led to a small passage, not much larger than a mouse's nest: she knelt down and he looked down the passage into the most beautiful garden you had ever seen. How much he wanted to leave the dark room and wander among those bright flower beds and those cool fountains, but he couldn't put his head beyond the door (10). Alice seems quite capable of seeing that more beautiful world exists beyond the confines of her environment. By making the distinction that it is its head, the physical location of the mind, that prevents it from proceeding, Carroll suggests that the mind provides the barrier to enter the Eden-like grounds of pure beauty. Alice's subsequent struggle to physically transform and re-enter these boundaries mirrors Carroll's effort to enter into limitless imagination. Adult consciousness becomes comparable to the "mouse hole" in which Alice finds herself trapped. By basing the narrative on Alice's eyes and imagination, which are just beginning to instill lessons, and physically removing her from the temporal world, Carroll adapts the conditions of her adult world to explore whether childhood represents the only opportunity or the " key" "to access the imagination. Yet, even if it changes the parameters of the world and the eyes of the beholder, her effort seems doomed to failure; when Alice finally locates the garden, she discovers that her conception of perfection is contaminated. As the gardeners paint the red rose bush white, Carroll's vision of beauty becomes subject to the same forces that dominate reality. Alice's youth creates the possibility of seeing an alternative world through eyes not completely corrupted by the social conventions of reality, but his efforts to maintain Victorian manners when his new environment creates no pressure to do so suggest how deeply the rules of the world are imprinted on the mind during childhood. Alice's language is imbued with the artificiality of her world. His pompous words: "You will not be beheaded", reflect the fact that school education is not abandoned even in a moment of apparent crisis (65). In many cases, Alice even tries to transfer her conception of good manners to this new environment. He finds it "downright uncivilized" that the waiter is looking at the sky all the time he speaks (46). She almost seems willing to forgive his rudeness if only he could answer his question: "But what should I do?" (46). Alice's rejection of the waiter's response, "Anything you want," represents Alice's willingness to exchange one set of behaviors for another on the condition thatis told how to behave and act, indicating that it is not good manners that she values ​​but the way she behaves. freedom to decide what to do (46). It is in this moment that Alice appears to reject the opportunity for imaginative freedom and instead opts for the safer boundaries created by the dictates of reality. Although Carroll manages to alter the content of Alice's new education, her systematic attempt to remember her schooling further indicates that her mind has become so conditioned to being told how to act and respond to situations, that she is unable to get out of it. from this trap, even when the possibility arises. Immediately afterwards Alice recalls: "When I read fairy tales, I imagined that things like this never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! A book should be written about me", she realizes that "there is no more room to grow here” and concludes that this means he will always have “lessons to learn” (29). Alice's shift in thought from fantasy stories directly to lessons and books suggests that her imagination is never able to escape the confines of a teaching; she believes that as a child it is her duty to take care of school (29). He even imposes lessons on himself as he "folds his hands in his lap as if he's saying lessons and starts repeating them." (16). Perhaps Alice will reach adult status when she has been so conditioned that the mantras of educational systems become immediate responses. It is almost as if, in projecting his conception of a meaningless world, the child, simply by being a product of what Carroll despises, namely a world of socially constructed rules, constitutes an obstacle to escape from reality. Carroll encounters a difficulty in allowing his own imagination to escape reality. He creates a mocking parody of Alice's reality lessons in the Mock Turtle's informative speech about Wonderland educational materials, but never manages to transcend the idea that a world must be governed by education. Carroll's new world may study "Reeling and Writhing" or "Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Brutification, and Derision" instead of traditional subjects, but the inhabitants of Wonderland are still trapped by the mechanical process that removes free thought from educational experience. (76). The rules, like the lessons, are certainly different in this fictional place, only to be replaced by a whole host of new ones. The croquet game exemplifies how Carroll can create an alternative reality only by building a world based on oppositions to the one in which he lives. For example, in normal croquet there are distinct rules, while in Wonderland "they do not seem to have any rules in particular: at least, if there are, no one observes them" (67). The new rules consist of disobeying the old ones. Perhaps imagination can never escape man's tendency to use his own experience as a starting point for creating change. In this case, the imagination of an author as well as that of his characters will forever remain anchored to reality. To examine what a world without rules looks like, one must first understand what a world with rules looks like. Alice's concern with rules materializes in her comment "this is not a regular rule: you [the King] made it up just now" (93). Thus, even as Carroll changes the rules, Alice remains trapped in her desire to define them, creating a further obstacle to exploring how a land without laws would function. All the characters Alice encounters simply seem to be stand-ins for the adults Alice encounters. in reality, and it is precisely these figures who act as teachers of these new lessons and rules. The characters constantly change the rules andthey use language as a weapon that Alice seems to continually try to understand. The Duchess is contradictory, condescending and desperately pedagogical. As the Mock Turtle stands on the ledge of a rock to tell his story while Alice sits in front of him, the environment mirrors that of Alice's classroom where a teacher stands in front to give lessons. Tuttle even adopts a schoolmaster tone of voice as he tells Alice, "You really are very boring." (75). Leach suggests that "[t]hey behave towards her as adults behave towards a child: they are peremptory and condescending" (Leach 92). In creating these characters, Carroll is unable to escape the idea that children require education and need adult-like figures to enforce the rules. Carroll criticizes the traditional education system by using Wonderland to parody its flaws, suggesting that even in his own mind he finds the problems of imagination and reality inseparable. The sardonic tone that accompanies Alice's observation of the inhabitants and customs of Wonderland reflects that Carroll is all too aware that his dream world is only a distorted version of reality. Peter Coveney suggests that "the dream takes on a quality of horror because Carroll "is painfully awake in his dream" (Coveney 334). Although Carroll tries to veil his dissatisfaction with reality in Alice's innocence, it almost seems as if he is putting test Alice's awareness of her suffering: it was all very well to say 'drink me,' but wise little Alice would not have done it at that moment. 'No, I will look first,' she said, 'and see if there is. is it written 'poison' or not"; for he had read several cute little stories about children who had been burned and eaten by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they did not remember the simple rules which their friends had taught them: how, which a hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and he had never forgotten that, if you drink a lot from a bottle marked "poison", it is almost certain that sooner or later you will not agree with yourself. (11).The insinuation of both suicide and self-inflicted pain seems an incongruous reflection for a seven-year-old; Alice becomes a vehicle through which Carroll reveals his preoccupation with such tortuous thoughts. As Alice proceeds to drink the bottle mysteriously labeled “drink me,” Carroll plays with a distorted version of the attempted suicide (11). He is able to disguise his attempt in Alice's innocence, revealed in her childhood memories of poisoning, which leave her unaware of the severity of the consequences of a bottle that might contain poison. It seems rather morbid that Carroll would choose to put Alice in a situation that would make her even contemplate such violent images. Rackin suggests that Carroll's particular genius "depends heavily on his extraordinary ability to enter fully into the mind of childhood, to become the child who dreams our adult dreams" (Rackin 113). Even if Alice is unable to fully understand the suggestions that Carroll plants in her head, the author appears fully aware of the consequences of the poisoning. While the incident with the mysterious bottle marks Alice's initiation into Wonderland, Carroll's decision to culminate his tale of Wonderland in a legal tribunal creates a suitable environment for his final attempt to use the youthful imagination to escape reality. The narrative even admits that "very few girls of her [Alice's] age knew the meaning of it all" and, by placing Alice at the pinnacle of worldly law, impliesthat she too, even in her imagination, is responsible for the rules of reality (86). The court scene seems more like a trial of imagination than an investigation into the identity of the unsavory thief. The Queen's directive, "Sentence first-verdict later," (96) reveals Carroll's feelings of entrapment. He has been condemned to grow old and live by society's rules only to recognize that the verdict has always been against the imagination; his construction of "things and nonsense" seems to be precluded by social conditioning against imagination (97). It seems strange that Alice would wake up to declare this a "wonderful dream," when moments earlier she is overcome with anger at the injustice of the Queen and King's tyrannical court, potentially creating a serious indictment of the reality in which wakes up. A second possibility is that it is Carroll's vocal pronunciation of the word "wonderful", wishing just like Alice that she could respond to society's dictates, "Shut up!" - “I won't” (97) just like Alice had done a few minutes earlier. Alice's continued determination to persevere in this world of nonsense and, more specifically, her willingness to point out her weaknesses might help explain why Carroll embarks on what he seems to consciously believe to be an impossible mission: to escape reality. From the beginning, Alice is characterized as believably human: she is rude, impatient, and repeatedly naive in her observations. Yet it is her flaws that allow us to identify with her as representing our own entrapment in reality. His youth offers the audience and Carroll the opportunity to revisit the naive belief that there is an escape from our everyday experience and, furthermore, that with a methodical and logical approach it is possible to understand our environment. Although Alice is frustrated by the new reality she encounters and her resistance to her systematic way of understanding it, despite all her difficulties she optimistically continues her search for the garden. On the second try, with the little golden key in hand, he confidently states, "Now, I'll do better this time" (61). In her search for escape and understanding, she becomes “the naïve champion of the doomed human search for meaning and lost Edenic order” (Rackin 96). Perhaps Carroll is suggesting that when faced with an earthly surface full of disappointment, anger, and frustration, adults must retain Alice's resilience and unaltered conscience. His ability to wake up and immediately go to tea, "thinking as he ran, I might as well have what a wonderful dream that had been" provides a demonstration of this survival mechanism at work (98). There seems to be no distinction between his dream world and his living world; her imagination blends seamlessly with reality, suggesting that we too must follow Alice's example in how to deal with nonsense as we transition from Alice's world to our own reality. Alice's inability to reflect on Wonderland is what allows her to proceed energetically to her next encounter. His reply, "Who takes care of you?"..."You're nothing but a pack of cards!", functions as an immediate rejection of unfairness and unfairness and brings the matter to a conclusion (97) . If there really were a moral to Alice in Wonderland, believing that Carroll is only trying to tell us that we must all maintain our naive innocence in the face of reality would mean reducing the interpretation of his work to one of the maxims espoused by the Duchess. Carroll seems to recognize the impossibility of such research and, interestingly enough, it is one of the Duchess's statements that provides complications to this. 1991.