Fantasy in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

 

Fantasy does not represent the world we are living in. Fantasy is a kind of writing that creates a set of unique characters, and a pattern of world completely different from the real one. It builds an imagined world of its own, and develops such events which are impossible to occur in our real world. Magic is one of the key elements of fantasy. Sorcery, witchcraft and enchantment play a vital role in the fantastical world. Magic refers to such occurrences in the story that cannot happen in the real world. In other words, anything that is not based on logic, facts or real world evidences is called magic.

This article aims at exploring the elements of fantasy with reference to the story 'Down the rabbit hole', the first chapter of Lewis Carroll’s novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Overview

Alice feels sleepy getting bored by the book her older sister reads to her. For her the book is of no use because it does not have any pictures and conversations. Suddenly, a White Rabbit with pink eyes appears on that bank of the river, and it closely runs past her. The Rabbit pulls a watch out of his waistcoat pocket and runs across the field and down a hole. Alice had never before seen a rabbit with the things like a waistcoat and a watch. So with a strong desire to know about the rabbit, she follows it and falls down the deep hole that looks like a deep well. As she continues to float down, she looks at the sides of the well, and knows that they are filled with cupboards and book-shelves. Similarly she sees maps and pictures hung upon pegs. On her way down she picks up a jar of orange marmalade from one of the shelves. The jar turns out to be empty, so Alice puts it into one of the shelves. While she is falling down, she talks to herself. She wonders how many files she has fallen. she says that she is getting near the centre of the earth. She wishes her cat Dinah was with her. And finally she lands safely on the heap of sticks and dry leaves.

Alice gets up and even in the dark she sees the White Rabbit. She hears the rabbit saying he is getting late. And the rabbit she has been following disappears in no time. Alice finds herself in a hall with doors around it. She tries to open every door, but to no avail. Alice finds a small golden key on a glass table. She testes it with the doors around. And at last, when she discovered a small door, she tried the little golden key in the lock. The door opens, and she knows that it leads to a small passage, not much bigger than a rat-hole. She looks along the passage into the beautiful garden filled with trees, flowers and fountains. Alice wants to go out to that lovely garden, but the passage is so small that she cannot go through it.Then she continues to think of some solutions. She wishes she grew smaller enough to go in. With the hope that she would find something helpful, she goes back to the table on which appears a bottle marked “DRINK ME”. Alice drinks the contents of the bottle after she makes sure it does not contain poison. Alice immediately starts shrinking, and now she has a proper size to go through the door. But unfortunately she cannot go in because she has left the key on the table that she cannot reach now. In her desperate attempt to go out of the dark hall, she discovers a small cake marked “EAT ME” under the table. Alice eats the cake believing that it will change her size. She will be able to get the key if she grows bigger, and she will be able to creep under the door if she grows smaller. To her disappointment the cake does not change the size of her body.

Analysis

In the story 'Down the rabbit hole', the rabbit takes a watch out of his waistcoat pocket to see the time, and states that he is getting late. In our real world, rabbits neither wear clothes nor speak. Similarly Alice grows smaller after drinking the contents from a bottle that she finds in the dark hall. And interestingly, she eats the cake with a hope that it would change the size of her body. Thus magical thing occur in fantasy, and the people of fantastic world too believe in such miracles.

Fantasy develops a unique world of its own. The story takes place in a completely new world. The setting is full of mystery- dark dungeon, twinkling lights and giant trees, and the characters riding on a dragon's back etc. Readers are not familiar with the place and people of the fantastical world. The appearance, behavior, talent, and problem solving skill of the characters are unpredictable. The story 'Down the rabbit hole' builds its own world with its special characteristics. The hole begins from the earth develops up to a dark hall from where a lovely garden is visible. The dark hole looks like a deep well, and its sides are filled with cupboards and book-shelves. Similarly maps and pictures are hanging upon pegs. Alice neither fears while falling down into the unknown world nor she gets hurt when she lands on the pile of sticks and dry leaves. A door of fifteen inches and a passage in a size of a rat's hole that leads to the garden are also quite mysterious. All these mysterious features of the deep hole and dark hall form a separate world completely different from the real one.

Conflict is the soul of a story. The characters either go through their own inner conflict or fight against a powerful external force. In a fantasy too, the protagonist deals with either of the issues. Here, Alice being fed up with the reading of her sister, dreams of venturing into the land that would bring new adventures and pleasures. Her journey deep down the rabbit hole stands for her longing to do something that would bring a new taste in her life. The beautiful garden where she cannot reach represents her desire to achieve the bliss that she does not have on the bank of river. Her attempt to go through the small door reminds us of the struggle little children make against the evil forces in fantastical stories.

Significance of Imagination

Imagination is the key component of fantastical literature. Although imagination seems to be far away from reality, we cannot deny the fact that it gives birth to every reality that exists in the world. According to Albert Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Imagination is the ability of human beings to explore ideas that do not exist in the real world. It is such a mental product that the world has never seen before. So some people believe that imagination is just a waste of time and energy because for them it leads us nowhere. They think it’s a good idea to work upon the things which are possible. However, it is not easy to separate possible things from the impossible ones. If you see the history of human civilization, the things that were believed to be unreal became real in the passage of time. Before the airplane was invented, a man's idea of flying in the sky was nothing more than a daydreaming. But now it has become a part of human life. Had the Wright brothers not believed in human ability to fly, they would not have made such a wonderful creation. Thus, all the invention and creation of the present world are the product of imagination.

Imagination cannot be separated from humanity. Without imagination nothing can be added to the world. It is applied everywhere, from designing a would be fashionable dress to inventing a spaceship that would explore a new living planet. In the beginning, thinking of the things that no one has seen or done so far seems to be meaningless. But visualizing the thing and repeating its image in mind help in the long run translate it into objective reality. Thus, since imagination results in every creation and invention, it is good to imagine things which do not seem possible to achieve in reality. So fantastical literature is not worthless, it addresses the imaginative faculty of mind.