connection to society

[monique]

Alice in Wonderland remains a classic, read by students all throughout the united states. The reason for its popularity and high rank today, is because of the books ingeneousness...if that's a word. There were so many ties to the economy and society of the time. When alice cries herself a pool of tears, and the mouse begins telling a very boring (other wise known as DRY) story...get it? Then the dodo bird, which "lewis carrol" modeled after himself, offers the idea of a caucus race. The caucus race in the book is a useless game, in which everyone runs in circles and gets nowhere. A caucus race is also a term used for the process in which a political party elects there candidate! Thus, "lewis" is saying that 1. the caucus race is pointless (to dry up means to become pointless..get it...haha!) and 2. Politics is stupid as well. At this time where "lewis" was living, children as young as three would be put to work. Adults would put children to work, not caring about developing them or their health, so that they could make money. Later, people began to comet o their senses and child labor laws were set. The Chesire cat...never tells alice what to do, and helps her to think for herself in the way he answers her questions. The Chesire cat represents the movement that begins to come to life, where more and more children books are being created for simply pleasure. There are many poems that Alice repeats and hears...that are variations from other poems. the poems alice repeats have a much more sinister tone and darker mood to them. The mad hatter is closely related to a man which "lewis" new...who got his name the "mad hatter" from his hat selling but mainly for his eccentric ideas. he was also big on inventions of time, and created an alarm clock, and presented it to the royal court in which the bed would spring up at a certain time, sending you sprawled along the floor. this could be why the mad hatter was so obbsessed with awaking the mouse at the tea party. Also, "lewis"'s friend the mad hatter is quoted, saying that a stopped watch is more accurate than a watch a minute slow, for the slow watch would only be exactly accurate every 50 years or so as a stopped watch would be accurate every 12 hours. This could be why the mad hatter says that time got mad at him and stopped, thus he must always drink tea. lewis' tea party is so wild and outrageous, as opposed to "tea time" during that era, that lewis may be saying that tea time is a useless and silly concept. The queen at the time, Victoria (this book is written during the victorian time...the "stuffy" of the ages...as everything was very fancy) may resemble the queen of hearts herself in the book. there are so many other ties, its astonoshing...the conspiracy about lewis on drugs while writing the book is possible, though the story is so incredible...it may seem unlikely. (and yes...i know the book was oral before written>)

[tubedisaster]

though I can understand why it would be doubted that a genius work of literature was written by someone on drugs, it's really not that unbelievable. honestly, I think he must have been on drugs to think up all of those metaphors and settings. If you have ever experienced being on mushrooms or drugs of that sort, you can find that your brain can produce some interesting things that can really make sense, you just have to think about it for a minute! haha

being on mushrooms (in particular) produce very dream-like quality high and actually provoke thought, just like this story. I dont think anyone could quite understand what I'm saying unless they've tried it themselves.

[Candra]

No records of Lewis Carroll's life indicate that he ever took any kind of hallucinogens. However, the common painkiller at the time was laudanum, and being a tincture of opium, could produce a kind of high with a large enough dose. It is much more likely that Lewis Caroll was just an imaginative man an and excellent storyteller. You also have to understand that, while it was untrue that he was any kind of pedophile, Carroll became easily jaded with the adult life, and it's unlikely he would interest himself in any kind of non-medical drug, since it's generally not something young children do. :]