Alice, the Next Chapter of Wonderland

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a renowned tale of the loss of innocence.  A young girl undergoes many adventures, each of which can be interpreted in dozens of ways.  She falls down a rabbit hole, which could represent confusion, fear, or a loss of identity.  She meets a caterpillar who forces her to admit to her insecurities and to confront the parts of herself that she dislikes.  She comes into conflict with the Queen of Hearts, a cruel woman who not only represents all that Alice hates but also symbolizes the society by which Alice feels controlled and suffocated.  Despite all the hardships Alice endures, the reader realizes that her greatest enemy is not the Queen, the Hatter, or the creepy Cheshire Cat; it is Alice herself.  From Lewis Carroll’s imagination there springs forth a colorful masterpiece that leaves readers questioning the very fundamentals of who they are.

How could anyone follow this amazing act?  It was unimaginable.  How could anyone create an Alice to vie with the original version we so dearly cherish?  Tim Burton had the answer.

Burton’s film Alice In Wonderland develops a new side to Alice… one we didn’t know existed.  In this movie, a grown Alice escapes from the real world back into Wonderland, though she does not remember her first visit.  Alice is being pressured to marry a man she doesn’t love, and her father—the source and symbol of Alice’s imagination—has passed away.  In Wonderland, she meets many of the same characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (the sequel), and she is repetitively informed that she has “lost her much-ness” and that she is “not quite Alice yet.”  This refers to the fact that Alice has lost herself by conforming to society, and that she should become who she once was.  The  Mad Hatter plays a much larger role in Burton’s film than he previously does in the novel, as in the film he represents Alice’s inner child and her imagination.  This metaphor becomes most apparent when the Hatter asks Alice the same question the young Alice asks her father: “Have I gone mad?”  This repetition signifies that Alice is changing back to the little girl that fell down that same hole so many years ago.  Alice is set upon a quest to regain her innocence, her boldness, and her spirit, and the audience waits in suspense at the edge of their seats.

The movie is different from the book we all know and love, that much is for sure.  However, Burton’s bold decisions and interpretations capture the essence of Alice and write the next chapter of her story.  While the book focuses on the loss of innocence, the movie deals with the search for and renewal of innocence.  It is indeed true, Alice is a very different person from the little girl we remember.  However, Tim Burton manages to convey the same magic Lewis Carroll did 150 years ago; he lets us reinterpret the story and ask ourselves, “Who are we?”

Perhaps we’re all bonkers… But I’ll tell you a secret.  All the best people are.