Paper Topic

For my paper, I would like to focus on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a breakthrough for children's literature. Before the creation of Alice, children's literature was brutal, morbid, and kind of scary. The stories were created to teach the children a lesson or scare them out of doing things that were frowned upon. Alice gave children a story to read that wouldn't give them nightmares, but instead allow them to use their imaginations. Without Alice, I feel as though children's literature would not have started to head in the direction of Disney type of stories and nursery rhymes.

The Alchemist

I have noticed that in this section Santiago has become more confident and aware of his place in the world. He is no longer wandering about aimlessly and trusting everyone he meets. He started to take charge by suggesting different ways of furthering the success of the crystal merchant's business. He also began speaking out more about his personal legend. It seems like he is almost warning the people around him about the legend. I can't really tell if it is a way of bragging or a way of protecting the people around him.

Burton v. Carroll

In the clip that we watched in class, the characters seemed pretty different than from in the book. Alice seemed much older and less naive. She almost acted reluctant to do anything that the other characters told her do. Instead, Burton made the other characters excited to see her. In the book, Alice is much more curious of Wonderland and it's inhabitants. The inhabitants are the ones that do not seem all that interested in meeting her. Also, the Mad Hatter seems almost more important than Alice in the movie. In the book, he seems only to play a minor roll compared to Alice. The Mouse in the movie acted hyper and enthused while in the book he merely slept the whole time. I enjoy both the movie and the book, but the differences are obvious.

Caterpillar Meets Alice

Sitting atop my mushroom, I saw a little girl climb up to me. She had several questions but had no idea who she was. As I smoked my hookah, the girl stared in astonishment. The girl seemed rude if you ask me.   Insulting someone's size is never in good manners. However, because I am a decent person and because this little girl actually believed that she was changed for the worse, I helped her anyway. Now my mushroom is no longer whole and I am left with her insults and my hookah.

Victorian Era

Last semester we talked a little bit about the Victorian Era. Our instructor told us that in that time period mental illness was rarely treated with medication or even counseling. It was thought at the time that if one was suffering of a mental illness the only acceptable cure was plenty of rest and alone time. This seems ridiculous today considering the fact that anyone who has a mental illness probably also has trouble sleeping and spending a lot of alone time would only seem to make matters worse. I thought that this idea would fit in to our study of Lewis Caroll and Alice because from what we learned in class he seems a little on the crazy side.

Favorite Book

One of my favorite books that I have read is Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis. My brother introduced me to this book a couple years ago. I liked it because it talks about Kiedis's struggle with drug addiction and it also explains how the band Red Hot Chili Peppers was affected by this addiction throughout the years of its existence. The book also had a section full of pictures and I enjoyed seeing pictures of the band and of Kiedis. Scar Tissue is an enjoyable book for anyone who is interested in bands. It has a lot of partying and other ridiculous stories of the band. It's a relatively long book, but it is interesting enough to not matter.