Alice's Adventures in Wonderland pt 2

I realized that in my first blog I was calling the book "Alice in Wonderland" When the actual title is "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Actually the first proposed title for the book was "Alice's Adventures Underground" because the book was supposed to have a darker nature. In Wonderland Alice has a lot of trouble with the inhabitants because she believes everything there will make sense in some way or another and when it doesn't she gets very confused and frustrated and she doesn't know what to do. Like the Mad Hatter, he asks a riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk?", when Alice asks for the answer he hasn't got one for her. She is very frustrated because she believes there MUST be an answer or he wouldn't have asked. The teatime with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare also seems to make little to no sense. Time is described as a person and is given characteristics while they question her every thought. This is shown when they ask her to take more tea. "I haven't had any yet so I can't take MORE" exclaims Alice. "Its very easy to take more than nothing" The Hatter argues. At every turn they question and frustrate her to no end. Nothing they do seems to make any sense. It is said that Carroll is comparing the Hatter's and Hare's teatime to teatime in real life. He believed teatime was an annoying affair with everyone talking but nothing being talked about. The teatime is a "grown-up" situation that Alice thinks she can handle, but it turns out that not everything in life makes sense or has a point. The Caucus Race is another example. All the animals do this race in order to dry off. All they do is run around in circles with no object, no goal, and no winner. Alice doesn't understand the point and is then forced to reward all the runners. Critics say that Carroll is comparing the animals to politicians. They run around in circles, wasting their energy and time and never seem to get anything accomplished. Carroll was an excellent writer as well as a storyteller for children so he was easily able to combine the two to make Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland!

Alice in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll is a book about childhood innocence. It is said that Carroll might have written this book when he was high on drugs but many critics think that that is just garbage. Many people believe that Carroll wrote his book as a children's story for girls he was very close too. The one he was the closest to was named Alice. Carroll was always very good with children and even is this story was meant as a childrens story it has a lot of literary value. The main idea of the story is Alice growing up. Throughout the story Alice changes size multiple times. When she changed size she would get frustrated and upset, sometimes she even just sat down and cried. I think that her change of size is supposed to be similiar to a child going through puberty. A child going through puberty goes through many changes and it may b difficult to get used to them at first. The changing of size also relates this book to Gulliver's Travels. In Gulliver's Travels the main character himself doesn't change but he finds himself either bigger or smaller than the people around him and it causes many problems. In Alice in Wonderland it is Alice herself that changes size and makes her bigger or smaller than she should be for the situation at hand. In Wonderland most of the people she runs into are actually animals. Animals seem to be higher in hierarchy than humans very similiar to Gulliver's Travels when he went to the land of the horses. None of the animals really think very highly of humans. I feel that this story will make a great addition to my senior study and I might read Through the Looking Glass to get a little bit more because Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is such a short book.

Gulliver's Travels once again...

This blog is somewhat about the last two parts of the book Gulliver's Travels but it's also about comparing the parts. In the third part Gulliver goes to many different places. He starts in the land of Laputa where all the citizens have great appreciation and intelligence about music and mathematics. The capital of Laputa is a floating island that uses a lodestone to float over different parts of the mainland. The king of Laputa is not a allowed to leave the floating island but when he is mad at a village on the mainland he makes the island float over that village so it doesn't receive any sun or rain. The inhabitants only believe music and certain math to be useful and don't have knowledge on anything else. They consider practical geometry a bad thing so have no 90 degree angles in their buildings. Later Gulliver goes down to the mainland and visits a university. Each of the students and professors there have ridiculous and (to us) impossible ideas. One person tried to get sunlight out of cucumbers and store it in a jar for future use. Gulliver travels to many other places throughout this section, he travels to Glubbdubdrib where a magician summons up spirits of famous dead people so that Gulliver can talk to them. Then he travels to Luggnagg where certain people have the ability to live forever. Gulliver finds this so fantastic to be able to talk to people that have been around for so long and to learn from these elders, but it turns out that over the years the Struldbrugs(the people that live forever) turn crazy, forgetful and selfish and are only a burden on society. In the fourth section he travels to the land of the Houyhnhnms or horse people. In this land he is considered a "yahoo". A yahoo is the more animalistic version of the human race. They are covered in hair, have long tough nails and are vicious and unable to reason. He views the yahoos as disgusting creatures and soon views the entire human race that way. Yahoos get into fights that are very similiar to how humans act, but to the houyhnhnms it doesn't make any sense. Houyhnhnms are moral creatures and treat everyone equally and with courtesy. They are rational and intelligent yet have no way to describe a lie. It is impossible for them to lie and altogether don't understand the point of saying what is not.
I personally think these two sections have more of a fantastical and fairytale feeling to it. But these sections are so full of strange ideas and people that it is sometimes hard to see the point Swift is trying to get across. In the third section he mocks the ridiculousness of strange sciences that do no one any good. The Struldbrugs are capable of living forever, the dream of many individuals, and yet cannot enjoy it and are doomed to a terrible and depressing life. The fourth section however shows how Gulliver has given up on the human race. He wishes to stay with the horses and not return to England. He finds the human race disgusting and irrational. He no longer wishes to be a part of it. This is really a turning point for the character and for the reader. It sums up all of his adventures and all he has learned from the other races about them and humans in general. I feel that the fourth section may be the most important, but why is the first and second sections the only ones remembered? More specifically, why is Lilliput the story people identify with? I feel that the message of the the third and fourth section is a little obscured because of all the fairytale like qualities associated with them. I also feel that people may not want to remember the fourth section and the big revelation that Gulliver has. People don't want to think of themselves as yahoos. It makes them uneasy and that may be why the fourth story is less recognizable, because of human's dislike of seeing the bad in ourselves.

Gulliver's travel to Brobdingnag

Gulliver's second travel is the the land of Brobdingnag. In Brobdingnag it is the exact opposite of Lilliput, instead of being bigger than everyone else he is much smaller than the inhabitants. The author seems to use this as a way to show the opposite side. Instead of worrying about trampling on people as Gulliver did in Lilliput he has to worry about being trampled on! In the beginning of the second part Gulliver is saved by a farmer whom he calls "master". His master saves him from the outside world and keeps him to do tricks. His master practically works him to death doing what are "little tricks" to the inhabitants of Brobdingnag even though they are great feats for him. His master uses him in the meanest way just to make a bit of money. Gulliver was almost equal to a god on Lilliput, but in Brobdingnag he is nothing more than a curiousity, an oddity. The same way Gulliver used the small sheep and goats from Lilliput, his master used him. Eventually he is so exhausted that he cannot continue and his master sells him to the queen of the land. His master's daughter which Gulliver calls Glumdalclitch or "little nurse" in the Brobdingnag language, comes with him. He has many other experiences in Brobdingnag but each experience really is used to show how small he is. He runs into problems fighting rats, mice, and bugs. He's kidnapped by a monkey and has many fights with a dwarf. The dwarf seems to dislike Gulliver because he was always used to be the smallest and got used to the attention of being smaller than everyone else. Gulliver is so much smaller than the dwarf and sort of "steals his thunder". Gulliver is also used by some of the ladies in waiting as sort of a sexual plaything. The ladies don't seem him as a person, just an object. Gulliver is very disgusted by the ladies and how they look. Because Gulliver is so much smaller his senses are so much more acute. The ladies look disgusting, their pores are huge, their skin imperfect. These ladies would be considered very beautiful if he had been their size, but if you look at anything close enough you will be able to imperfections. This story has a good message about the nature of pride. Gulliver loses all sense of pride and accomplishment because he is so small. Swift sort of ridicules pride and how easy it is the lose. What about this story makes it seem less important than the first part of the story? Why do people remember the first part? Both parts had very strong messages ridiculing human nature. I feel that the first part was more whimsical. It showed Gulliver's wonder of all the small things in Lilliput. The stories told in both parts had a message but the stories in Lilliput seemed to be more exagerrated and ridiculous. In Brobdingnag, all the stories told about the land seemed to be very serious and more to the point. In Lilliput the entire part was building Gulliver up. He felt strong, important, and powerful. Its the exact opposite in Brobdingnag, he feels useless, unimportant, and dehumanized. Although both parts were written in a similiar style, Gulliver's Travels contains no dialogue whatsoever, the first part was an easier read and maybe that is why it is more easily remembered. I think Swift's style of writing in this book is very interesting. It seems to be more of a journal than it is a book. Gulliver keeps track of his travels and adventures but he doesn't have any dialogue. He will sometimes tell you the general gist of what each character says and the conversations they have but quotations are never used. It seems more like story time that way and makes the story that much more childlike, whimsical, and more memorable.

Gulliver's Travels Post numero uno!

The first book I have decided to read for my senior project is Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The theme or idea I was going to try to go with for my project is how fictional stories survive the test of time. How certain ideas and themes show up in other parts of our culture. If you were to mention Gulliver’s Travels the first thing that is thought of is the island of the little people but that’s only the very first part of the book. There are three other parts, so why is the first part the only that anyone remembers or can identify with? I have only read the first part of the book but I’d like to compare the other parts later and see if there is something special about the first part that makes it the thing that sticks in everyone’s mind.

In the first part of Gulliver’s Travels the main character is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput. He is awaken to being tied down to the beach and poked by tiny spears that feel like needles. The island of Lilliput is inhabited by little people about 6 inches tall. Gulliver is kept as a prisoner for awhile but when he finally gets the Lilliputians to trust him he is released. Because Gulliver is so much bigger than the Lilliputians, it takes a lot more of their food, drink, bedding, and clothing to sustain him. We soon learn that there is some dissent within the island of Lilliput. There are two groups of people in Lilliput that fight amongst themselves. There are the high-heeled and the low-heeled. The emperor of Lilliput is a low-heeled and only employs other low-heeled people. That of course makes the high-heeled people mad and they fight amongst themselves. This sounds a lot to me like political parties fighting over different issues. But it can also refer to the fight between the Whigs and the Tories.

There is also another island called Blefuscu. That island is also inhabited by little people. The people of Lilliput and the people of Blefuscu used to live and work together. Everyone opened their eggs from the large end. But then someone decided to open his egg from the small end. It caused a revolution. Soon small end openers and large end openers fought. The Lilliputians were outraged that people would open their eggs from the small end. They believed it was against their religious writings. But in the writings it says “That all true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end.” This statement of course can be interpreted differently depending on who reads it. I feel the fight between the people of Lilliput and the people of Blefuscu is supposed to show how stupid it is for the Christian religions to fight each other. They fight over the interpretation of the Bible and no one is really wrong or right.

Gulliver soon helps the Lilliputians conquer the Blefuscuns and he is revered as a hero, but when he tells the emperor of Lilliput that he cannot in good conscience allow him to make the people of Blefuscu slaves he is accused of committing treason. His punishment is to have his eyes poked out. Of course Gulliver doesn’t like that idea so he escapes to Blefuscu. They treat him well enough until he finds a boat his size and is able to sail back to his family.

I feel the plight of the Lilliputians and a lot of their so called “crazy” customs were written to make fun of the world and how people fight over stupid things and no one really wins in the end. The Lilliputians have a strong sense of honor which we look at as a good thing but because of the honor their punishments are so much worse. Although people get rewards for doing good the punishments seem a little harsh. If someone were to accuse an innocent man of something, the accuser would be killed. The death penalty is very prominent in Lilliput somewhat mocking people about how easily we kill others. I look forward to comparing the merits of this part to the other parts to find out why this part is more “superior”.