VISUALIZING FANTASY: A Study of Alice in Wonderland and Its Illustrators

... once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

LEWIS CARROLL, ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Alice in Wonderland was my favorite book as a child. My father read it to me, and later I read it again and again on my own. The wildness of characters like the Cheshire Cat and the Mock Turtle, the witty word play, the complete and utterly fantastic nature of Wonderland drew me in time and again. Tenniel's illustrations had much to do with my adoration; his Alice was my Alice and I couldn't imagine the characters any other way.

My first exposure to other artists' illustrations of Alice in Wonderland was at the British Library in London, where I saw Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for the story, Alice's Adventures Underground. He did his own illustrations, and they were nothing like Tenniel's. Carroll's Alice was a dark haired pre-Raphaelite, a direct contrast to Tenniel's little blond in a pinafore. During my NEH seminar at Princeton in 1990, I did research on the illustrators of Alice in Wonderland. To my delight, I found a myriad of wonderful illustrators of the book. It turned out that illustrating Alice in Wonderland was the pinnacle of many an artist's career. Many well-known illustrators have attempted Carroll's book; it seems to be like Hamlet is for actors -- all the greats attempt it. Studying the many different ways illustrators have approached Alice in Wonderland makes for a fascinating literature unit.

IS ALICE IN WONDERLAND FOR CHILDREN?

There are many adults today who will insist that Alice in Wonderland is too sophisticated, too strange, and too scary for children. But it is important to remember that Lewis Carroll told the original story to a little girl and wrote it for children. He wanted to write a different kind of children's book, one with a cranky, imperfect heroine, without a moral, with wit and humor. Indeed, Wonderland is a very strange place. Carroll meant it to be a dream, and to include all the weirdness of a dream. Yet peculiar as the characters may be, none is actually frightening in the manner of a horror book. The most threatening character may be the Queen, and Alice doesn't seem particularly concerned about her. Rather, one of the amusing aspects of the book is the way Alice, a little girl, often appears larger and more frightening to the characters than they are to her. While Alice in Wonderland can be and has been studied by adult scholars, it is first of all a children's book. It has been enjoyed by numerous children, all over the world, for over a century.

LEWIS CARROLL

Lewis Carroll was a rather eccentric Englishman, a mathematics instructor and clergyman at Christ Church College in Oxford. He was born in 1832 as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the eldest of eleven children. Even as a child his talent was evident as he clearly enjoyed entertaining his younger siblings with stories and games. As an adult he became an amateur photographer as well as a writer of mathematical books. A shy man due to a stammer, he never married although he developed close attachments to a number of young girls over the years. While this may give us pause today, his affections were not untypical for Victorians. There is not a shred of evidence that his interactions with children were anything but completely appropriate.

While Carroll had many child friends in the course of his life, one of his favorites was certainly Alice Liddell, the little girl to whom he first told the Alice stories. He first told the story on a lazy rowboat outing on a warm summer afternoon. Eventually he wrote the story down and showed it to some friends who encouraged him to publish it. He did so, and the book was a raging success. It prompted him to do a nursery version, to oversee theatrical versions, to produce toys related to the book (Disney did not invent the tiein), and finally to write a sequel, Alice Through the Lookingglass.

Carroll wrote several other children's books; however, none was as successful as the two Alice books. He died in 1898.

THE ALICE CENTER

Before beginning this unit I set up an Alice enter in my classroom. It consists of many different illustrated editions of Alice in Wonderland as well as other material related to the story, the author, and the period. I constantly come across cartoons, headlines, and ads that refer to Alice. I keep these and display them in the Center. As we get more and more involved in the unit, my students bring in their own books to add to the Center.

MEMORIES OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND

I begin, as always, with memories. I tell my students my experiences with the story and they tell me theirs. Rarely do I find that they have had direct exposure to the book. More commonly, they have seen the Disney film or an adapted stage version. Sometimes they have performed in it themselves.

READING ALOUD ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Alice in Wonderland is best read aloud by an adult. Much of the book is dialogue which will be much more enjoyable for your students if you read it. The vocabulary is difficult and there are many Briticisms in the book. Reading it to your class means that they can focus on the content of the book rather than the mechanics of decoding. I encourage my students to follow along as I read, but whether or not you wish to do so depends on your particular class. What is most important is that the children get the sense of the humor and the language of the book.

I read from The Annotated Alice with notes by Martin Gardner. Much of the book is better appreciated with some background, and Gardner's notes are very comprehensive. For example, most of the poems are parodies of serious poems or songs of Carroll's day. Children in those days were expected to stand before adults and recite poems. Most of these poems taught lessons of good virtue. Thus, "How doth the little crocodile" plays wickedly with the most earnest poem "How doth the little busy bee." Reading a few stanzas of the original poem helps my students appreciate Carroll's humor. I point out some of the mathematical puzzles if the children seem agreeable. I am careful with these interruptions. Too many, and my students will lose interest in the story.

STUDYING THE ILLUSTRATIONS

I provide my students with many different illustrated editions of Alice. In addition to interruptions for context information, we also stop to study the different illustrators. The children become adept at noting the different approaches to illustrations very quickly. For example, Alice is represented in many different ways. Some illustrators keep to an Alice similar to Tenniel's. Others make Alice look more like photographs of the real Alice Liddell. Some doting fathers, like Barry Moser and Michael Hague, use their own daughters as Alice models. Also it is interesting to see what is actually illustrated. Since everything is so wild in Wonderland, some illustrators avoid certain scenes. Disney cut the Pig Baby out of his movie completely and his and others avoid the Duchess's kitchen, perhaps because beating a baby no longer seems particularly humorous. A number of illustrators have commented on contemporary issues within their drawings. Tenniel was a political cartoonist, and there is much speculation that certain characters are prominent politicians of his day. Ralph Steadman makes the playing cards into union cards, and Barry Moser has a March Hare that looks remarkably like Ringo Starr.

RESPONDING TO THE BOOK

I set aside a special Alice time every day for the class. Preparation includes washing hands as my students learn to handle the books as one does works of art. The books are from my own collection, and students are thrilled that I am allowing them to handle them. They have always taken very good care of my books. As we read we also discuss the book. Usually we review the previous day's reading before going on.

In any class, some children are more verbal than others. I ask my students to respond to the book in their journals as well as during class discussions. The journal responses often reveal that children who did not appear to be interested were actually quite engaged by the book.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Once I have finished the book I ask my students to answer the following questions in their journals.

How did you like the book?

Is it a fairy tale? Why or why not?

Is it like Cinderella? Why or why not?

Who was your favorite character and why?

Who was your favorite illustrator and why?

STUDENT JOURNAL RESPONSES TO THE BOOK

My feelings for the book have changed a lot. In the beginning I hated the story and plot, but now looking at it from a different point of view it is a very funny book. (especially the way Lewis Carroll writes it.)

Anna

Alice was a great story! I never knew it could be this good if you read it aloud. I have never read an unabridged version, but now I have all because you showed it to me.

Now I am almost finished with Through the Lookingglass. I think that both of these books are great. Although Alice in Wonderland I find a little better because Alice is doing more and finding more and more interesting things.

Jody

CLASS DISCUSSIONS

Several class discussions follow, based on journal responses. I usually create a class chart such as the following during these discussions. This gives us a permanent record of the group's ideas about the book.

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CLASS CHART ON ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Is it a fairy tale?

Yes,

because it is magical;
you don't know it is a dream until the end;
it is unreal; it is imaginative;
it is makebelieve;
t has magical animals and magical people.

It is like Cinderella because:

The test was for Alice to get to the garden.
Alice has sisters and so does Cinderella.
The King and Queen act like Cinderella's stepmother.
The court case or croquet game is like Cinderella's "ball."
Alice and Cinderella are both girls.
There are animals in both stories.
Cinderella and Alice sometimes have similar personalities.

Favorite characters:

White Rabbit
Mock Turtle
Queen
Mad Hatter
March Hare
Cheshire Cat
Dormouse
Alice
Griffin
Hedgehog and Flamingo

Favorite illustrators:

Anthony Browne
William Bradley
John Tenniel
Mervyn Peake
Barry Moser
Lewis Carroll

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DENNIS POTTER'S DREAMCHILD

Dreamchild is a British film by Dennis Potter. It is a fictionalized account of a trip that Mrs. Alice Hargraves (nee Liddell) took to New York City on the centenary of Lewis Carroll's birth. Although Mrs. Hargraves did indeed travel to New York, most of the film is pure fantasy. It has the elderly Mrs. Hargraves trying to think back to her childhood and experiences with Lewis Carroll. At the same time she is haunted by characters from Wonderland. A subplot involves a romance between her young companion and a brash New York journalist.

STUDENT JOURNAL RESPONSES TO DREAMCHILD

I liked Dreamchild very much. I liked it because it wasn't so "kiddish." Some other "classic" movies I saw made me feel sick. Not because they were disgusting, it was because they were so hammy.

Eric

Dreamchild was great!

Recommended by me. Enjoy the flashbacks. Alice is confused because she doesn't understand. Mrs. Hargraves is nice when you get to know her. Charles Dodgson wants to marry Alice, but she doesn't realize it. Happily, lively Alice doesn't take Mr. Dodgson seriously. Interesting and makes you understand Alice in Wonderland better. Lewis Carroll's real name is Charles Dodgson. Does Alice start to understand at the end?

Rachel

DISNEY'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Last year, for the first time, I decided to show the Disney film. It came up more often then usual in our discussions and I got a copy on sale.

The children were struck by how much of Through the Lookingglass was in the film. They also noted the great difference in the ending. In the book, Wonderland is clearly a dream while Disney's version has Alice running away from the court scene at the end. Disney's Wonderland is no dream.

STUDENT JOURNAL RESPONSES TO DISNEY'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND

I liked the movie a lot but they skipped my favorite parts, like the Mock Turtle. I would have liked to see what it would have looked like. They had her going through the lookingglass in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.

Disney had a good idea of mixing the two together to make one and it turned out pretty good. I especially liked the Walrus and the Carpenter in the Disney movie. In the movie I think Alice should have had brown or black hair because that's the way Lewis Carroll saw her and that's how she really looked (the real Alice Liddell.)

The idea of scrambling up sentences and making them go with different people (or should I say "things") was a good idea to make it shorter.

In all I liked them both a lot, the Disney movie and the Lewis Carroll version.

Mack

I really liked Disney's Alice in Wonderland because I think its really well fixed up for small children. Disney made half of the movie up because the wood doesn't have any of the ducks, vultures, momraths, or any of the other weird animals. Disney teaches a lesson and makes her seem grown up, but in Carroll he doesn 't want Alice to grow up, because he wanted to marry her when she grew a little older.

Sarah

A CLASS COMPARISON OF CARROLL AND DISNEY

A class discussion focused on the similarities and differences between the book and the Disney film produced the chart on the following page.

ALICE PROJECT

The culminating project for this unit is for the students to do their own illustrations for the book. We talk about a variety of materials and ways to approach the project. Some children do a number of illustrations while others have preferred to create one large poster with many elements from the book. Those who feel that they can't draw have used collage and computer drawing programs to great effect. Last year two of my students created, Wonderland stuffed animals. One was a most "cool" caterpillar and the other a delightful Cheshire Cat, with a caption from the story on his stomach.

Some of the most delightful written pieces have placed the Wonderland characters in different contexts. Thus, one child had Alice falling into a manhole in New York City. Another had her falling down an elevator shaft. In one child's view the Wonderland characters were all punk singers and the Duchess looked like Aretha Franklin.

CONCLUSION

Alice in Wonderland is a unique book within the canon of children's literature. Today, there are many who know it only from the Disney film and the actual book is often viewed as too difficult or strange for children today. Approaching the book through its many illustrators is a different way in, yet one that will yield many insights on the part of students and teachers.

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CLASS CHART COMPARING CARROLL'S ALICE AND DISNEY'S ALICE

* Disney took poems and adages from one character and gave it to another. e.g. unbirthday from Humpty Dumpty to March Hare and Mad Hatter.

* Disney scene in woods seemed new although it referred to "Jabberwocky. "

* Disney gives much more of a quest for Alice to go home while Carroll just has her trying to get to the garden.

* Disney's garden is very scary while Carroll's is interesting.

* Disney: Alice tries to wake up.

* Carroll: Sister wakes Alice up.

* Disney's is confusing because it mixes up two stories.

* Disney changes order of events and adds stuff.

* Disney left out the Duchess, the key into the garden, the Pig Baby, the Mock Turtle and Griffin.

* Disney added from Lookingglass Tweedledum and Tweedledee, unbirthday, talking flowers, Jabberwocky, woods

* Disney: Alice learns a lesson: no more nonsense. She seems older. Grows up during the movie. Wiser by the end. Is on a quest/journey.

* Carroll: There is no lesson. Not as serious. Alice is seven and a half. Carroll doesn't want her to grow up.

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