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Home > Research > Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

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As individuals grow old, they have to pass through various experiences that shape their lives. Lewis Carroll, in Alice’s adventures in wonderland, shows us how people struggle to grow up and have a problem knowing their identity. The main subject that comes out in this story is that of growing up and finding one’s identity.  The author, Lewis Carroll adores how young children view the adult world. They look at it with an innocent and fair view. They see the adult life as being complex; that comprising of a lot of rules, egos and bad habits developed in our entire lives. Alice’s adventures in wonderland symbolize how children struggle to live in the complex and confusing world of the adults. In order for her to understand the adult world, she has to try and act like a grown up. She is perplexed as she tries to live by the rules. In Wonderland, Alice comes across a way of living and reasoning dissimilar from hers. She experiences unfair trials, for example, a duchess who seeks morality in everything. Through her journey though, she learns to comprehend the adult life the more, which is a sign that she was growing up. This fact is also brought out by the changes in her physical characteristics, she realizes that ‘she is growing and shrinking (Lewis 3-7).

As time goes by, she begins to know and understand the living things in wonderland. She gets to know from the Cheshire Cat, that everyone was mad there. She also learns to live by the rules in Wonderland and even improves in handling the situation there. For example, she lets the Queen of Hearts know that her order is nonsense and also thwarts her own beheading. In the long run, she successfully adapts to the adult life and loses her vibrant childhood imagination. She also displays a sense of maturity when she gets used to the new sizes she grows into. She terms the Wonderland creatures as ‘nothing but a pack of cards’ (Lewis 27). At this juncture she wakes up in the world of adults. Her sentence “and when I grow up, I’ll write one” shows that she has a conflict between her desire to grow up and her childish imagination (Lewis 28). Concerning her identity, she struggles with the instability of her own personal identity. She has doubts about her identity. She struggles to know the importance of her identity

In the story of Persephone by Bob Blaisdell, the author tries to explain the four seasons on how plants grow. This can be interpreted to mean that in this life, people have to pass through different occasions as they grow up from childhood into adulthood. Persephone appears to be an attractive young maiden just about to become a woman. She is so beautiful that Hades is attracted to her. This story involves general perception on life and death. In her adolescence, Persephone symbolizes the bond that exists between a mother and daughter which is a tricky transition from being a maiden to a woman. She is referred to as the Goddess of Springtime and Rebirth, who is forever connected to the four cycles of the earth. The experiences she passes through in the land of the dead changes her life forever. This is the time she is remembered as the Greek Goddess of the underworld. Her abduction by Hades caused famine throughout the whole world. It shows us how the barren lands of winter can be transformed into abundant crops during the summer. This is a story of healing from grief and life renewal. After the famine, fertility was restored, and the cycle of seasons was established. Persephone has to spend a third of each year underground with Hades and two thirds above the ground with her mother and the gods. So in this way, the seasonal harvest cycle is customary: seeds lie in the grounds for months and then spring up in crops and beauty of rebirth. This is Mother’s day which marks the return of Persephone to the grounds, to her mother Demeter, the Goddess of Harvest. The six pomegranate seeds could be amounting to six months of the year which begin from spring to summer. Whenever they are united with her mother, the earth becomes fertile again and all the plants start to bloom (Blaisdell 178-199).

In the fable story “the Dog and the Shadow” by Greek Aesop, the theme that is brought up is that of greed. Our life has to be free of greed and mankind is advised to be content with what they have. The “Dog and its Shadow” is a type of a fable. Fables are an easy way of curbing faults in the society. Its main character is a Dog that carries a piece of flesh in his mouth to go and enjoy it in a quite place. As he is crossing a bridge over a stream he sees his own shadow in the water and thought it to be another Dog with double the size of his piece of meat. Immediately, he springs into action by dropping his own piece of meat and trying to attack the other Dog so as to get the larger piece of meat. In the end, he loses both his own piece of meat which he had been carrying because it was swept away by the stream, and the other one which he attempted to grasp since it was merely his own shadow. This fable counsels people to be content with what they have. Anyone who desires selfishly what their neighbor has will end up losing twice. It teaches us not to be greedy. It is foolish to be greedy. By grabbing the shadow you will more often than not have to lose the real substance that you have at hand. This is a very good advice. When the Dog attempted to grab that which wasn’t his, he opened him up for the loss of what was in his mouth, that which he was sure of having (Joseph 189-199).

There are many ways of passing wisdom from generation to generation, but the use of fables has been one of the most important and powerful means. The use of animals in fables is very relevant for most people, especially children, who need to be taught moral lessons as they grow up. The piece of meat in the shadow seemed bigger because its image was distorted by the water. The moral lesson in this story takes shape when the dog envies his own shadow and jumps into the water to claim the piece of meat but ends up losing what he had. We learn that it is better to hang on what you have; to be happy with it because it might be the best that you can get, instead of taking risks of having something slightly better. The risk may be a reward or may end in total disaster. This can be a good lesson to gamblers, such that when they take a risk, it is more likely that they will end up having less money than what had. Winning is very rare in gambling.

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