home › Body › Alice in Wonderland is the year the fairy tale was written. What was the real life of Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is the year the fairy tale was written. What was the real life of Alice in Wonderland

Year of writing — 1865

Prototype - Alice Liddell.

Genre. Tale-tale

Subject. The amazing, fantastic adventures of the girl Alice in a dream

Idea. One should strive to know the world, dream, be honest and courageous, appreciate the simple joys of life, a happy childhood.

"Alice in Wonderland" main characters

Alice is the main character
White Rabbit
Dodo is a bird that Alice discovers on the shore next to the Sea of Tears.
The caterpillar is a blue-colored, three-inch tall insect found in chapters 4 and 5.
The Cheshire Cat is the Duchess's cat who often smiles.
Duchess
The Hatter is a hatmaker, one of the participants in the Crazy Tea Party.
The March Hare is a crazy hare that Alice meets at the Crazy Tea Party.
Sonya is a participant in the crazy Tea Party.
The griffin is a mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.
The Quasi turtle is a turtle with a calf's head, tail, large eyes, and hooves on its hind legs.
Queen of Hearts

"Alice in Wonderland" plot

Alice, bored on the river bank with her sister, suddenly sees the White Rabbit hurrying, holding a pocket watch in his paw. She follows him down a rabbit hole, falls down it, and ends up in a hall with many locked doors. There, she finds a key to a small 15-inch door that overlooks a garden, but is unable to access it due to her height.

Alice discovers various objects that increase and decrease her height. After crying, she notices Rabbit, who has dropped his fan and gloves. Waving her fan, she shrinks and falls into a sea of her own tears. Alice meets a mouse and various birds, listens to the story of William the Conqueror, and in order to dry off, plays Run in a circle. The rabbit asks Alice to find his things and sends her to his house. Leaving her gloves there, Alice drinks the strange liquid from the vial and grows up again, barely fitting into the Rabbit's dwelling.

The latter, trying to figure out what's going on, sends Bill's lizard up the chimney, but Alice kicks it back out. The pebbles that are thrown at her turn into pies; after eating them, the main character shrinks again and runs away from home. In search of the garden she saw through the door, she meets the Caterpillar. She advises her to control herself and, in order to regain her normal height, bite off a piece of mushroom.

Alice follows her advice, but various metamorphoses begin to occur to her: her shoulders either disappear, or her neck stretches. Finally she shrinks down to 9 inches and sees a house. After talking with the Frog and entering the building, Alice finds the Cheshire Cat, the Cook and the Duchess in the kitchen, rocking the baby. Taking the child, the girl leaves the house, and the Duchess announces that she is going to go to croquet. However, the baby turns into a piglet and has to be released.

The Cheshire Cat appears on a tree branch. Saying that the Hatter and the March Hare live nearby, he disappears. Alice gets to the Crazy Tea Party, where she tries to solve riddles, listens to the Hatter's reflections on time and Sonya's tale of three sisters. Offended by the rudeness of the owners, Alice leaves.

Entering the door in one of the trees, the main character again enters the hall and finally passes into the garden. In it, she meets the Card Guardians, who mistakenly planted white roses instead of red ones and repainted them in the right color. After a while, a procession led by the King and Queen of Hearts approaches them. Having learned about the fault of the soldiers, the Queen orders to cut off their heads, but Alice discreetly hides the condemned in a flower pot. Alice learns from the Rabbit that the Duchess has been sentenced to death.

All those who come begin to play croquet, where flamingos act as clubs, and hedgehogs instead of balls. The queen is trying to cut off the head of the Cheshire Cat, but this plan was not implemented - the cat has only a head, which is gradually melting. After talking with the Duchess about morality, Alice, along with the Queen, goes to the Quasi Turtle and the Griffin. The turtle talks about his past when he was a real turtle, sings songs and dances. Then the main character, together with the Griffin, rush to the court.

The Jack of Hearts, who stole seven tartlets from the Queen, is judged there, and the King of Hearts himself presides. The first witness is the Hatter, who talks about how he made a sandwich. The second witness is the Cook, who informed the court that tartlets are made from pepper. Alice herself is called as the last witness, who at that very moment suddenly began to grow again. The queen demands to cut off the head of Alice, and the jury to pass a sentence, regardless of the guilt of the defendant. The girl grows to her usual height, and then all the cards rise into the air and fly into her face.

Alice wakes up and finds herself lying on the shore, and her sister brushes dry leaves off her. The main character tells her sister that she had a strange dream and runs home. Her sister, who also dozed off, sees Wonderland and its inhabitants again. She imagines how Alice grows up and tells the children about her sorrows, joys and happy summer days.

72 67 14

The main character of the story. In the books, her name is Alice Liddell and she is about nine years old, Alice appears as a schoolgirl with a bizarre-logical mindset, whose straight hair "always climbs into her eyes", she is gentle, suave, trusting and inquisitive.

Bumalic Hightopp

0 0 0

Sister of the Terrant (Mad Hatter). Daughter of Tuva and Zanik.

Jabberwocky

8 2 1

In the book, this is nothing more than a poem, but what! Jabberwocky is probably the most famous attempt to introduce non-existent words into the language, which nevertheless obey all the laws of the language. The first quatrain almost entirely consists of non-existent words, with the exception of service words.

In the Tim Burton film, this is a ferocious Dragon that is at the mercy of the Red Queen. A disgusting, drooling, foul-smelling creature with a huge, unkempt body and a toothy, bulldog-like snout. The blow of his strong paws leaves Alice with rather painful memories of the regime of the Red Queen.

6 0 0

Hound, an unwitting accomplice of the Red Queen's army, he fears that his wife and puppies are in danger because they are in prison, and does whatever the Jack of Hearts tells him to do. The dog supports an underground group that is trying to resist the Red Queen and therefore becomes an ally of Alice

mad hatter

196 48 7

Hatmaker, one of the participants in the Crazy Tea Party. In the words of the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter is "out of his mind".

In the Tim Burton movie, his name is Terrarant Hightopp.

The White Queen

1 1 1

One of the chess Queens who are going to test Alice to become a Queen. In one of the scenes, the White Queen tells Alice about how you can live backwards and remember the future. The White Queen's shawl flies away, and in pursuit of it, she, along with Alice, crosses a stream and turns into a Sheep sitting at her knitting

white rabbit

10 14 8

A talking animal with pink eyes, wearing a vest and kid gloves. He wears a watch in his pocket and lives in a "clean house" with the inscription: "B. Rabbit". The rabbit is always late for something, and is always a kind of guide for Alice, helping her fall into Wonderland.

In the Tim Burton film, he still worries all the time that he might be late, he is constantly in a hurry somewhere. He must find Alice and bring her to the Underworld to fulfill her destiny - that is why the rabbit shows up at the garden party, where Alice notices him and leads her to the rabbit hole. Rabbit is sometimes extremely irritable and strict with Alice. It is felt that Time is very important to him, and this makes him nervous and catch up with him.

white knight

2 2 0

When the Black Officer tried to capture Alice's pawn, the white officer rescued her and escorted her to the next square.

The White King

0 0 2

Alice meets him for the first time in the first chapter, Through the Looking-Glass House. She then meets him in the seventh chapter "The Lion and the Unicorn". He believes that when you feel bad, you need to eat splinters. Has two messengers "one runs there, the other - from there." He loves accuracy (specifies the number of rati sent) and writes everything down in a book. The king is amazed that Alice sees Nobody and asks to sit down "for a minute." Has a daughter, Lily

Bim Hightopp

0 0 0

Brother of the Terrant (Mad Hatter). Son of Tuva and Zanik.

0 1 0

Royal Messenger Back (The King explains that he needs two messengers, since "one runs there and the other from there"). In Through the Looking Glass, he is essentially a character from Wonderland, namely the Hatter. In Tenniel's illustration, Bolvans Chick is shown sipping tea from a cup in the same way that the Hatter did in the first story, confirming the author's references to this character.

3 0 0

A huge monster that serves the Red Queen and guards the Eastern Sword, which can be used to kill the Jabberwock

Knave of Hearts (Ilosovic_Stayne)

14 9 4

He first appears in Chapter Eight, "King's Croquet", where he carries a crown. Shown as a kind character. Knave then appears in Who Stole the Pretzels?, where he is the prime suspect.

In Tim Burton's film, Knave gets a new name - Ilosovich Stein. He is the Queen's lover and head of her guard.

8 2 0

Guardian of the Chronosphere. He not only closely monitors all the inhabitants of the country, but also decides who is expiring his life. He hangs a closed clock depicting the lifetime of each inhabitant in the hall of the "Dead Citizens of the Underdark".

0 1 0

First mentioned in chapter 2 by Rabbit. In the sixth chapter, she shakes the baby, which she later hands over to Alice. Her cook, having prepared soup, begins to throw everything that she comes across at the Duchess. While playing croquet, Alice learns from the Rabbit that the Queen has sentenced the Duchess to death for slapping her. Subsequently, the Queen relented and did not demand that the sentence be carried out. The character has a sharp chin, and Alice herself considers her "very ugly"

1 0 0

A mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. During conversations, he periodically coughs. Griffin, by his own admission, received a "classical education" - he played hopscotch with his teacher all day

Caterpillar

20 10 5

The insect is blue and three inches tall. He sits on a white mushroom and smokes a hookah.

In Tim Burton's film, the caterpillar's name is Absolem, and he is the omniscient guardian of the Oracle, an ancient sacred document that displays all the most important events of the past, present and future of the history of the Lower Territory.

James Harcourt

0 0 0

An employee of Hamish Ascot.

2 0 0

In the book, it is the bird that Alice discovers on the shore next to the Sea of Tears. Eaglet Ed notes that Dodo speaks "not humanly": his speech is overloaded with scientific terms.

In Tim Burton's film, he is one of the first inhabitants of the Underworld, whom Alice meets when she enters a fantasy world.

1 0 0

In the arrangement of pieces before the start of the game, the Unicorn is assigned to white pieces, and the Lion to black. The Lion and the Unicorn, according to the first statement of the King, are fighting for his own crown. Lion and Unicorn are pretty cute animals. The unicorn tries to make friends with Alice, and the Lion offers to eat a pie in honor of friendship. There are some complications here. Looking-glass pies must first be distributed, and then cut. Alice tried to do everything in a normal way. Suddenly, a drum roll is heard, and Alice falls into the forest.

0 1 0

Royal Messenger There (The King explains that he needs two messengers, since "one runs there and the other from there"). In Through the Looking Glass, he is essentially a character from Wonderland, namely the March Hare.

Zanik Hightopp

0 0 0

Father of the Mad Hatter. Appeared in the film "Through the Looking Glass". He quarreled with his son, defiantly threw away his first hat, but actually kept it.

0 1 0

Alice's delirious aunt

Iracebeth of Crims

27 8 6

The reigning Queen of Faerie, the elder sister of the White Queen, popularly known as the "Bloody Witch". A tyrant who rules the country of the Underworld. An exorbitant head, a fiery temperament and a habit of screaming to order her subjects to beheaded help her to rule the country. In the struggle for power, she killed many civilians with the help of her Jabberwock Bunny. He loses his temper at the slightest provocation or even without it. Her younger sister, the White Queen, plans to take away her throne and crown, which the Red Queen once stole from her by fraud.

Queen Elsemere

1 0 0

Mother of Iratsibeta and Mirana

King Oleron

0 0 0

Father of Iratsibeta and Mirana.

1 0 0

0 1 0

Lord Ascot's wife

0 1 0

Alice's father's business partner and new owner of Kingsley's trading firm

Lowell Manchester

0 0 0

Unfaithful husband of Margaret Manchester, Alice's sister.

0 2 1

Alice's older sister, correct in everything and such as a real English lady should be

March hare

7 11 2

A crazy hare that Alice meets at the Crazy Tea Party. He invites the little girl to drink wine and believes that you should always say what you think. The character was also present at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, where he denied everything. The appearance of the character was influenced by the saying, popular in Carroll's time - "Mad as a March hare" (Mad as a March hare).

In Tim Burton's film, the March Hare invites the Mad Hatter to tea parties at his hare house. The hare looks like a paranoid, he is constantly in a state of anxiety, he is a little crazy, he has a habit of shaking his paws and ears all the time, as well as throwing teapots, spoons and other things. He loves to cook and is the only resident of the Underlands that the Red Queen hasn't gotten his hands on.

Mirana of Marmoreal

33 11 1

The younger sister of the Red Queen, and although she looks white and fluffy on the outside, her personality is actually not so accommodating. She came from the same place as the Red Queen. She likes the dark side, but she is so afraid of going too far that she wants to show everyone only her bright side. When Alice returns to the Underlands, the White Queen takes her under her wing, offering her protection, but her motives are not nearly as altruistic as they seem.

1 1 0

A strange creature from a poem: "Warped. Flimsy sharks poked through the nave.

And the zelyuks grunted, like mumziks in a move.

The Sheep

1 1 0

The White Queen tells Alice about how you can live backwards and remember the future. The White Queen's shawl flies away, and in pursuit of her, she, along with Alice, crosses the stream. The White Queen turns into an old sheep sitting with knitting behind the counter of a shop selling "various curiosities" [note 3]. Alice tries to buy something, but as soon as she comes to one or another shelf, the shelf is immediately empty, although the neighboring shelves remain full. The Sheep gives Alice the knitting needles, which turn into oars, and Alice discovers that they and the Sheep are sailing in a boat on the river. Soon Alice and the Sheep are back in the shop, and Alice buys one egg, which costs more in the Sheep's shop than two eggs. Alice tries to take the bought egg from the shelf, crosses the stream, and the egg turns into Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall

Paloo Hightopp

0 0 0

The younger sister of Terrant (Mad Hatter). Daughter of Zanik and Tyva.

The Tales of Alice are among the most famous books written in English, second only to the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare in terms of quotations. Time passes, the era described by Carroll goes deeper and deeper into the past, but interest in Alice does not decrease, but, on the contrary, grows. What is Alice in Wonderland? A fairy tale for children, a collection of logical paradoxes for adults, an allegory of English history or theological disputes? The more time passes, the greater the number of the most incredible interpretations of these texts.

Who is Lewis Carroll

Self-portrait of Charles Dodgson. Around 1872

The writing fate of Carroll is the story of a man who got into literature by chance. Charles Dodgson (namely, that was the real name of the author of Alice) grew up among numerous sisters and brothers: he was the third of 11 children. The younger ones had to be kept busy, and Charles had a natural gift for inventing all sorts of games. The puppet theater made by him at the age of 11 has survived, and in family papers one can find stories, fairy tales and poetic parodies composed by him at the age of 12 and 13. As a youth, Dodgson enjoyed inventing words and word games—years later he would write a weekly column on games for Vanity Fair. Words galumph According to the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the verb to galumph was previously interpreted as “to move in random leaps”, and in modern language it has come to mean noisy and clumsy movement. And chortle To chortle - "to laugh loudly and joyfully.", invented by him for the poem "Jarmaglot", entered the dictionaries of the English language.

Dodgson was a paradoxical and mysterious person. On the one hand, the shy, pedantic, stuttering math teacher at Christ Church College, Oxford, and researcher in Euclidean geometry and symbolic logic, the prim gentleman and clergyman Dodgson accepted the rank of deacon, but he did not dare to become a priest, as was the custom for members of the college.; on the other hand, a man who kept company with all the famous writers, poets and artists of his time, the author of romantic poems, a lover of the theater and society - including children's. He knew how to tell stories to children; his numerous child friends Carroll's definition of children with whom he was friends and corresponded. they remembered that he was always ready to unfold in front of them some story that was stored in his memory, providing it with new details and changing the action. The fact that one of these stories (an improvised fairy tale told on July 4, 1862), unlike many others, was written down and then sent to print is an amazing coincidence.

How did the story of Alice come about?

Alice Liddell. Photograph by Lewis Carroll. Summer 1858 National Media Museum

Alice Liddell. Photograph by Lewis Carroll. May-June 1860 The Morgan Library & Museum

In the summer of 1862, Charles Dodgson told Provost Liddell's daughters Henry Liddell is known not only as Alice's father: together with Robert Scott, he compiled the famous dictionary of the ancient Greek language - the so-called Liddell-Scott. Classical philologists around the world still use it today. fairy tale improvisation. The girls insistently asked to write it down. In the winter of the following year, Dodgson completed a manuscript entitled Alice's Underground Adventures and presented it to one of the Liddell sisters, Alice. Other readers of The Adventures included the children of the writer George MacDonald, whom Dodgson had met while recovering from his stutter. MacDonald convinced him to think about publishing, Dodgson seriously revised the text, and in December 1865 The publisher dated the circulation to 1866. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was released, signed by pseudo-nim Lewis Carroll. "Alice" unexpectedly received an incredible success, and in 1867 its author began work on a sequel. In December 1871, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There was published.

The British Library

A page from Lewis Carroll's handwritten book Alice's Adventures Underground. 1862–1864 The British Library

In 1928, Alice Hargreaves, née Liddell, finding herself short of funds after her husband's death, auctioned the manuscript at Sotheby's and sold it for an incredible £15,400 for the time. After 20 years, the ru-copy was again put up for auction, where, at the initiative of the head of the US Library of Congress, a group of American philanthropists bought it for 100 thousand dollars to donate it to the British Museum - as a token of gratitude to the British the people who held off Hitler while the US prepared for war. Later, the manuscript was transferred to the British Library, on whose website anyone can now look through it.

Alice Hargreaves (Liddell). New York, 1932 The Granger Collection / Libertad Digital

To date, more than a hundred English editions of Alice have been published, it has been translated into 174 languages, dozens of screen adaptations and thousands of theater productions have been created based on fairy tales. ---

What is Alice in Wonderland

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Library of Congress

Lewis Carroll with the family of writer George MacDonald. 1863 George MacDonald Society

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

To truly understand Alice in Wonderland, it is important to keep in mind that this book came into being by accident. The author moved where his fantasy led him, not wanting to tell the reader anything and not implying any clues. Perhaps that is why the text has become an ideal field for searching for meanings. Here is a far from complete list of interpretations of books about Alice, proposed by readers and researchers.

History of England

The baby duke turning into a pig is Richard III, whose coat of arms depicted a white boar, and the Queen's demand to dye white roses red is, of course, a reference to the confrontation between the Scarlet and White Roses - Lancasters and Yorks. According to another version, the book depicts the court of Queen Victoria: according to legend, the queen herself wrote "Alice", and then asked an unknown Oxford professor to sign the tales with her name.

History of the Oxford Movement Oxford movement- a movement for bringing Anglican worship and dogmatics closer to the Catholic tradition, which developed in Oxford in the 1830s and 40s.

The high and low doors that Alice, changing height, is trying to enter are the High and Low Churches (gravitating, respectively, to the Catholic and Protestant traditions) and the believer who oscillates between these currents. Dean the Cat and the Scottish Terrier, the mention of which the Mouse (a simple parishioner) is so afraid of, is Catholicism and Presbyterianism, the White and Black Queens are Cardinals Newman and Manning, and Jabberwocky is the papacy.

Chess problem

To solve it, it is necessary to use, in contrast to ordinary problems, not only chess technique, but also “chess morality”, leading the reader to broad moral and ethical generalizations.

Encyclopedia of psychosis and sexuality

In the 1920s and 1950s, psychoanalytic interpretations of Alice became especially popular, and attempts were made to present Carroll's friendship with children as evidence of his unnatural inclinations.

Encyclopedia of the use of "substances"

In the 1960s, in the wake of interest in various ways of "expanding consciousness", in fairy tales about Alice, who is constantly changing, drinking from bottles and biting off mushrooms, and having philosophical conversations with a Caterpillar smoking a huge pipe, they began to see an encyclopedia the use of "substances". The manifesto of this tradition is the song written in 1967 " white rabbit» Jefferson Airplane Groups:

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all “One pill and you grow, / Another and you shrink. // And the ones your mother gives you, // There's no use.".

Where did it come from

Carroll's fantasy is surprising in that there is nothing fictional in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll's method is reminiscent of an applique: elements of real life are whimsically mixed together, so the first listeners easily guessed themselves, the narrator, common acquaintances, familiar places and situations in the heroes of the tale.

July 4, 1862

"July noon golden" from the poetic dedication that precedes the text of the book is a very specific Friday, July 4, 1862. According to Wystan Hugh Auden, the day is "as memorable in the history of literature as it is in the history of the American state." It was on July 4 that Charles Dodgson, as well as his friend, a teacher at Trinity College And later - Prince Leopold's tutor and canon of Westminster Abbey. Robinson Duckworth, and the rector's three daughters, 13-year-old Lorina Charlotte, 10-year-old Alice Pleasence, and Edith Mary, eight years old, went on a boat trip down the Isis (as the Thames flowing along Oxford is called).

Page from Lewis Carroll's diary dated July 4, 1862 (right) with addition dated February 10, 1863 (left)“Atkinson brought his friends to me, Mrs and Miss Peters. I took pictures of them, and then they looked at my album and stayed for breakfast. Then they went to the museum, and Duckworth and I, taking the three Liddell girls with us, went for a walk up the river to Godstow; We drank tea on the beach and did not return to Christ Church until a quarter past eight. They came to me to show the girls my collection of photographs, and brought them home at about nine o'clock ”(translated by Nina Demurova). Addition: "On this occasion, I told them the fairy tale 'Alice's Adventures Under the Earth', which I began to write down for Alice and which is now completed (as far as the text is concerned), although the drawings are not yet even partially ready." The British Library

Strictly speaking, this was already the second attempt to go on a summer river trip. On the seventeenth of June, the same company, as well as two sisters and Dodgson's aunt, got into the boat, but soon it began to rain, and the walkers had to change their plans. This episode formed the basis of the chapters "Sea of Tears" and "Running in Circles".. But on the 4th of July the weather was fine, and the company had a picnic at Godstow, near the ruins of the ancient abbey. It was there that Dodgson told the Liddell girls the first version of the Alice story. It was impromptu: to the bewildered questions of a friend about where he heard this tale, the author answered that he was “composing on the go.” The walks continued until mid-August, and the girls asked to tell more and more.

Alice, Dodo, Ed Eaglet, Black Queen and others

Sisters Liddell. Photograph by Lewis Carroll. Summer 1858 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The prototype of the main character was the middle sister, Alice, Dodgson's favorite. Lorina became the prototype of Lori's parrot, and Edith became Ed's Eaglet. There is also a reference to the Liddell sisters in the chapter "Crazy Tea Party": the "kissel young ladies" from Sonya's story are called Elsie, Lacey and Tilly. "Elsie" - a reproduction of the initials of Lorina Charlotte (L. C., that is, Lorina Charlotte); Teal-lee is short for Matilda, Edith's home name, and Lacie is an anagram of Alice. Dodgson himself is Dodo. Introducing himself, he pronounces his last name with a characteristic stutter: “Do-do-dodgson.” Duckworth was depicted as a Drake (Robin the Goose in Nina Demurova's translation), and Miss Prickett, the governess of the Liddell sisters (they called her Pricks), became the prototype of the Mouse and the Black Queen.

A door, a garden of amazing beauty and a crazy tea party

Rector's Garden. Photograph by Lewis Carroll. 1856–1857Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

The gate in the rector's garden todayPhotograph by Nikolay Epple

"Cat tree" in the rector's garden todayPhotograph by Nikolay Epple

View of the Rector's Garden from Dodgson's office in the library todayPhotograph by Nikolay Epple

Fridesvida's well todayPhotograph by Nikolay Epple

Looking through the door, Alice sees a "garden of amazing beauty" - this is the door leading from the garden of the rector's house to the garden at the cathedral (children were forbidden to enter the church garden, and they could only see it through the gate). Here Dodgson and the girls played croquet, and the cats sat on a large tree in the garden. The current residents of the rector's house believe that the Cheshire Cat was among them.

Even the crazy tea party, where the participants are always six o'clock and it's time for tea, has a real prototype: whenever the Liddell sisters came to Dodgson, he always had tea ready for them. The "molasses well" from the tale ------ ki, which Sonya tells during tea drinking, turns into "ki--sel", and the sisters living at the bottom - into "jelly young ladies". This is a healing spring in the town of Binzi, which was located on the road from Oxford to Godstow.

The first version of Alice in Wonderland was precisely a collection of such references, while the nonsense and word games of the well-known Alice appeared only when the fairy tale was reworked for publication.

Chess, Talking Flowers and Through the Looking Glass

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress

Alice Through the Looking Glass also contains a huge number of references to real people and situations. Dodgson loved to play chess with the Liddell sisters, hence the chess basis of the tale. Snowflake was the name of the kitten Mary MacDonald, daughter of George MacDonald, and in the form of a white pawn, Dodgson brought out his eldest daughter Lily. Rose and Violet from The Garden Where the Flowers Spoke - Liddell's younger sisters Rhoda and Violet Violet (English) - violet.. The garden itself and the subsequent run on the spot were apparently inspired by the author's walk with Alice and Miss Prekett on April 4, 1863. Carroll came to visit the children who were visiting their grandparents in Charlton Kings (in their house was the very mirror through which Alice passes). The episode of the train journey (chapter "Through the Looking-Glass Insects") is an echo of the journey back to Oxford on April 16, 1863. Perhaps it was during this trip that Dodgson came up with the topography of the Looking-Glass: the railway line between Gloucester and Didcot crosses six streams - this is very similar to the six horizontal streams that Alice the pawn crosses in Through the Looking-Glass to become queen.

What is the book made of

Words, proverbs, folk poems and songs

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

The elements of reality that make up the surreal world of Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are not limited to people, places and situations. To a much greater extent, this world is created from the elements of language. However, these layers are closely intertwined. For example, for the role of the Hatter's prototype Translated by Demurova - Hatter. pretend-blowing at least two real people: Oxford inventor and merchant Theophilus Carter It is believed that John Tenniel, who illustrated "Alice", specially came to Oxford to make sketches from him. and Roger Crab, a 17th-century hatter. But first of all, this character owes its origin to language. The Hatter is a visualization of the English proverb "Mad as a hatter" - "Be-zu-men like a hatter". In 19th-century England, mercury was used to make felt for hats. Hatters have inhaled its fumes, and the symptoms of mercury poisoning are slurred speech, memory loss, tics, and visual distortion.

A character created from a linguistic image is a very characteristic device for Carroll. The March Hare is also from the saying: “Mad as a March hare” means “Mad as a March hare” in English: in England, it is believed that hares during the breeding season, that is, from February to September, go crazy.

The Cheshire Cat came from the expression "To grin like a Cheshire cat" "Smirk like a Cheshire Cat.". The origin of this phrase is not entirely clear. Perhaps it arose because there were many dairy farms in Cheshire and cats felt especially at ease there, or because these farms made cheese in the form of cats with smiling faces (and they were supposed to eat them from the tail, so the last thing from them remained - this is a muzzle without a torso). Or because a local artist painted lions with gaping mouths over the entrances to pubs, but he got smiling cats. Alice’s remark “It’s not forbidden to look at kings there” in response to the King’s dissatisfaction with the Cheshire Cat’s gaze is also a reference to the old proverb “A cat may look at a king”, meaning that even among those standing at the very bottom of the hierarchical -sky stairs have rights.

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

But this technique is best seen in the example of the Quasi Turtle, whom Alice meets in the ninth chapter. Her original name is Mock Turtle. And to Alice’s bewildered question, what is she, the Queen tells her: “It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from” - that is, what “like turtle soup” is made of. Mock turtle soup - an imitation of a traditional delicacy green turtle soup made from veal That is why, in Tenniel's illustration, the Mock Turtle is a creature with a calf's head, hind hooves, and a calf's tail.. This play on word character creation is very typical of Carroll. In the original version of Nina Demurova's translation, the Mock Turtle is called Pod-Kotik, that is, the creature from whose skin fur coats are made "under the seal.".

Carroll's language also controls the development of the plot. So, the Jack of Diamonds steals pretzels, for which he is tried in the 11th and 12th chapters of Wonderland. This is a "dramatization" of the English folk song "The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts ..." ("King of Hearts, wishing pretzels ..."). Episodes about Humpty Dumpty, the Lion and the Unicorn also grew out of folk songs.

Tennyson, Shakespeare and English Folk Poetry

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

In Carroll's books, you can find many references to literary works. The most obvious are outright parodies, first of all, re-invented famous poems, mostly moralizing ("Papa William", "Baby Crocodile", "Evening Meal" and so on). The parodies are not limited to poetry: Carroll ironically plays with passages from textbooks (in the chapter "Running in a circle") and even poems of poets whom he treated with great respect (the episode at the beginning of the chapter "The Garden where the flowers spoke" plays lines from Tennyson's poem Maud). The tales of Alice are so filled with literary reminiscences, quotations and half-quotes that their listing alone makes up weighty volumes. Among the authors cited by Carroll are Virgil, Dante, Milton, Gray, Coleridge, Scott, Keats, Dickens, Macdonald and many others. Especially often in "Alice" Shakespeare is quoted: for example, the line "Head off with him (her)", which the Queen constantly repeats, is a direct quote from "Richard III".

How logic and mathematics influenced "Alice"

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Charles Dodgson's specialty was Euclidean geometry, mathematical analysis and mathematical logic. In addition, he was fond of photography, the invention of logical and mathematical games and puzzles. This logician and mathematician becomes one of the creators of the literature of nonsense, in which the absurd is a strict system.

An example of nonsense is the Hatter's watch, which shows not the hour, but the number. It seems strange to Alice - after all, there is no point in a watch that does not show time. But they don't make sense in her system of coordinates, whereas in the world of Hat-Now, in which it's always six o'clock and it's time for tea, the point of the clock is precisely to indicate the day. Inside each of the worlds, the logic is not broken - it goes astray when they meet. In the same way, the idea of lubricating a watch with butter is not nonsense, but an understandable failure of logic: both the mechanism and the bread are supposed to be lubricated with something, the main thing is not to confuse with what exactly.

Inversion is another feature of Carroll's writing method. In the graphical multiplication method he invented, the factor was written backwards and above the multiplicand. According to Dodgson, "The Hunt for the Snark" was written backwards: first the last line, then the last stanza, and then everything else. The game "Duplets" invented by him consisted in rearranging the letters in a word. His pseudonym Lewis Carroll is also an inversion: first he translated his full name - Charles Lutwidge - into Latin, it turned out Carolus Ludovicus. And then back to English - at the same time, the names changed places.

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress

Inversion in "Alice" occurs at a variety of levels - from the plot (at the trial of the Knave, the Queen demands first to pass a sentence, and then to establish the guilt of the defendant) to the structural (meeting Alice, the Unicorn says that he always considered children to be fabulous creatures). The principle of mirror reflection, to which the logic of the existence of the Looking Glass is subject, is also a kind of inversion (and the “reflected” arrangement of pieces on the chessboard makes the chess game an ideal continuation of the card game theme from the first book). To quench your thirst, here you need to taste dry biscuits; to stand still, you need to run; blood comes from the finger first, and only then it is pricked with a pin.

Who created the first illustrations for "Alice"

Sir John Tenniel. 1860s National Portrait Gallery

One of the most important components of the fairy tales about Alice is the illustrations with which the first readers saw her and which are not in most reprints. We are talking about the illustrations of John Tenniel (1820-1914), which are no less important than the real prototypes of the characters and situations described in the book.

At first, Carroll was going to publish a book with his own illustrations and even transferred some of the drawings to boxwood boards used by printers to make engravings. But friends from the circle of pre-rafa elites convinced him to invite a professional illustrator. Carroll chose the most famous and sought-after: Tenniel was then the chief illustrator of the influential satirical magazine Punch and one of the busiest artists.

The work on illustrations under the meticulous and often obtrusive control of Carroll (70% of the illustrations are repelled from the author's drawings) slowed down the release of the book for a long time. Tenniel was dissatisfied with the quality of the circulation, so Carroll demanded that the publishers withdraw it from sale. It is interesting that now it is he who is most valued by collectors. and print a new one. And yet, in preparation for the publication of Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll again invited Tenniel. At first, he flatly refused (working with Carroll required too much effort and time), but the author was persistent and eventually persuaded the artist to take on the job.

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress

Tenniel's illustrations are not an addition to the text, but his full partner, which is why Carroll was so demanding about them. Even at the level of the plot, much can be understood only through illustrations - for example, that the Royal Messenger from the fifth and seventh chapters of Through the Looking-Glass is the Hatter from Wonderland. Some Oxford realities became associated with "Alice" due to the fact that they served as prototypes not for Carroll, but for Tenniel: for example, in the drawing from the chapter "Water and Knitting" a "sheep" shop is depicted at 83 St. Aldates. Today it is a souvenir shop dedicated to the books of Lewis Carroll.

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress

Where is the moral

One of the reasons for the success of "Alice" is the lack of moralizing that was customary for children's books of that time. Instructive children's stories were the mainstream of children's literature at the time (they were published in huge numbers in publications like Aunt Judy's Magazine). Tales about Alice are out of this range: their heroine behaves naturally, like a living child, and not a model of virtue. She gets confused in dates and words, poorly remembers textbook verses and historical examples. And the very parodic approach of Carroll, which makes textbook poems the subject of a frivolous game, is not very conducive to moralizing. Moreover, moralizing and edifying in Alice is a direct object of ridicule: it is enough to recall the absurd remarks of the Duchess (“And the morality from here is ...”) and the bloodthirstiness of the Black Queen, whose image Carroll himself called “the quintessence of all governesses." The success of "Alice" showed that it was precisely this kind of children's literature that both children and adults lacked the most.

Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

The subsequent literary fate of Carroll confirmed the uniqueness of "Alice" as the result of an incredible set of circumstances. Few people know that, in addition to Alice in Wonderland, he wrote Sylvia and Bruno, an edifying novel about a magical land, consciously (but completely ineffectually) developing the themes present in Alice. In total, Carroll worked on this novel for 20 years and considered it his life's work.

How to translate "Alice"

The protagonist of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice's Through the Looking-Glass is language, which makes translating these books incredibly difficult, and sometimes impossible. Here is just one of the many examples of the untranslatability of "Alice": jam, which, according to the "firm rule" of the Queen, the maid receives only "for tomorrow", in Russian translation is nothing more than another case of strange looking-glass logic “I would take you [as a maid] with pleasure,” the Queen replied. - Two
pen-sa a week and jam for tomorrow!
Alice laughed.
“No, I won’t go to the maids,” she said. “Besides, I don’t like jam!”
“The jam is excellent,” insisted the Queen.
- Thank you, but today I really don’t feel like it!
“You wouldn’t have received it today anyway, even if you really wanted to,” replied the Queen. - My rule is firm: jam for tomorrow! And only for tomorrow!
But tomorrow will someday be today!
- No never! Tomorrow is never today! Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow?”” (translated by Nina Demurova).. But in the original, the phrase "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day" is not just strange. As is usually the case with Carroll, this strangeness has a system that is built from the elements of reality. The word jam, in English meaning "jam", in Latin is used to convey the meaning of "now", "now", but only in the past and future tenses. In the present tense, the word nunc is used for this. The phrase put into the Queen's mouth by Carroll was used in Latin lessons as a mnemonic rule. Thus, "Jam for Tomorrow" is not only a looking-glass oddity, but also an elegant language game and another example of Carroll's playing with the school routine.-

"Alice in Wonderland" cannot be translated, but it can be recreated on the material of another language. It is these translations of Carroll that are successful. This happened with the Russian translation made by Nina Mikhailovna Demurova. The edition of Alisa prepared by Demurova in the Literary Monuments series (1979) is an example of book publishing, combining the talent and deepest competence of an editor-translator with the best traditions of Soviet academic science. In addition to translation, the publication includes Martin Gardner's classic commentary from his "Annotated Alice" (in turn, annotated for the Russian reader), articles on Carroll by Gilbert Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, Walter de la Mare and other materials - and, of course, , reproduces Tenniel's illustrations.

Lewis Carroll. "Alice in Wonderland. Alice in the Wonderland". Moscow, 1978 litpamyatniki.ru

Demurova not only translated Alice, but performed a miracle, making this book a legacy of Russian-speaking culture. There is quite a lot of evidence for this; one of the most eloquent - made by Oleg Gerasimov on the basis of this translation musical performance, which was released on the records of the studio "Me-lo-diya" in 1976. The songs for the performance were written by Vladimir Vysotsky, and the release of the records became his first official publication in the USSR as a poet and composer. The performance turned out to be so lively that the listeners found political overtones in it (“A lot of obscure things in a strange country”, “No, no, the people do not have a difficult role: // Fall on your knees - what’s the problem?”), And the artistic council even tried prohibit the release of records. But the records still came out and were re-released until the 1990s in millions of copies.

Record sleeve "Alice in Wonderland". Recording company "Melody", 1976 izbrannoe.com

How we do not want to part with childhood: so serene and joyful, cheerful and mischievous, full of mysteries and secrets. An adult, trying to keep him away from himself for a longer time, comes up with all kinds of games with children, funny programs and fairy tales. And fairy tales stay with us for life. One such amazing story is the tale of a little girl, Alice in Wonderland, written over a hundred years ago. This book still captivates children and adults. What is Alice in Wonderland about?

Alice comes from our childhood. Kind and courteous, polite with everyone: with small animals and the formidable Queen. The trusting and curious girl is also endowed with the cheerfulness that children have, seeing life as beautiful and rosy. Not one girl knows A et herself in the heroine and wishes that the adventures from the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" happened to her.

What is Alice in Wonderland about?

Some learned minds are still racking their brains over the words, phrases, sentences, and sometimes unsolved mysteries of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. But the essence of the book is not in the unusual situations themselves, into which the wonderland throws our heroine, but in the inner world of Alice herself, her experiences, amazing sense of humor and subtle mind.

So, briefly, what is the book "Alice in Wonderland" about. The story of the book "Alice in Wonderland" about the amazing adventures of a girl is perceived differently by children and adults. Notice how the little man, without moving, with enthusiastic eyes, watches the events of the picture or listens to this tale. Everything changes instantly: Alice gets into the dungeon, trying to catch up with the Rabbit with a clock, drinks strange liquids, and eats incomprehensible pies that change her height, then listens to the stories of the Mouse, and drinks tea with the Hare and the Hat. And after meeting the Duchess and the charming Cheshire Cat, he gets to play croquet with the wayward card queen. And then the course of the game quickly turns into a trial of the Jack of Hearts, who allegedly stole someone's pies.

And finally, Alice wakes up. And all adventures are accompanied by funny and sometimes ridiculous phrases of mysterious creatures, quick changes of bright and lightning-fast events. And the child perceives all this as a fun mischievous game.

Especially for a child with a wild imagination, many of the characters in the book "Alice in Wonderland" will seem quite real, and he will be able to further develop the story of their life.

And Alice belonged to just such a category of children: with a strong imagination, loving tricks and miracles. And all these unknown creatures, playing cards, animals were in her head, in her little world of miracles. She lived in one world, and the second was inside her, and often real people, their behavior served as prototypes for fictional characters.

The book "Alice in Wonderland" is about how the inner world of a person can be extremely bright and attractive. It's not about what situations happen to us, but in our attitude towards them.

But this is not understood by a small child, it will be understood by a person who has already grown up and re-read the fairy tale again, evaluating it from the standpoint of the years lived and the accumulated mind. For children, this is only fun, laughter and bright pictures, and a quick-witted parent sees a hidden allegory. Take a closer look at the heroes of the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland": the scientist Griffin and the sad narrator Delicacy are painfully similar to teachers with their moralizing, the Duchess, who is looking for morality in everything, to some familiar aunt, a small child who turned into a pig, like herself Alice compares, looks like boys from the class. And the charming Cheshire Cat is probably the only one who is so pleasant to Alice - this is most likely her favorite kitty, about which she spoke with such love due to the negligence of the Mouse.

Turning the pages of this unusual and amazing book, you understand how you don’t want to part with your childhood…

We are glad if you liked the article "What is the book of Alice in Wonderland about". Please also visit the Blog section of our website for more related content.

The fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" is such a significant work for world literature that many, following the English poet Auden, compare the day when it appeared in scale, for example, with US Independence Day.

The story of Alice, who fell down the rabbit hole and entered the land of the absurd, appeared, as is commonly believed, on July 4, 1862. On this hot summer day, in the company of three girls, eight, ten and thirteen years old, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and a friend were traveling by boat on the Thames. To pass the time of walking and relaxing on the shore, Dodgson allegedly told the story of the real adventures of the girls' middle sister, Alice Lidell.

History of creation

The writer had been working on the handwritten version of the tale since November of that year, and in the spring of the following year, 1863, the manuscript was shown to George MacDonald, another friend of Dodgson's. In its final form, it was presented on November 26, 1864 to Alice Lidell with a dedication: "Dear Girl in Memory of a Summer's Day" and was called "Alice's Adventures Underground".

The handwritten version was significantly improved and published on July 4, 1965 by Macmillam and Co with illustrations by John Tenniel. The author came up with a pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, by translating the name and surname twice into Latin and back into English.

Description of the work and main characters

There are several main characters in the story. In its plot, the characteristic signs of the social and political life of England in the 19th century, the scientific community of that time, and folklore are beaten.

The plot begins with a description of a trip along the river, which actually took place in the summer of 1862. The fabulousness of the action begins when, during a stop on the shore, Alice sees a rabbit running away in a hat and gloves, rushes after him and falls into a hole. After flying it, she lands in an underground wonderland. The plot of the adventure is tied to Alice's search for the door to the garden, which she saw through the keyhole in the White Rabbit's house after landing. Looking for a way out into the garden, the heroine constantly finds herself involved in various ridiculous situations with other characters in the fairy tale. The work ends with another absurd adventure, during which Alice wakes up and sees that she is still in the company of friends on the river bank.

Main character and other characters

Each character in the tale personifies one of the phenomena that existed in England at that time. Some have prototypes among real people surrounded by Dodgson and Alice Lidell. Under the name of the Dodo bird, for example, the author hid himself. In the March Hare and Sonya, contemporaries recognized the identities of three famous philosophers of that time.

There are several other main characters in the fairy tale: the Queen of Hearts, who immediately demands executions, the ugly Duchess, the insane "little man" Hatter (Hatter), the Quasi Turtle, the Griffin, the Cheshire Cat, known from the beginning of the fairy tale, the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar.

The author left unchanged and not necessary for decoding only the image of the main character, although he always emphasized that it was not written off from a real child. Alice, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, is easily guessed in the middle daughter of Professor Lidell. The girl has a talent for benevolent curiosity and a logical mindset, an original property.

Analysis of the work

The idea of a fairy tale is based on playing out phenomena and events through the prism of absurdity. The realization of the idea became possible thanks to the image of the main character - Alice is trying to find a logical justification for the ridiculous situations in which she finds herself. Thanks to this technique, the absurdity of the action looms with striking relief.

Carroll introduced into the plot many phenomena that existed in the English life of that time. Playing them in a fairytale plot, he invites the reader to recognize them. The work is a kind of game with contemporaries on the subject of their erudition and knowledge of the history of England, the modern life of the country. Many riddles introduced into the fairy tale do not have an unambiguous answer, therefore they are considered unsolved today.

So, it remained a mystery what Carroll hid under the name Mary Ann, whom the White Rabbit called Alice, and why she had to find a fan and gloves. There are several clues. Some of the researchers, for example, associate the appearance of the name with the French Revolution, the instrument of which was the guillotine. Thus, Alice, in their opinion, is connected with two other characters, the Queen of Hearts and the Duchess, who have a penchant for violence.

The mathematician Dodgson introduced a large number of logical and mathematical riddles into the work. Alice, for example, falling into a hole, tries to remember the multiplication table. Having started counting incorrectly, the heroine involuntarily falls into a mathematical trap cleverly set by the author. Throughout the entire action of the tale, the reader is required to solve many puzzles that Carroll scattered throughout the text without counting.

The fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" is equally interesting to children and adult readers, which is quite rare in literature. Everyone, regardless of the level of erudition, finds food for the mind in the work. The fairy tale has a high artistic value, thanks to subtle humor, excellent literary style, complex, entertaining plot.

Popular in category: