Carroll vs Burton

Lewis Carroll or Tim Burton?  Which of the two are TRULY MAD? And not angry mad but the crazy mad, as is a key characteristic in both their Alice in Wonderland stories.  First off I want to make clear that Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland is not the version of the book but a SEQUEL of Alice’s adventures after Carroll’s adventures for Alice.  Many people don’t get that fact and discriminate Burton’s version of Alice’s Adventures.  Burton likes to take classical movies and books and twist them but he does keep the key concepts.   Though it is hard to compare the two. 

Going back to the clip of the tea party from Burton’s film, I saw that he kept true to the fact that the setting of the tea party was in the same place as written in the book.  The tea party was set up by a tree in front of the house, and the same three characters were present: The Mad Hatter, Mad Hare, and the Dormouse.  There are tremendous difference between Burton and Carroll’s tea party scene.  In Carroll’s story, Alice invites herself to sit at the table as in Burton’s Alice is brought to the table by the Mad Hatter.  Carroll’s characters are angrier in a sense.  The Dormouse is always asleep; the Mad Hare is more talkative and rude, as well as the Mad Hatter and more like the Cheshire cat in being that Alice got more questions than answers. The Dormouse is also classified as a male and the tea party atmosphere from the three feel like they enjoy having a tea party that never got old. 

Burton’s tea party scene was different.  As mentioned before Alice was invited to sit upon their tea party as the Mad Hatter was awaiting Alice’s arrival. Instead of the usual “Mad” the Hatter seemed taken by Alice, meaning infatuated in a sense.  Also he seemed sane.  Though the Hare was the same but he seemed more mental in Burton’s version.  The Dormouse was completely different. The Dormouse is a female, and not really sleepy at all but more noble and knowledgeable than the others. Something I found funny though was in Carroll’s version the Dormouse was being stuffed into a teapot but in Burton’s it was Alice who was put into a teapot to be hidden from the Queen’s soldiers and also the song was sung as well about the twinkle of the bat.  From his tea party, I got a dark feel from it. Also the characters especially the Mad Hatter looked like the tea party was something that he didn’t enjoy anymore.  Also I believe Burton was dead on of the Cheshire cat.

When it comes to the Carroll’s book and Burton’s movie, there really is no comparison because basically they are about two completely different aspects of Alice’s life and stories at that.  I look at the sequel movie as an extension of Carroll’s vision of this girl named Alice and her adventures and her transition into growing up to really growing up. *What I noticed in the two stories is that in Carroll’s book Alice is more dependent on learning from the various characters that she happened upon and in Burton’s movie it’s reversed.  Alice still is there to find her true self but it seemed that the other characters were more dependent on her and learning from her instead.

Alice "Just Who Am I?"

Who am I? Am I Alice or… am I Alice?  What is an Alice? A name. A thing. A word. These things lingered in my mind. Who would have a guessed I’d come close to figuring it out. Sitting by the riverbank, who knew I would encounter something unusual. At first it wasn’t unusual.  What was unusual about seeing a cute, white rabbit with pink eyes scurrying by? Nothing I suppose, but indeed it was an unusual encounter with a talking rabbit wearing a waistcoat and a pocket watch.   I did think to myself that maybe I was going crazy in a sense.  Strangely enough curiosity got the best of me so I followed the white rabbit down the rabbit hole.  I never would have imagined that falling down a hole would bring me to an unexpected world or maybe it was just a figment of my imagination, a dream of sorts. I wanted to continue to follow the rabbit but in the process I grew and shrunk multiple times to get where he was.  He was beyond the door that led to a beautiful GARDEN.  My mind was set I needed to get there, by all means.   Going beyond the doors I became engulfed in my own tears and had to swim my way out.  My tears brought about another encounter one with a mouse (that gets seriously offended when I mention Dinah-my cat, or any cat or dog at that), a Dodo with a strange type of race where everyone wins, Lory which I constantly argued with, and the Eaglet which is such a sassy little thing.  The white rabbit you see, I needed to find and to my surprise he was there and for some reason had mistaken me for his maid someone called Mary Ann.  At the rabbit’s home I met some interesting characters like a lizard named Bill and even the rabbit surprised me.  Maybe he was the crazy one wanting to burn down his own home. 

Later I found myself with a hookah-smoking blue caterpillar that pissed me off to no end.  His riddles and questions just kept getting really annoying. I suppose though his questions did make me think.  Exactly who was I? That question kept ringing in my head. But the questions kept getting annoying so I guessed I went and got him angry when I said something about being 3 inches tall was an unsightly size for me.  Further down my journey I encountered a pigeon that was so bent on me being a serpent, since I had eaten a bit of some mushrooms (suggested by the caterpillar) that made me grow immensely and I had a long serpent-like neck. I met a frog that was quite odd, but even odder was the Duchess and the baby she was nursing.  The Duchess was a weird woman due to the fact that the cook was throwing many things at her like pots, pans, etc and she didn’t even wince once.  Not to mention the baby, it was turning into a pig.  To my surprise though when I met the Duchess there was this grinning cat, the Cheshire cat.  Just like the caterpillar, Cheshire-puss (what I call him), was all about questions and riddles.   That also brings me to the Mad Hatter, the Mad Hare, and the Dormouse led to me by the Puss.  They were having a tea party you see and seeing as the table wasn’t full I invited myself to join in their little soiree.  Not much to my surprise as said by Cheshire-puss they were mad indeed.  Not like angry mad-though some may argue-but more like crazy mad. Could this be an insight to what or who I am? But for their state of mind I couldn’t blame them after the kind of rule they were under.  The Queen or rather Queen of Hearts.  She’s a vile woman I would say.  Wanting red roses and if they weren’t red she’d take off your head.  She even imprisoned the Duchess when she herself asked the Duchess to play croquet with her. Then now I was to play with her. Will she or I play fair? Who knows my head maybe chopped off next...

~Victorian England! What I Thought and Found Out~

When I hear the words Victorian England a few images and words come to mind.Women with big, elaborate dresses trying to have that Lolita look about themselves, curly hair, and are prissy, rich chicks.  They also keep to that old-fashioned bull of the women having to marry, bear children, and tend to their husbands, hand and foot.  I believed it to be an age where not much progressed to what we call today to be.  After doing some research though, I was proved wrong, but not in everything.Victorian England, I discovered, was an era that was shifting into the modern world.  Different artistic styles became apparent schools, and movements involving social/political and religion.  The Victorians were classified as prudes, but modest people who were very proper.

What I didn't find intriguing was that the ideal women still were the ones that needed to be married to have any recognition and tended to their husbands.  The men, even publicly, were able to have mistresses but for a women to have extra marital affairs it was looked down upon.  I believed the advancement of the change for women would definitely not be present but I guess it was changing.  The breaking of the typical female role was beginning.

What is my favorite book? And Why?

I would have to say that my favorite book would have to be The Book Without Words by Avi.  I first encountered this book when I was in the 8th Grade in a book order catalog given to me by my English teacher, Mrs. Meehan.  The reason why it even caught my eye was due to the cover illustration of a raven perched on a human skull and the intricate designing of the Celtic knots on the border patterning the cover.  It gave me a sense of tragedy, eeriness, and something very sinister, and knowing myself it was the type of book I loved to read. Once I started reading it I fell for it even more because the story dealt with something called Alchemy.  Alchemy is a subject I'm very intrigued with.  The book also opened my eyes about humans and their pursuit for things out of their reach and the sacrifices they make either good or bad to obtain that thing.  Even to go far as to sacrifice lives for the sake of one's own and to try to cheat death.