A MODERN PERSPECTIVE OF ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

The main question I bear, when I think about the modern perspective of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland is WHY was Lewis Carroll’s imaginative children’s book so full of different perspectives, and why were they all realised post Carroll’s time? The answer is based within the fact that the story has SO many subliminal messages that have harnessed these alternating perspectives, by alternating people. The introduction of many new theoretical ideals helped the imaginative minds of reader’s to expand. One of these important ideals was surrealism, for which Peter Ackroyd states that “...Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the true origin...”. 

This idea is further enhanced by surrealist painter Salvador Dali. The progression of different illustrative designs for ‘The Mad Tea Party’, for which everyone is familiar, is an interesting one. Originally, illustrative artists portrayed it as being simply what it is; a tea party with a strange ‘mad’ host. This image is one that seems to be officially planted within the publics imagination - but why did surrealist painter Dali choose to illustrate this scene with a melting pocket watch and a tree growing through the middle of the table? This very surreal artistry almost displays the presentation of the unconscious expressing itself. 

Furthermore, Dali’s theoretical artistic approach - a more appropriate term, I believe, to illustration -  brings forward the suggestion of the influence of narcotics as a theme in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. The dream like atmosphere that is presented continually throughout the story provides more mature minds to peer upon the idea that this is a drug experience that Alice is feeling. Kate Connell suggests that “The idea of eating a mushroom or drinking from a bottle that causes one to feel altered in some way parallels a drug experience as well.” - this theory can be linked to Dali’s illustration of ‘The Mad Tea Party’ in which he depicts time as ‘melting away’, which could definitely relate to the idea of the loss of awareness of time through the introduction of drugs into the system.