How to Write an Essay About a Book Example

Alice in Wonderland Essay

by Elizabeth Kilgallon

Once upon a time, in a small chamber brimming with books, a girl grew old enough to read fairy tales again. Old, not with the implication of age, but in maturity. To accept the child in yourself and grow from that basis, is wisdom and advancement. When the girl understood that, she picked up her fairy tales once again and in them, becoming enchanted in newfound acuity, found herself.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland book, reason and profundity are nonchalantly catapulted at Alice under the auspices of certain nonsense. Alice falls into Wonderland under the impression that she understands herself and her surrounding reality. Yet as she comes into contact with Wonderland’s caricatures, the manifestations of her own qualities, she is forced to redefine her entire existence in order to salvage her sanity.

Alice first happens upon the White Rabbit, though “happens upon” does not capture how it certainly did not happen outside of the demarcation of fate. The White Rabbit differs sharply from the characteristics Alice conveys. Alice is full of youthfulness, audacity, vigor and swift directness of purpose. Conversely, the White Rabbit is read as an elderly, timid, feeble hare nervously shilly-shallying about. His voice quavers, his knees quiver, and his whole essence suggest that a simple “Boo!” would topple him over. The White Rabbit is indicative of Alice’s anxiety that she has not yet recognized in herself. In the opening of the story, the Rabbit is the entity that intrigues Alice into going towards Wonderland. The Rabbit’s anxious demeanor rubs off on Alice, and she must carry on with it. The Rabbit can be rude and even cruel to Alice when things do not commensurate with his planned procedure, just as anxiety can lead to self-deprecation when mistakes are made. Alice learns to relate to the Rabbit and eventually becomes quite fond of him and is guided through Wonderland by his intense motivations.

Before the exquisite self-examination, anxious tendencies can be a bothered and troubled Rabbit buzzing in your ear, “You’re late, you’re late, you’re late!”. But just as Alice found purpose in her previously trembling companion, anxiety can become a friend. With care and self-compassion, anxiety can be metamorphosed to a drive to perform.

The Cheshire Cat is a point of confusion for Alice as she tries to find meaning in each and every step. The Cat implores her to realize that Wonderland is only certain in it’s undefinable and unreasonable nature. Alice is partial to cats from the beginning, due to her beloved cat, Dinah. The Cheshire Cat feeds off this love just as depression feeds off positive aspects of your life. His disappearances reflect the disorder and mimic the unpredictability of sadness. Alice is forced to struggle in a dichotomous fight between feeling the need to run to the Cat for advice and the shame of then being scoffed at by her derisive “guide”. Though she has no control over him, his sudden judgments, and his shocking arrivals, she learns to progress through the mess that is Wonderland allowing the Cheshire Cat to be a positive aspect of her journey.

Alice’s most confusing parts of her journey are her meetings with the Caterpillar. His lackadaisical guru-like figure helps Alice discover how to control the imaginative world she’s exploring. He is Alice’s insight and imagination incarnate. Alice reaches psychotic levels before she understands the direction of the Caterpillar, but by the end of the story Alice sees the Caterpillar with new, mature, self-actualized eyes, and realizes the Caterpillar is fantastical and beautiful.

Alice’s journey is representative of a common one, a battle against mental illness. The Rabbit being her anxiety, the Cat, her depression, and the Caterpillar, her psychosis. Alice teaches to accept illness as a part of a whole person, not a degradation from the character. The caricatures in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, all part of Alice’s psyche, are all a part of her complicated and beautiful self. She never understood herself before her adventure as many do not before their so-called “existential crisis”. Alice can teach a lesson of losing sanity to find yourself and to never lose hope even in the midst of feeling lost.