Character Description
The protagonist is Alice. Alice is a seven year old girl from Great Britain with lot of imagination. She is well raised and educated and likes to show that to others. She is also polite, and interested in others, but sometimes says things that offend others and is easily offended by rudeness. The character of Alice is based on a real girl. Alice Liddel, a child friend of the author. The book does not really have an antagonist, but the Queen of Hearts, also known as the Red Queen is the character that comes closest, during the game of cricket she tries to get Alice beheaded. The only other character that has an important recurring role, is the white rabbit. He shows up multiple times and contributes to the story, because he does something that results in Alice going somewhere. The white rabbit is always nervous and in a hurry. He does not have problems with his confidence. He contradicts the King of Hearts during the trial.

Personal opinion

I chose to write a book report about Alice in Wonderland, because I had heard a lot about it and because there is not much English literature at my local library, so I didn’t have much choice.
Another reason I chose Alice in Wonderland is because I saw 2 films about Alice in wonderland. One with Johnny Depp and one by Disney. The one with Johnny Depp was not about the same story as the book I read. The Disney film was about segments from the first book, but also from the second book. I have only read the first book about Alice in Wonderland, so I will only write about the parts from the first book. I liked the movie because it had most of the story in it, but they focused on the adventures and left most of the mono- and dialogue out of the movie. I think they did this because the movie is meant for kids, so the dialogues would be too complicated for the target audience. I think the movie would have been better if they would have included that more. I also find that the movie has more chaos and abstract things, like the mad hatter and the rabbit. In they make abstract statements, but in the film the only thing they do is scream and be hyperactive. In the book things were abstract, but had logic behind them, you can think about what they say. In the film things are just weird for the sake of being weird. I think the book is very different from the book and I prefer the book.

I found the story easy to read, because the story is subdivided into 12 smaller adventures that follow each other. The effect this had is that I didn’t get bored reading it, but I also had more trouble getting into the story. The version of the book I read had had notes at the side. The notes were interesting, but they kept distracting me from the story. I liked reading the story a lot. A thing I especially like a lot are the many references and plays on words and sayings. The book is easy to read, but harder to understand completely. Most of the story is mono- and dialogue and description of locations. The chapters are very short, which compensates making it not too tedious to read. I would recommend the story to others, just not for a book report. The story is quite abstract, which makes it hard to connect it with a time and setting. I would advise them to get a copy of the book without notes on the side. I don’t like the ending of the story. I did think the ending, in which the protagonist wakes up and realises that it was all a dream, is overused, but I would have done the same thing. Overall I liked the story and I might read the other books about Alice in Wonderland. A thing I liked a lot in the story is the many references and plays on words and sayings.

Themes and motive

An important theme in Alice in wonderland is growing up. Alice in wonderland is about a child’s struggle of growing up and living in the confusing world of adults, to become an adult she has to get rid of her open-mindness. Throughout the story, she meets creatures with a way of living and reasoning that is very unsimilar to her own way of living and reasoning. Throughout the book, she learns to understand the creatures and how to deal with the differences. She is growing up. This is also shown by her literally growing and shrinking. At the end of the book, she realises that everything around her are just toys and not real. She is all grown up and can’t stay in Wonderland anymore, so she wakes up. A motif of the story is identity, Alice is often struggling with her identity in the story. After arriving in wonderland she starts thinking about who she is, she starts testing her knowledge by saying lessons, so she can find out if she is still herself. Later in the book other creatures mistake her for someone else. The rabbit thinks she is his maid and the bird thinks she is a serpent. She doesn’t correct them because she doesn’t know who she is. Alice is not the only one that is struggling with identity problems, the Duchess’s baby turns into a piglet after Alice takes it outside. Another motif is curiosity. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole because she is curious. Throughout the book, she gets into more situations because she is curious, every time she goes to a new place in Wonderland it is because she is curious. Both motifs are of course a part of the theme. A child that is growing up has problems with its identity and discovers the world because of curiosity.

Time and setting

An important theme in Alice in wonderland is growing up. Alice in wonderland is about a child’s struggle of growing up and living in the confusing world of adults, to become an adult she has to get rid of her open-mindness. Throughout the story, she meets creatures with a way of living and reasoning that is very unsimilar to her own way of living and reasoning. Throughout the book, she learns to understand the creatures and how to deal with the differences. She is growing up. This is also shown by her literally growing and shrinking. At the end of the book, she realises that everything around her are just toys and not real. She is all grown up and can’t stay in Wonderland anymore, so she wakes up. A motif of the story is identity, Alice is often struggling with her identity in the story. After arriving in wonderland she starts thinking about who she is, she starts testing her knowledge by saying lessons, so she can find out if she is still herself. Later in the book other creatures mistake her for someone else. The rabbit thinks she is his maid and the bird thinks she is a serpent. She doesn’t correct them because she doesn’t know who she is. Alice is not the only one that is struggling with identity problems, the Duchess’s baby turns into a piglet after Alice takes it outside. Another motif is curiosity. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole because she is curious. Throughout the book, she gets into more situations because she is curious, every time she goes to a new place in Wonderland it is because she is curious. Both motifs are of course a part of the theme. A child that is growing up has problems with its identity and discovers the world because of curiosity.

Time and setting

The adventures of Alice take place in the magical place of Wonderland. A dream world were animals can talk and size and time is relative. There is Personification, as inanimate objects and animals can talk and act like humans. The story also partially takes place in the real world, where Alice falls asleep and wakes up. There is no mention of time and/or place. The author told the story to a girl he knew, so there is a big chance it is about the time and place he lived in. Lewis Carrel lived in Great Britain and lived from 1832 until 1898. The time and setting is probably Great Britain somewhere between 1832 and 1898. The time and setting have little to none effect on the story because it takes place in a dream world. If it would take place in a modern age or in the far past, the only difference would be the clothes and speech.