Alice and Carroll as Heroes

I find it difficult to pinpoint the hero of the Alice stories. Is it the little girl with the bangs falling into her face, or is it the man behind her? Not anyone related to the real Alice, of course, but the man who invented her adventures, Lewis Carroll. By creating such a timeless masterpiece out of such brilliantly obscure material, Carroll is in fact, a literary hero. With all the broad definitions for hero our class has composed this semester, I think we can all agree that creating something new and great is certainly a heroic quality. Even to experience something new, as Alice did, is a heroic feat. Therefore both of these eccentric characters are heroes, in their own rights. Both will be remembered forever, as if they were cast in stone or iron.

I consider Carroll a hero because of the dazzling pictures he was able to come up with. During my reading, I wondered if Carroll himself was eating some of those magical mushrooms during his composition of Alice. I found the book an extremely easy read, yet was incline to ponder many of its lines over to myself. The wonderful thing about Alice is this feature, it is “light and fantastic but with serious bits of thought embedded into it” (Bump 274). Alice is surrounded by a host of contemplative mentors, such as the caterpillar, the Duchess, and the Cheshire cat. From a distance, one might look at Carroll’s stories and their head explode. But upon processing the characters and the situations Carroll presents the stories make much more sense than at first glance. Another heroic aspect of Carroll’s literature is their timelessness. Everyone in the world knows about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Over spring break, my dad and my friend Colin accompanied me to our family ranch in Bandera. We were playing Cranium one night, and Colin drew a “Copycat” card, in which he must act like a famous person. He drew Alice (of course, the very Alice of which I am writing), and began to act her part out. I had never read Alice, or seen a comic or video of Alice, but I knew something about her. I also knew something about Wonderland. So although I was oblivious to the girlish antics my friend was portraying during this game of Cranium, I correctly guessed the right answer at the first mention of the Queen of Hearts. So how impressive is it that an author can make his work known even to the most oblivious? Heroic, I’d say.

Alice is also considered a hero because of the maturity she displays through Carroll’s situations. Just a little girl, she shows remarkable calmness from the moment she tumbles down the rabbit hole unharmed. Even when meeting obscure mentors like the Duchess, she takes what they have to say seriously. Though she thinks the Duchess’ obsession with morals is a little much, she certainly does understand that “everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it” (Carroll 91). Not only does she process the remarks of the characters she meets, but she often has comebacks for them as well. When the Duchess talks about the world going round, Alice asserts herself and starts taking about the axes and the earth’s rotational time frame. While all a little girl, scared and excited to grow up. I think her most fascinating quality is her ponderous nature about growing up, childhood, adulthood, etc – “Shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort one way – never to be an old woman – but them – always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!” (Carroll 40). She approaches each situation from multiple angles. She keeps her cool and isn’t bothered by anything she runs into. Which, unfortunately, is a claim I cannot make. But then again, I’m not a literary hero.