Alice's Adventures in wonderland (A summary)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tells the story of Alice, a curious girl who wanders off and follows a hasty white rabbit down his rabbit hole. From there, Alice enters the world of Wonderland, ending up on some wild adventures and meeting some wacky characters such as the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and the infamous Red Queen.
salvador dali
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was a Spanish painter and printmaker. Dalí’s works are primarily considered Surrealist, a movement that attempted to bridge the gap between dream and reality, or distort and blend dream and reality. Dalí was heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and his writings on the subconscious, particularly the erotic significance associated with the subconscious. Check out more about Dalí and his works here. In 1969, Dalí teamed up with New York’s Maecenas Press-Random House to illustrate Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Not only did Dalí provide an illustration for each chapter, he did so in surrealist fashion, emulating the dreamlike elements of Alice.
To find out more about Salvador Dalí, check out another brief biography here.
To find out more about Salvador Dalí, check out another brief biography here.
lewis carroll
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), a pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was an English mathematician, novelist, and photographer. Carroll was one of eleven children; in fact, he spent much of his time with children, listening to their stories and telling them some of his own. Alice of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was based on (and written for) Alice Liddell, a friend of Carroll’s and child of Henry George Liddell, head of the Christ Church where Carroll studied. Carroll is most famous today for his novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass. He takes the logical and mathematical mind and applies it to the wonderful, innocent, and unfiltered minds of children. With this joyous and insightful juxtaposition, Carroll’s work continues to influence literature today.
To find out more about Lewis Carroll, check out a brief biography here.
To find out more about Lewis Carroll, check out a brief biography here.
Why Dali and Carroll?
The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. Both he and Dali had a lifelong interest in math and philosophy, and they both played with principles from these disciplines by manipulating perspective and size in their works, stretching ideas of what constituted reality. They were both interested in leading their audiences across the boundaries of logic and consciousness to the realm of dreams. The story of Alice in Wonderland is framed as a dream that Alice has, and the strange characters, the episodic, illogical nature of the plot reflect that. Dali, as a surrealist, was intentionally playing visually with perceptions of reality, and with the exploration of the unconscious in ways which matched Carroll’s. As Siri Hiltz put it, Alice’s “constant confusion and Carroll’s playful imagery reflect the values of surrealism.” (“The Looking Glass,” 2) Some of the methods Carroll uses are similar to those of the Surrealists. The free-flowing nature of his unfolding tale, told while rowing to a picnic with the Liddell sisters and his friend Reverend Duckworth, echoes the free flow of automatism practiced by the surrealists. (Burstein, introduction to the 150th anniversary edition, viii) Both are attempts to access the realms of imagination and (for the surrealists) the unconscious mind. He quotes Carroll in an interview for The Theatre (“Alice on the Stage,” April 1887): “every such idea and nearly every word of the dialogue, came of itself…when fancies unsought came crowding thick upon [me].” (viii) Removing an initial inner editorial board to allow for the wider play of ideas is one way that Carroll emerges as a precursor of the surrealists’ attempts to obtain unfettered access to the unconscious.
Of course, the book we all know and love, was also ultimately, finely crafted. Carroll’s Alice is a finely drawn portrait of a bright, active, sometimes petulant little girl. This realistic character calls to mind his interest in photography. Attention to detail also connects with Dali’s painting, “which showcases his academic training in its precise, quasi-photographic realism,” (The 150th Anniversary Edition, xi) which he used throughout his career to push the boundaries of that realism. Carroll did the same. His puns (a Caucus-Race), nonsense verse (“Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking Glass is the most famous example), Alice’s constant size changes, her inability to make sense of half-remembered lessons (in “The Pool of Tears” chapter) aren’t made as a fantasy world with its own logic, they are a defiance of any logical expectations. They are, as Mark Burstein notes, a verbal equivalent to Dali’s “drippy, trippy, hypersaturated pictures.” (The 150th Anniversary Edition, xi) The “mome raths” and “toves” of “Jabberwocky” are to poetry what Dali’s melting clock is to realist painting, as is the recurrent female figure of Dali’s earlier painting that he used as his “Alice.”
Of course, the book we all know and love, was also ultimately, finely crafted. Carroll’s Alice is a finely drawn portrait of a bright, active, sometimes petulant little girl. This realistic character calls to mind his interest in photography. Attention to detail also connects with Dali’s painting, “which showcases his academic training in its precise, quasi-photographic realism,” (The 150th Anniversary Edition, xi) which he used throughout his career to push the boundaries of that realism. Carroll did the same. His puns (a Caucus-Race), nonsense verse (“Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking Glass is the most famous example), Alice’s constant size changes, her inability to make sense of half-remembered lessons (in “The Pool of Tears” chapter) aren’t made as a fantasy world with its own logic, they are a defiance of any logical expectations. They are, as Mark Burstein notes, a verbal equivalent to Dali’s “drippy, trippy, hypersaturated pictures.” (The 150th Anniversary Edition, xi) The “mome raths” and “toves” of “Jabberwocky” are to poetry what Dali’s melting clock is to realist painting, as is the recurrent female figure of Dali’s earlier painting that he used as his “Alice.”