The Messed-Up Origins of Alice in Wonderland

This is a series of four You Tube videos.

The narrator talks about various layers of Alice in Wonderland. The first episode is about the Disney film, Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell and the first three chapters of Alice in Wonderland.

He talks about how the movie starts. He quickly summarizes the entire film.

He then starts to talk about Lewis Carroll. He talks about some physical problems Charles Dodgson had including a limp due to a knee injury and stuttering.

Then he talks about Alice Liddell's father.

Then he talks about Alice Liddell. He points out that in Victorian times little girls were idealized by adults. When the various girls he was friends with were interviewed later in life they all had only positive things to say about him dealing a blow to the idea that he might have been a pedophile.

He goes on to talk about the nude photos Dodgson took and also how he spent a week along at a resort with a fifteen-year-old actress. He adds, though, that the girl later wrote a autobiography and said nothing bad about Dodgson and that in Victorian times it was normal to send Christmas cards with nude photos of their children on them.

He says he'll spend more time on the relationship between Charles Dodgson and Alice later. He adds that Alice in Wonderland was written as a nonsense book for children and not something to be deeply analyzed on many levels.

He says because the story is nonsensical it lends itself to a wide variety of interpretations.

So he moves on to the first chapter. He starts off by summarizing what happens in the first chapter. He says Alice changes her size twelve times during the entire story.

Then he moves on to chapter 2. He summarizes the second chapter. He also in doing the summaries points out differences between the book and Disney's movie version of the story.

He also talks about differences between the version we are used to and the actual first version of the story that Dodgson wrote and later expanded into the story we are familiar with.

Then he goes into a summary of the third chapter. In the drawing of the caucus race he points out who certain animals represented certain actual people.

A recap of what happens in chapter 4.

He says Lewis Carroll wrote the rabbit to be the opposite of these four traits of Alice.

He points out why the name Mary Ann was used. The movie has Tweedle Dum adn Tweedle Dee in it although they actually weren't in the original Alice in Wonderland book at all. The singing flowers in the movie were also not in the first book.

Then he goes on to recap chapter 5 of the book. He talks about a difference between the first version of the story and the published version as far as the caterpillar and the mushroom go.

Then he talks about the sixth chapter.

Then he talks about the seventh chapter.

He points out that this chapter was not part of the original version of Alice in Wonderland. He explains why the March Hare and the Hatter are both termed mad.

Then he starts on the eighth chapter.

How Lewis Carroll viewed the Queen of Hearts.

He moves on to the ninth chapter. (I may be the only person that thinks this but, to me, the ninth chapter doesn't really belong. The attention was focused on the Queen and the palace and suddenly we're out somewhere else talking to two other characters and then called back to the palace for the trial. It's almost like this chapter was filler or something.)

He explains why the Duchess kept talking about morals.

School lessons involving the Mock Turtle. Derision seems to be the subject many people seem to already be using in the real world.

Then he moves on to chapter 10. (Also, to me, an unnecessary chapter.)

Then its on to chapter 11.

The final chapter of the book is up next. He's basically doing a good summary of each chapter, at times pointing out interesting related points.

---

Main Index

Main Alice in Wonderland index page