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Foil
Chapter 1 - Down the Rabbit-Hole
Explanation and Analysis—The Riverbank:
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland begins with a frame story. Alice first appears in Chapter 1 with her sister on the bank of a river in a seemingly normal scene:
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”
Here, Alice is bored and sleepy, which creates a contrast between her dry life in the normal world and her emotional excitement in Wonderland. Soon she spots the White Rabbit, and in the next few paragraphs, she plunges down the rabbit hole (hence the name of the first chapter).
In the subsequent chapters, Alice learns how to navigate the wacky world of Wonderland. The story-within-the-story consists of a dream within Alice's reality. In Chapter 12 she returns to reality:
“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about [...]
After Alice tells her sister the story of her adventures, her sister imagines how they will repurpose the story to entertain their future children. This demonstrates a full return to the real world. It seems abrupt, but given Alice's sleepy state in the first pages, as well as the weirdness of Wonderland, readers can accept the fact that it was all a "curious dream."
Related Themes:
Chapter 12 - Alice's Evidence
Explanation and Analysis—The Riverbank:
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland begins with a frame story. Alice first appears in Chapter 1 with her sister on the bank of a river in a seemingly normal scene:
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”
Here, Alice is bored and sleepy, which creates a contrast between her dry life in the normal world and her emotional excitement in Wonderland. Soon she spots the White Rabbit, and in the next few paragraphs, she plunges down the rabbit hole (hence the name of the first chapter).
In the subsequent chapters, Alice learns how to navigate the wacky world of Wonderland. The story-within-the-story consists of a dream within Alice's reality. In Chapter 12 she returns to reality:
“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about [...]
After Alice tells her sister the story of her adventures, her sister imagines how they will repurpose the story to entertain their future children. This demonstrates a full return to the real world. It seems abrupt, but given Alice's sleepy state in the first pages, as well as the weirdness of Wonderland, readers can accept the fact that it was all a "curious dream."
Related Themes:
