Alice in Wonderland

In Alice, I wanted the same innocent girl from the original story by Lewis Carroll, but also a girl who asks more pointed questions, and grows more forceful in the end by standing up to the king.

Alice, like the rest of us, is trying to figure out “How do I know what is real and what is not?” She couldn’t be more relevant to issues of present day. So, unlike the original story, the Red Queen, the Doorknob, and the Madhatter explain the importance of how we perceive the world. Can we choose how we perceive the world, or do we simply comply with characters like the Red Queen who tells us how to perceive and what is the truth?

As the Doorknob says, (repeated by the Jefferson Airplane in their song, “The White Rabbit”) Alice must try to “Keep her head.” Hard to do in this Wonderland of mind tricks.

In the fifth panel, Alice goes on trial for “…failing to understand how to behave,” as the King/Judge declares. Alice comes to her own conclusion in, “You cannot expect me to understand a world that makes no sense!” This is very different than the original story because Alice is not only on trial for her behavior, but she also creates her own perception.

Not every reader will want this sort of conclusive ending, but it does give us more to chew on than Alice waking up and realizing she’s had a dream.