As a child, the story of Alice in Wonderland was rather remarkable for me. I didn’t get exposed enough to English tales; that’s why I only knew a few of them, and Alice in Wonderland was and is still my favorite. I used to think Alice in Wonderland was about a drug-addled child because the adventure felt too surreal, like something a normal person couldn't even imagine. As I go further in reading this story, I notice that Alice’s journey is not merely a nonsense fantasy adventure made up by a little kid; it has a lot of meaning to uncover. If you looked closer, Alice in Wonderland is actually a story about growing up, maturing, and the transformation from a child to an adult. 
    Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, also known as Alice's Adventure in Wonderland, in 1865. The plot revolves around a little girl named Alice and her bizarre adventure in Wonderland. In the meantime, she will be faced with things beyond her imagination and a place she has never belonged before. She will also be introduced to many more characters, such as the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Heart, and so on. Despite being alone in that strange world, she continued her journey. 
    The story begins with Alice and her sister waiting at a bank. She had no idea why she was there; she was too young to know, and it probably didn't matter that much to her anyway. She is a little kid with a child’s heart—a true child’s heart. This is illustrated in the part where Alice peeks in on what her sister is doing: reading a book. The book had no pictures or dialogues, and Alice thought a book without them was useless. This is the nature of children; they are mostly attracted to pictures and colors. Alice being uninterested with the book shows her childish character. Her childish traits were later visualized again in the scene where she saw a white rabbit when she tried to fall asleep. Children are usually blessed with vast and unique imaginations, and this also applied to Alice. She then followed him to his hole and jumped right in, making it obvious that she was a curious little kid. 
    She was then transported to a strange world she had never visited before, where she witnessed a series of unusual events. The first thing she discovers after tumbling down is a jar of orange marmalade. When she saw the jar, she expected it to contain a sweet marmalade jam, but instead she received an empty tube. This represents how things don't always go as planned as we get older. We may be accustomed to receiving whatever our parents grant us as children, but this does not always occur as we grow older. She then fell deeper into the hole, as if she was about to reach the bottom of the earth. Carroll precisely narrated her “falling into the hole” journey as a long and surprising event as if the beginning to adulting is surprising, unexpected and you would never know how long you’ve fallen because it happened too fast.
    Her first thought after arriving in "wonderland" is how lonely it is without her cat, Dinah. how she still expected her milk to be served later. While resting, she asked herself a question, "Do cats eat bats?" she repeated several times until she asked, "Do bats eat cats?" Despite the fact that she had no answers to her questions, we can see in this scene how she managed to look at things from a different perspective, questioning whether or not bats eat cats. This was actually mesmerizing how Alice, a little kid, could think of such a counter in a short amount of time; representing if we slowed down and thought through something, we will know how to look at things with different perspectives. Adulting is about thinking through and not making reckless decisions so that our life won’t fall apart. 
    There was also a time when Alice encountered the creature from Wonderland, which made her uneasy. Take, for example, the Cheshire cat. My favorite character in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the Cheshire cat because it is laid back yet mysterious. "Would you please tell me which way I ought to walk from here?" Alice asked the cat, and the cat replied, "It depends on where you want to go.” This reminds me of an online excerpt that said, "There's no bad decision; everything else goes accordingly." The cat assures Alice that the consequences will follow her decision she made. People always say that the human’s mind is limited; you can't think about the future and what it holds. The Cheshire cat encouraged Alice to trust herself by forging her own path. 
    Alice in Wonderland is a complicated story with a lot of underlying and undiscovered meanings we can analyze. Carroll was a genius when he made and published this story, in which there are a lot of puns and wordplay implied. We can also analyze that the word “Wonderland” does not actually mean a place with rainbows and laughter, but rather a place where you get lost, confused, and wonder why things happen that way. Wonderland, ruled by the Queen of Hearts, has its own rules, and Alice was so overwhelmed by them. She also lamented how lonely she felt in that world without a guide. This means that the story of Alice in Wonderland is indeed about growing up and experiencing the adult world. 

Content Writer : Dea Hernawati

Editor : Sabrina Rahmah Izzati