Alice in Wonderland

ODB #3: Alice as a parody of U.T. Freshman Life

“For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible”[1](Alice, Chapter 1).

Alice in Wonderland- Gothic Style[2]

I would have to say that this has been my mantra for the last year and a half. When I came to U.T., I thought I knew who I was and who my friends were. I expected to mature, but not to change. I wanted to believe that my current way of doing things would suffice for the rest of my life. But I think God had other plans for me.

Last fall, I made many revelations about myself, in addition to learning things about other people around me. I’m a suppressed extrovert and external thinker, and my energy really comes from being around other people, not from sitting alone in my room and pondering

Pondering in a field of daisies... [3]

life’s greatest mysteries (like my roommate does). I’ve completely lost my identity, and trying to figure out where I’m at is nearly impossible at times.

The strongest parallel between the Alice books and college life is the need to roll with the punches. A professor told my friend after she turned a paper in late as a result of it “not being good enough to turn in yet” that she thought too much about it and that “sometimes you just have to get your shit done.” It’s true. As mentioned in our course anthology, “A perfectionist worker may spend so much time agonizing over some non-critical detail that a critical project misses its deadline”[4]. You can’t waste time in college like you did in high school, and being nitpicky about an easy assignment isn’t worth the effort. College isn’t about grade competition and being in the top ten percent. It’s about getting a degree, and sometimes you have to take the “C” if that means that you learn more. (This is NOT the same thing as just not doing your work in order to party and expand your “social skills.”).

But this definitely causes frustration at times. In meeting new people and learning new things, you’re bound to have your views challenged, “Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in all her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper”[5](Alice, Chapter 5). Sometimes this is good for you, sometimes it just sucks. In living with my ex-roommate, I really began to realize that through contradictions and conflict you really find out what you’re made of and what you value. This is something that just begins in college, but continues throughout your life, gaining new birth again at middle age, if you’re lucky. (Or you just have a crisis and get over it, but that’s not as helpful).

Another important part of the college experience is learning new interests. This isn’t the same as forcing yourself to like something, but it is about acquiring the taste for something new and mature. My anthropology professor mentioned today the idea of liminality, a phase in rites of passage as described by the Turnerian view of symbols and ritual. Liminality is the idea of being between old and new; limen literally meaning in the Latin, “between”.

Youth and Maturity[6]

Part of being in this in-between phase as a college student is growing to enjoy different things, much like Alice grew to enjoy the new experiences and creatures she met in Wonderland. After she emerges from the Pool of Tears, Alice meets the other creatures that the Mouse is acquainted with and, “after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life”[7].

Alice’s adventures are a symbol for not only college life, but also coming-of-age in general. Aside from the metaphor, we can learn from the story that it’s ok to be adventurous, creative, and willing to see things from another perspective, even if it requires you to make a fool of yourself.

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[1] Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice, ed. Martin Gardner (New York, NY: The World Publishing Company, 1972), 30.

[2] http://images.epilogue.net/users/blondeblythe/ToniBoozer_AliceInWonderlandGothic.jpg

[3] http://www.banayatfineart.com/images/photos/pondering.jpg

[4] The Counseling and Mental Health Center, Perfectionism: It Cuts Both Ways, The University of Texas, 4.

[5] Carroll, 72.

[6]http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1498550/2/istockphoto_1498550_youth_and_maturity.jpg

[7] Carroll, 45.