Monday 1 April 2013

STATEMENT: alice in wonderland - a story of a girl on drugs ?


is alice in wonderland a story of a girl on drugs? the literary pattern (its original titel is 'alice adventures in wonderland'), written by lewis carroll (his real name was charles lutwidge dodgson), tells of a girl, alice, who chases after a white rabbit and falls down its hole, finding herself in a crazy world, populated by weird creatures who all share human characteristics, such as the ability to talk. the novel plays with an equivocal language and the fantastic imagery made it popular with adults and children alike.
because of its features the story was made into animated and life-action films.

now many people asked themselves in the course of its history, if alice is a girl who makes different experiences while being on drugs such as LSD, cocaine, marihuana and so on. the imagery let's you suppose so.

in fact lewis carroll, or charles lutwidge dodgson, had tried and consumed different drugs in the course of his life. all of them were natural and were freely available - there weren't real government restrictions and the fact that these semiluxury foods could lead to the emergence of creative and beautiful works of art and literature made them quite popular and acceptable. and the imagery of the smoking caterpillar, alice eating a mushroom and drinking several unknown liquids and all the hysteric or somnolent creatures she meets on her way all speak for themselves.
the 'white rabbit' also stands synonymously for 'cocaine' and it's no coincidence that we meet him several times in the course of alice' adventures in wonderland. LSD was a creation of the 20th century, but other natural substances such as the so called 'angel trumpets' and many sorts of mushrooms had the same effect on the human body as the chemical substance LSD.

it's the same with the surrealists - they also created great and mystic works of art because drugs created undreamt outbursts of creativity in them with imageries never seen before!

but nevertheless lewis carroll couldn't have written such a mastery piece of literature WHILE on drugs - for this, the story is too mature and too thoroughly designed.

thus we could say that alice in wonderland is a fairytale of a very fanciful, moony, but yet normal girl, dreaming her way through wonderland, but written by a quite experimental author, who slipped in his experiences with drugs and the associated imagery into the rabbit hole.












 


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3 comments:

  1. yeah I read a post on tumblr saying how alice is actually on drugs! It's quite interesting really and i know that a lot of famous works are made from experiences with drug use. Take the beatles for example! Then again, none of those would of existed without them trying it.

    Nice post :)

    Lemon Kitty (I just really like cats okay)

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  2. Wow, ein sehr interessanter Beitrag (und total süß bebildert, wenn das Girly in mir auch kurz zu Wort kommen darf! ;)
    Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass Carroll auch jeden Fall die ein oder andere Idee hatte, während er auf Droge war - allerdings war es damals "chick" und hatte sozial einen ganz anderen Status, Rauschmittel zu konsumieren, also war er wohl nicht vergleichbar mit den heutigen Junkies, denen ja ein gewisses Sitgma von vorneherein anlastet.
    Trotzdem war es ein heißes Thema damals schon. man denke nur an Ausdrücke wie "Opium für das Volk" und wie die Engländer mit selbigem "Genussmittel" die asiatische Bevölkerung in ihren Kolonien bei der Stange gehalten hat. (Also nicht sehr gentleman-like, oder?)

    Ich glaube, auch schon gelesen zu haben, dass die reale Alice - also das Mädchen Alice, das er als Vorlage für die fiktive Protagonistin seines Werks nahm - ihn mit ihrer kindlichen Vorstellungskraft ebenfalls inspirierte.

    Toller Beitrag! :)
    Lg
    Ninon


    ++ The GRAYS ANATOMY EXPERIENCE: Surviving among real-life McDreamies - http://grays-anatomy-experience.blogspot.de ++

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  3. Ich hab auch schon solche Spekulationen gelesen, dann aber wiederum auch, dass zur damaligen Zeit gewisse heutzutage streng verbotene Drogen frei erhältlich waren und somit auch hin und wieder konsumiert wurden. Mal ganz abgesehen davon, dass es damals noch gar kein LSD gab, glaub ich aus den von Dir besagten Gründen auch nicht, dass Alice aus einer Drogenfantasie entstanden ist. Alice eignet sich natürlich hervorragend für solche Interpretationen, aber trotzdem denke ich, dass es einfach nur eine hübsche Geschichte über das Erwachsenwerden sein sollte. Was müssten wir dann von Michael Ende und seiner Unendlichen Geschichte halten? Oder von den Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm?

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Danke, dass du deine Gedanken teilst.