Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-Part 2

"Who are you? said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I-I hardly know, Sir, just at present-at least, I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
I am up to chapter 6 in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland now. I'm going to do a summary of chapters 2-6 for my own purposes (spoiler alert!) and then talk about what

Summary: Alice grew to 9 feet in the hall, and then cried, and then shrunk back down so that she was swimming in the "pool of tears" (title of chapter 2). At that point, she came across a swimming doormouse that lead her to shore. At the shore, Alice met a dodo bird that had everyone running in a circle to get dry. The White Rabbit appeared again, thought Alice was someone named Mary Ann, presumably his maid, and she followed him back to his house. In the house, Alice saw more "Eat Me" cakes, so she ate them and grew (point #1). Alice then grew too big for the house and was entirely stuffed inside. The White Rabbit found his friend Pat and Bill, a lizard, to determine what was in the house and to get it out. When they realized that it was Alice, they started throwing more "Eat Me" cakes at her, so she ate the cakes and shrunk once again. She ran from the house, encountered a dog, ran from the dog, and then came upon a large mushroom with a caterpillar smoking hookah on top. The caterpillar and Alice talk in circles and Alice comes to the conclusion that she doesn't really know who she is anymore, and is frustrated with changing sizes so often (point #2). The caterpillar walks away, telling Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her grow, while the other side will make her shrink. She bites the growing side and becomes taller than trees. A bird thinks that she is a serpent, and although she tries to reason with him, telling him that she is a girl and not hunting eggs, he does not believe her. She then eats more of the mushroom and shrinks to her regular size (point #3). At the end of chapter 6, Alice encounters a little house, about as tall as she, and so she decides to find out what is inside, but not before shrinking a little more as to not frighten whoever or whatever is inside.

END OF SUMMARY

In general, the growing and shrinking is getting a little old at this point. It is making it increasingly difficult to figure out what size Alice is at any particular point in the story. Also, I can't remember another book I have read where a character shrinks like this. So, I've come to the conclusion that shrinking means something, but I'm not sure what exactly.

Point #1: When Alice eats the "Eat Me" cakes while inside the Rabbit's house, she says "I know something interesting is sure to happen....whenever I eat or drink anything: so I'll just see what this bottle does." Alice is indeed very curious about her new surroundings, and adventurous to be trying whatever she comes across, hoping that it will bring about some welcome change. She goes on to say "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!" and then she grows too big for the house. There are definitely tones of "be careful what you wish for," but also the idea that it's not always luck that puts one in a strange situation.

Point #2: Because Alice keeps eating everything in sight, hoping things will happen to her, she is really bringing all the changes upon herself. Her desire to get into the garden in the beginning of the book started this, and as she grew and shrank even more, more problems arose. If she had, in the first chapter, brought the key with her, or unlocked the door when she was tall, before drinking to become small, all of these problems would not even exist. Alice is frustrated with her lot at the beginning of chapter 6, but in reality she has no one to blame but herself. She followed the rabbit, and she drank and ate strange food and drinks, so she is the only one responsible. Luckily there are creatures in Wonderland to help her out so far, providing her with cakes and drinks, or a magical mushroom in the case of the caterpillar.

Point #3: At this point, Alice has realized, thanks to the caterpillar, that she is in control of her size. Due to her experience with the bird in chapter 6, she now has the foresight to make herself the correct size for each new event or setting in Wonderland. Although, she desires so much to be her regular height, but who is to say what is actually "regular" in Wonderland, or even in general. And is Alice able to know if she is the perfect height that she is used to being? I'm wondering if I had grown and shrank and was transported to a magical land, and given a mushroom, as Alice was, I'm not confident that I could make myself the height that I am now.

I do love the caterpillar, though. I found him very creepy in the Disney version of this movie, and also saw the caterpillar played by the voice of Snape in Tim Burton's version. However, in the book he seems less grumpy. Although he does have very short answers, he is testing Alice to see if she knows herself. I mean, if I were a caterpillar smoking hookah on a mushroom, and some teeny tiny girl comes up and looks at me, I would ask her who she is as well. And if she couldn't answer, I would become frustrated with her. I love that he gives her the mysterious mushroom to try to make her happy (as if that could happen....human nature comment, what?) I kind of wonder though, what makes that mushroom so special. Maybe the hookah seasoned it, haha.

I think that's where I'll leave Alice for a day while I start my grad school homework, which consists of reading a Twilight-esque book. I feel like perhaps that is not the most scholarly thing but I guess I can comment on that later.