“Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway.”
This quote from the first chapter caught my attention when I read it. It has both an allusion and archetypal elements incorporated into it. The allusion refers to the Garden of Eden from the bible. It represents the perfection of the garden yet how no one can ever reach it, hence why Alice cannot get to it either. The first archetype is the dark hall. Darkness usually represents evil, death, or lost soul, which actually foreshadows the plot of the book in that there will be evil afoot and Alice will get lost at some point. Alice wants to get out of the dark and go to the place where there is light and natural beauty which is the archetypal element of journey. This foreshadows Alice’s journey into finding “the light” or ultimately finding herself. Finally, the archetype of nature represents maturity and fertileness, which probably pertains to the fact that Alice will mature and become a woman after her journey.
Any other opinions on this quote regarding its meaning?
No comments:
Post a Comment