Strangely, I have always found Alice in Wonderland a story of great sadness and loneliness. After running away from a world which is far too small for her, following the hopping hope of self actualisation, Alice wanders through a complete unknown land, meeting characters that she is fascinated by but ultimately she is terrified by and cannot fully relate to. These characters look at her with interest but detachment, as though they are all more inclined in playing with her than saving her from dangers that appear to be trivial and irrelevant to anyone but her. Her journey is literally a journey of shrinkage and growth, of progress and regress. She is selfish but not egotistic in her path to asserting herself as the doer and not the done to. She goes from following instructions to fighting the establishment, but she never quite makes the status of hero. Her personality is sweet enough for people to take a second look, but anachronistic enough to be voted off the big brother's house on the first round.
Her time in the Wonderland changes her forever, it gives her insights that people in the normal world cannot even contemplate. You would think that going back home would be a blissful ending. In reality it's not. The experiences, range of emotions, dangers that she went through have made her aware of how limited life can be and how far those limits can be stretched in the right circumstance, and it all becomes a curse she cannot get rid of. In the normal world nothing is quite so 'wonderful' and she has to accept that she just won't be able to share with anyone perhaps the most important experience of her life.
Is London just like the Wonderland? In my time here I have seen so many people come and go. When they leave the look in their eyes is like Alice saying goodbye to the Mad Hatter. That looks says: it's all bonkers here and it's time to leave, but hey I will miss it.
No comments:
Post a Comment