“Pig and Pepper” in Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Cheshire_Cat (March, 2012)

As the title suggests it, the subject of this commentary is the sixth chapter “Pig and Pepper,” one of the twelve chapters that compose Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), which has a sequel published in 1971 under the title Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was written as a gift from Carroll to one of his little friend, Alice Liddell, to whom some hold the suspicion of having inspired the character of Alice in the author’s work of fiction. Even though it is conceived as a book for children, the story deals with complex topics; for instance, it strongly criticizes the strict education children received during the Victorian Period. Teachers were rude and the children’s governors, generally women, were very rude, too. Therefore, in chapter sixth “Pig and Pepper,” Carroll may represent this rudeness in the Duchess, one of the characters Alice meets in this chapter, and which might be inspired by Alice Liddell’s own governess in real life.

The complete story is about a little girl named Alice who falls asleep and dreams about what she has inside but cannot show. As she is going into puberty, she is faced with complications to adapt to the world of grown-ups. Adaption is not easy and so she has to go through considerable trouble. Therefore, we will focus on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as it presents the reader with the hardships of a girl's acknowledgement of her own maturation, which are reflected in a dream that takes most part of the story.

Chapter six, “Pig and Pepper,” is relevant for the development of the central argument of the story as it deals with people’s adaptation to chaotic situations—even when they get hurt within this chaos—, violence children receive from super parental figures, and the absurdity of some allegedly logically driven human practices, which are minor issues in the system of themes of the novella but which contain great part of the essence of the story: In "Pig and Pepper" Alice meets the Cheshire Cat, who lets her know that worrying about methods is unimportant if the purpose is yet to be defined.

“Who Stole the Tarts?” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Neny (March, 2012)

This commentary is on Chapter XI in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which is the first fictional novel written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson also known as Lewis Carroll. It was published in 1865 in England and it is considered one of the most inspirational books for children and adults as well. Carroll wrote a sequel which he called Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, with which he gave new relevance to the non-sense genre in literature.

The story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland begins when a little girl named Alice falls asleep while she is sitting by her elder sister who was reading a book which, as having “no pictures or conversations in it,” seemed boring to Alice. In the dream, she follows a curious hurried White Rabbit and falls through its rabbit hole. Once she reached the bottom, Alice discovers a fantastic world of anthropomorphic creatures with illogic reasoning; among them are a smoker caterpillar who questions her about her identity and a mad hatter who seems to be trapped in time. Besides, Alice grows larger and smaller many times, which makes her uncomfortable and which might symbolize what real Alice feels towards her maturation. The dream ends when she is in a trial with some of the creatures she has met and gives signals that she is more secure about herself. Alice wakes up and tells her sister the dream, and then Alice’s sister falls asleep and starts off dreaming, reproducing Wonderland all over again.

One of the issues presented in the story refers to the fears experienced by a girl aware of her self-maturation and growth. Allusions to elements as time, education, self-identity, logic and others play together and get the child to adapt to change and her environment.

Now, Chapter 11, “Who Stole the Tarts?” tells how some main characters are gathered in a trial, where the Queen of Hearts is accusing the Knave of Hearts of having stolen her tarts. To give sense to the trial the King calls out three witnesses to declare, being Alice the last witness to be called. This chapter is essential to the plot because it provides the climax of the whole story. Here,Alice starts questioning and at some point insulting Wonderland creatures, showing an important change of attitude, as she had been hesitating and fearful so far. She is not uncomfortable or insecure about herself anymore, and so she gives signals of acceptance to the fact that she is growing up. 

The Space in The Raven by Tristetrickster (February, 2012)

After reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (1945), I was left with a mixture of feelings, such as uncertainty and anxiety. The fact that I was not sure of what the cause was for what I was feeling, puzzled me. Even though this is a poem that deals with the pain of losing a beloved one and the torture of not being able to let go, I started to wonder if my feelings towards the poem were caused by more than just empathy for the mournful man of the story. That is when I noticed the literary space of the poem; the whole story is carried out in a small and gothic scenario which had an effect on the way I perceived the story while I was reading it, by making me feel, somehow, anxious and insecure.

Space is defined in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English as “the area in which everything exists, and in which everything has a position or direction.” Space in real life is noticeable, changeable; it can affect or modify our behavior, in some aspects, depending on social or environmental factors inherent to the spatial context in which we interact. In the narrative poem The Raven, as in any piece of narrative, real and virtual spatial instances turn into language, into a narrative space.

We can find insightful remarks relating to the space in literature in Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the Chronotopes (1937), for example, from which we understand that both writers and readers take from their cognitive encyclopedia in order to assess the images of space conveyed in the narratives which occupy them; writers do it because they rely on their readers’ ability to evoke those images, just as they have done. 

Behind the Gothic Tradition by Hopelessly_perfectionist (February, 2012)

       The real history of The Gothic begins in the 18th century, when it signified a “barbarous, medieval and supernatural past” (Punter 3).  The term was used derogatively about art; architecture and writing that failed to conform to the standards of the traditional taste.  Gothic implied the lack of reason, morality and beauty of feudal beliefs, customs and works.  The popularity of the Gothic tradition occurred as part of the radical political, economic and social changes that were taking place: emerging at a time of industrial revolution and increasingly secular views, the eighteen-century Gothic fascination with a past of chivalry, violence, magical beings and malevolent aristocrats was linked to the shifts from feudal to commercial practices in which notions of property, government and society were undergoing massive transformations (Punter 4).  Along with these shifts, ideas about nature, art and subjectivity were also being reassessed.

Easy targets for satire, however, the first gothic romances started to become less popular among the general public due to their extravagances of plot.  Still, gothic elements continued to be used by renowned authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nataniel Hawthorne and others. 

Poe was indeed one of the most important and innovative representatives of the Gothic tradition in the 19^th century. Few writers in the English language have left a legacy like his.  He was one of the main introducers of the Gothic to the American society. In his works, which are often centered more on timeless matters of individual psychology than of the social issues of his day (Amper 53), all forms of horror can be found. Poe´s international celebrity and reputation as a writer owe much to one of his best-known works, The Raven.

The authors of early gothic works were attracted to such tradition as a means of rebelling against the emphasis on rationality and order that dominated much of the 18^th century.  That emphasis was characteristic of The Age of Enlightenment, an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that promoted the use of reason to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in both Church and state.