Alice in Wonderland: A Comparison between the Novel by Lewis Carroll and the Film Adaptation of Tim Burton

        By the beginning of the second chapter of the novel things begin to change; the recent film adaptation goes into a different direction than the original story. There is a very quick transition as Alice makes her way out of the hall to the actual Wonderland that lies behind that tiny door. The novel puts much more focus on the drama her dilemma to the point where Alice shrinks again after being very large to being small enough to swim aimlessly in a puddle of her own tears. While the film Introduces almost all of the other characters at once the novel only brings the White Rabbit and Mouse into the plot. Carroll doesn’t fully say how Alice got through the small locked door, but instead writes that after she swam through her own tears with the mouse they end up on ‘shore’ and venture into the garden (8).

        The third chapter of the book is where most of the characters are introduced, the film follows a similar timeframe. We meet and begin to learn about Absolem the Caterpillar, Chessur he Cheshire Cat, and Uilliam the Dodo Bird; all of which can speak and understand Alice clearly in both works. The three characters introduced are very different from each other and have such unique qualities that each of them have something to offer Alice throughout her journey in Wonderland. In the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Tweedledee and Tweedledum are featured because they were both from Carroll’s second book Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice found there. The film seems to have left out some characters from the author’s first book and replaced them with characters from his second book instead.

        There are only a few scenes of the movie adaptation that relate to the novel after the third chapter.  The tea party where Alice is introduced to the Mad Hatter is one of them and the film’s script was almost identical to that of the book on this event in both of the works especially when the Mad Hatter asks “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” (Carroll 27). The last scene in the film that relates somewhat closely to the novel is when Alice enters the Red Queen’s castle and is asked to join her in a game of croquet. In both the book and novel The characters used flamingos instead of mallets and hedgehogs as croquet balls. From then on the film went into an entirely different direction as the novel it was based on.

        To summarize how the film continued, Alice disguises herself as Um from Umbridge and accompanies the queen to be able to save the Mad Hatter and a few other characters being held prisoner in the castle. She then makes a trip to visit the White Queen (the Red Queen’s younger sister). There the White Queen asks Alice to assume her position as a soldier to slay a beastly creature that serves the Red Queen Known as the Jabberwocky. After the creature is slain The Red Queen and her assistant Stain are banished to the outlands and order is restore to the White Queen. Alice then drinks the blood of the Jabberwocky and is returned home to her normal state on the surface of the earth beside the hole which she had fallen into.

    In the novel, however, Alice travels to meet a character called the Mock Turtle. This turtle tells her a long and detailed story about his life and sings a song for her and the Dormouse before they leave him and return to the Red Queen’s castle. When the to make it back they are asked to be seated for a trial in which the queen is going to behead many of the characters in the book including Chessur and the Mad Hatter. As Alice is being called to the stand as a witness by the king she slowly begins to wake up beside her sister. The film and novel end in almost the same way; in that the author, Carroll writes that Alice wakes up to find that it was only a dream. In Tim Burton’s adaptation Alice realizes that the events that had happened were not a dream but a memory.

        The film and novel received very different reviews from the critics of their times. In a review of the film for (Starnes par. 4.) Joshua Starnes stated:

“There's nothing wrong with putting your own spin on a classic story. In fact, a lot of classic stories are crying out for modernizing or a little bit of re-working to fix problems with narrative flow or characterization”

This is true because the film was more of a twist on the original story than an adaptation. Referring to Lewis Carroll novel (Starnes par. 4)  the film critic also goes on to say:

                “Overflowing with imagination as it is, it's also extremely episodic with little connecting the episodes and no particular conclusion. It just sort of stops.”

I agree with this critic because I thought the book was oversaturated with characters and event as well I felt that the Tim Burton’s vision of the film played out more smoothly and was easier to understand.

        In a review for the novel by James Schellengburg (Schellengburg par. 2) he said:

                “The novel was very exciting and full of episodes of laughter”

I slightly disagree with Schellengburg because although I thought the book was funny it got to be boring after the sixth chapter.

                Both the novel by Lewis Carroll and film by Tim Burton stimulated my imagination. Overall I enjoyed them both and welcomed the differences that they had from one another.

These works are a great example of how a writer’s work can be transformed into something completely different on screen but still enjoyable and intriguing.