"How Wandered Alice Beacme Warrior Alice and Why" Summary

This Article by Kristina Aikens addresses Alice's strong and fearless personality. We see this all throughout the story; Alice is on a bold exploration mission. Aikens talks about how Alice, all through the century and counting since she was introduced to us in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has become a mascot for those of us who consider ourselves outside of the norm. Aikens also delves into Alice’s extremely paradoxical manner. Alice in some ways is very feminine in a traditional sense when it comes to her appearance. At the same time, she is nothing like what a “young girl should” be like because of the way she addresses authority and just her manners in general; “Alice is rash, impetuous, highly argumentative and often rude…” says Aikens. Not only all this but Alice has no trouble declaring herself the heroine when she realizes she is in the middle of something like a fairy tale and a book should be written about her. So she decides she will one day be the one to write it, taking charge. And Then she ends up way to big for the Rabbit’s domestic home which Aikens suggests is a symbol that Alice does not fit into the traditional role she is expected to fill as a woman as keeper of the home. Aikens talks about how “curiosity is a tricky trait”; one must be active at the rights times and passive at the right times. A questioner and an observer. Alice has it in her, all of it. “her willingness to go anywhere or try anything, no matter how stranger or absurd or even potentially dangerous is the character’s most appealing and beloved attribute”, says Aikens. There is some dispute that Alice’s lack of control does not lend itself to the concept of feminism but the author concludes that all the paradoxes within Alice make her a complex female character that is a true depiction of the potential within a woman’s power. Then Aikens goes into how Alice and her story have become mascots also for those who experiment with drugs. This is because Alice’s adventure definitely has a lot to do with questioning reality and traveling to alternate realities which are themes that also saturate the drug culture. Also, all Alice’s substance intake is often compared to drugs. The author likes Tim Burton’s remake of Alice in Wonderland because there is no question that Alice is “The Alice”, the only one who can do what she can do. In the end she partners with her father in business and real steps her foot into the “male world” with force.