Alice II - Imagination

Alice in Wonderland is truly a work of genius in my opinion, making the creator, Lewis Carol (Dodgson), a man of genius. So if being a genius makes a person a hero, then Lewis Carol is indeed a hero. Whatever he is, he is certainly more than just an excellent writer because the Alice stories are certainly more than just books. Somehow Carol was able to tap into that childlike imagination that doesn’t make any logical sense, but somehow speaks to us on a deeper level. He knew that there is so much more to life than trying to make sense. There are so many feelings and ideas that the human brain can experience because of the unique possession of humans known as the imagination. It is how we are able to experience the impossible, conceive of what has never been done and could never be done, and create made-up worlds with made-up beings that could never exist within the parameters of reality. Lewis Carol fully employs his own imagination in the writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which is something most of us really have trouble doing. This difficulty probably has something to do with the society we live in and it’s insistence on real, tangible truths and no “nonsense”. This is unfortunate I think because of the vast right-brain experiences we loose by limiting its imaginative capabilities. Part of the reason why Alice is such a popular story for adults as much as children is because it reminds us of the mysteries of our own imaginations, which we are very seldom in touch with but still have some faint, ever-fleeting memory of. It was easiest to find our imagination when we were children, but as we get older and our minds are tainted by the realities of the world, the times of true unfettered imagination are confined to our dreams.

This mysterious quality of the imagination only makes it more intriguing and desirable, and thus people are continuously looking for ways to tap into it. However, it is one thing to imagine and quite another thing to take those imaginings and represent them in a way for other seekers of imagination to understand. Those who are successful, usually in the form of art or writing—are frequently idolized. Lewis Carol is undoubtedly one of these people. He is a hero because he was able to freely wield the abstract ideas of his right-brain and combine them with the language of the left-brain.