Lewis Carroll s Wonderland A Magical Underworld Named...

Lewis Carroll s novel Alice in Wonderland, tells the story of a young girl named Alice who adventures through a magical underworld named Wonderland. This young girl s adventures in Wonderland can be seen as a metaphor for the experience of growing up, both in terms of physically growing up and physiologically maturing as she gets to understand the adult world through her autonomy and experiences. She physically grows and shrinks again and again in the story up to a total of 12 times. Her constant physical change as she attempts to find the ideal size, evokes how complex the idea of growing up can be as these changes can be both confusing and extremely stressful. With the help of a fairy tale style, Alice continues to grow taller then shrink. These physical alterations that Alice is going through symbolize a young adolescent s experiences during puberty. This is evident in the opening of the novel as Alice falls down the rabbit hole and sees â€Å"cupboards and book-shelves .... maps, and pictures hung upon pegs† (Carroll, 3). Carroll instantly places the reader in the world of Wonderland where it s setting is full of colours and imaginative creatures. This setting represents a world where a young girl like Alice can be free of stress and wrapped in a colourful loving environment. As the reader dives deeper in Wonderland, it is clear that it is a fun world but also very confusing and changes its atmospheric mood constantly. This represents exactly what puberty is; a time