Paper Topic

My research paper topic deals with both "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Alchemist". I am comparing the similarities and differences between the dreams that go on in both books. In "Alice in Wonderland" her dream was the story throughout the book. Alice was dreaming the whole time and met some pretty interesting characters throughout the way. In "The Alchemist", however, Santiago had a dream about finding a treasure by the Pyramids of Egypt. He is not dreaming throughout the book, but he decides to pursue the dream and follow his personal legend. My research question is "What were the differences between Alice's and Santiago's dreams, and what did each of them learn from their dreams?"

Two Things Going on in the Alchemist

One thing I have noticed from reading the second part of The Alchemist is the fact that Santiago has already fallen for another girl. I thought it was interesting that he suddenly forgot all about the Merchants Daughter and now seems to be in love with a girl named Fatima. I am guessing that he falls for girls so hard because of the fact he has probably never had an actual romantic relationship with one. I do not see how he could of in the past because he has always been traveling as a sheep herder.

Another thing that was interesting was how trusting Santiago is still. I would think after getting all of his money stolen earlier in the book that he would not be so trusting of strangers. I was obviously wrong though, since he decided to caravan down to Egypt with the Englishman and a bunch of strangers. Those people could have lied to him. It would not have surprised me if they would have robbed him and taken him to some place nowhere near Egypt. Good thing they did not, but I still do not understand how Santiago can be that trusting.

Burton's Hatter

I have never seen Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, but by watching the clip we saw in class and reading the book I do see some distinct differences between the two characters. While watching the clip in class, I felt the Hatter had more of an intention to help Alice out while she was in Wonderland. He had her drink the potion that shrank Alice and put her in the teapot so that she would not be seen by the knight (or whatever he was). The Hatter in the movie, seemed polite and caring.

In the book, I feel like he would not have cared at all if Alice were to get in any sort of trouble. Also in the book, the hatter seemed to irritate Alice. In the movie, Alice and the Hatter seemed to get along quite well. It was also kind of strange that in the movie the Hatter seemed to know what was going on around him and it was interesting that he even was able to understand that if the knight had seen Alice, she would have been in trouble. In the book, the Hatter did not seem to realize what was going on in the outside world, he was to caught up in his own world and more importantly "tea time".

From the Rabbit's Point of View

I was of to meet the queen and I was already late, but then I realized that I had forgotten my gloves fan and gloves. Oh dear! The queen will not be pleased I had to go back and find them. As I went back I saw Mary Ann and told her to go get me a new pair of gloves and a fan from my house at once. At that moment I did not realize it but that was not Mary Ann.

The girl I thought to be Mary Ann was taking quite awhile to get my gloves and fan, so I decided to go back to my house in a hurry to see what was taking her so long. As I got there, In realized that there was something in my house. It was something big, so I got Bill to come with me and try to get inside. We tried to have Bill go down the Chimney, but he came right back up when we sent him down. I tried opening the door, but it would not open. So I decided then to go to the window and I was almost grabbed by a large hand. It turns out that the hand belonged to the girl I thought was Mary Ann. She said that she had grown by drinking the beverage in my house, so we went in some cakes to make her shrink. When she did she ran away. We chased after her, but the girl was to fast and got away.

Lewis Carrol

Lewis Carol, as we discussed in class, seems like a interesting person. He kind of seems to be the Michael Jackson of the 1800's, but like you said in class there is no proof against the allegations he has had against him. I read about him a little bit and it said he was very conservative with his political views. One thing I read up on him was his religious beliefs. It was said that he was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research. The Society of Psychical Research was based out of the United Kingdom and was a nonprofit organization. Basically what these people did was researched psychic and paranormal abilities so they could later understand them. This seems to be a pretty odd idea, but again Carrol seemed to be a very interesting and weird guy.

My Favorite Book

I would have to say my favorite book I have read is The Lord of The Flies. I read the book my Senior year in high school in my English Literature class and it was easy to follow and exciting. The book was about a group of kids whos plane crashed on an island while they were on a school trip. The kids basically made their own civilization and lost touch with reality. They also lost touch with the rules of mankind and became somewhat barbaric. They formed a system of government which some of the children fought over who was in power and some of these problems led to murder. The book really showed how important organization and order are in order to keep order in a civilization.

Bedford-pages 13-23

Reading Bedford pages 13-23 made me realize how many things go into a readers response on a passage. Whether it is your sex, age, or race, different people have different responses when reading a story. When I read Kate Choplin's "The Story of an Hour", I first thought it was going to be about her husband dying and her being extremely depressed afterwords. After getting through the whole story, I realized she felt feelings of saddness and relief. I felt like she eventually decided to look at the negatives as well as the positives and by doing so she realized she was free of marriage. I was personally wondering how old Louise was in the story, because I didn't know if she thought she could maybe find somebody new. At the end of the story when she died after seeing him, it was said she "the joy that kills", which honestly I still do not fully understand what that means. I feel like if somebody that had gone through a similar situation would read this, they would sympathize with what Louise was feeling. Maybe some would have the same feelings, some would have different ones. It seems to me that Louise was unhappy with her marriage, but she just did not want to admitt it. I feel like she must of had strong morals and believed that marriage was not to be broken.