Alices Adventures in Wonder Land, James and the Giant Peach Essay

Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, James and the Giant Peach 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. It was written for children and is a story of a twelve year old girl who falls down a rabbit hole. On her adventures, the protagonist, Alice, comes across many weird and wonderful scenes, sites and characters. She comes across many creatures and animals with anthropomorphic behaviour. The entire story is set in a strange world of continuous change. 'James and the Giant Peach', written by Roald Dahl in 1965, is also a book written for children. It is about a boy called James, who is also the protagonist and is also a similar age as Alice, and he comes across a huge peach. This peach contains giant insects, which talk. There are several similarities between these two stories, including the fact that the protagonist is a child who goes through magical and strange scenes that are packed with fantasy and wonder. Also, the characters that they meet along their way are, in both stories, creatures and animals who behave anthropomorphically. James is taken through many adventures and situations of great excitement. He lives in and lives off the peach which he has become stranded upon whilst floating at sea. Eventually, in the climax of the story, the peach ends out flying over New York City with the aid of Seagulls. This is a modern child's story, and even with a century between the publishing of James and Alice, the two stories are incredibly alike in scene structure and character relevance. In both stories there are wonderful but bizarre characters that influence the story and how it develops. In Alice, a strong influence of the story is the Cheshire Cat. Using riddles a... ...er influence, I have come to the conclusion that 'Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland' simply isn't as enjoyed by children as it used to be. It is too out of the ordinary and merely unbelievable. Fantasy works with the imagination, but this story is just too fantastical. The introduction of the animated film has also discouraged children from reading the book, because not as much effort has to be put in just to understand what's happening. This is the case with modern stories as well. For example, the Harry Potter stories are released as films as well as in books, yet many children still enjoy and are inspired to read the books as well as watching the films. Basically 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' has passed its time, and in the modern day requires too much concentrating, hard work and deep thought to be enjoyed. Easily read stories, are easily enjoyed.