Alice (and Carroll) as Leaders

We are all born into ignorance. Through the trials and tribulations of life, we hope to one day achieve understanding. It is the human condition.

Nowhere does da Vinci draw anything pertaining to what is inside.

And so there isn't much heroism in conquering that ubiquitous shortcoming. It can effectively be summed up in what we call "growing up." But Alice does do something unique, something heroic. She does it on her own.

Those flowers certainly aren't human.

Perhaps I view it as heroism only because of that fact. Honestly, I am a very shy person. I hate approaching new things, and I hate approaching them a lone. But Alice not only chooses to venture down the rabbit hole, she not only stands up to but conquers the question when it is posed to her, "Who are you?"[1] Wonderland exists not only as an escape from the ordinary but also as a probe of her individual. When placed into the most foreign of lands, she forges her perspectives through experience a lone. As she tries to grab some sort of handle on who she is, "she crossed her hands on her lap, as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words dd not come the same as they used to." [2] Having lost her sight of even herself, she dives deeper into the depths of Wonderland to find out more. Her methodology is venerable, as Sharon Begley points out that "If you make enough weak measurements, the average comes impressively close to the actual value."[3] Alice does indeed make plenty of "weak measurements" by her own hand. Out of them, she amasses an average out of the extraordinary, deriving from her own experiences a form of reason. Much like the Greek philosophers of Antiquity that I have written about before, she learns through her own experiences "as opposed to listening to someone else." [4] Much as was the passion I wrote about in P's 1 and 2, Alice creates her own individual in a land full of nothing but wonder. I don't know that I can call it inspiration or bravery, but I can view it as an example of accomplishment, of conquering the uncertain. Two goals that I believe everyone should strive for.
I, for one, would not want to go down there. Perhaps it is everyones greatest fear: the unknown.

The topic of writers as heros then must come up if whom they create are to be viewed as such. Perhaps the word hero is too strong for a real world example, but the nomers role model and leader suit them perfectly. For the same reason that Alice is a hero, Carroll is a hero (a leader, at least). He created this vision of his through experience and shared it with us. His motivations and influences may be unbeknownst to us, but regardless, he crafts a lens through which we can see our own lives in the color of metaphor, guiding us with his insights and leading the way to higher understandings of that which surrounds us. Carroll, and all writers, paint for us visions of life that we not otherwise have, and for that, I look up to them. For I am no Alice, and I am afraid.


[1] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 48
[2] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 23
[3] "Putting Time in a (Leaky) Bottle" E603A Course Anthology, Sharon Begley, X690
[4] “How Alice Leads/Is a Hero”, E603A Course Anthology, Amber Berclath, X692A