An Opposite Meaning

A few weeks ago I watched the 2010 vesion of Alice in Wonderland.

Movie Summary:

The movie “Alice in Wonderland” starts with a father comforting his little girl (Alice) after being woken by a bad dream. In this scene Alice explains aspects of the dream to her father, such as the blue caterpillar, a rabbit in a waistcoat and the disappearing, talking cat.

After 13 years pass, Alice is on her way to a formal party of the royal family, completely unaware of the fact that the party is her own engagement party and Lord Hamish has plans to propose to her. Once proposed to by Hamish, she sees the rabbit from her dream and runs after it, like she has done for the past 13 years in her dreams. Following closely behind the rabbit, she ends up falling into a rabbit hole, where she lands in a room with 4 doors, 3 regular size and 1 the size of her head. After realizing she can only pass through the small door, Alice drinks a shrinking potion and enters the door into the world of her dream, controlled by the wicked Queen of Hearts.

After seeing “Alice's” legacy, she first denies that the quest is meant for her, but not so long after, she realizes she must return the crown to the White Queen by defeating the Jabawokee with a magic sword, so the people of her dream world can be safe once again. Only, Alice does not accept the need for her to defeat the creature and attempts to find ways around the task she was foretold to do.

Along her way, she meets the Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, the disappearing cat, a mouse warrior, and a hound dog, who all help her along her quest and steer her in the right direction. Not so long after Alice meets these friends, they are all captured by the queen of hearts, so Alice decides it is necessary for her to go to the queen's castle and save them.

Once within the castle walls, Alice pretends to be someone she is not, so that the queen will not be suspicious. Soon after entering the Queen's castle, Alice finds the magical sword and returns it to the White Queen.

Having successful made it to the White Queen, Alice prepares for the battle that will soon take place. At the battle grounds the White Queen comes to find that the Queen of Hearts will not back down, so the queens are given the choice of who they would like to do battle on their behalf, and just as the legacy foretold, Alice ends up battling the Jabawokee. After a gruelling fight, Alice defeats the beast and the crown is returned to the White Queen, who then banishes the Queen of Hearts to the outskirts of the land, and sends Alice back home.

Back at her engagement party, Alice uses her new found knowledge about herself and denies the proposal offer, saying she "will do as she wishes” and that she refuses to be forced into something she does not want to do.

Throughout “Alice in Wonderland” many mythological Archetypes are seen.

There are:

Heroic archetypes

Proto-Feminist Hero: Alice is a girl who sets out to save her imaginary world

Archetypal Journeys

The Journey in Search of Knowledge: In the beginning Alice wants to find out where the rabbit from her dream goes and if her world exists.

Throughout the whole movie, Alice did not know, but she was on a search for knowledge about herself the whole time.

The Quest to Rid the Land of Danger: Alice goes on a quest within her imaginary world to free her people and return the power to the White Queen so her dream world will be safe once again.

Stages of the Hero's Journey

Departure: The rabbit in the waistcoat prompts Alice to follow him, although she does not want to go because she is in the middle of a “very important” time as she is about to accept a proposal by a Lord.

Initiation: Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole and enters a door into her imaginary world where she soon see's that danger awaits her at every turn.

The Road of Trials: Along her way, Alice deals with many trials, being both inner and outer conflicts. Alice first realizes that she must kill the Jabawokee, then she battles a monster dog and looses her guides. After this things got a little more difficult for Alice; she hides from the Queen of Hearts, enters into the Queen of Hearts' castle to save her friends, then lies about who she is to the Queen of Hearts in order to release the people held captive.

The Innermost Cave: Alice accepts no one else is coming to defeat the Jabawokee, so she must do it to save the people from the Queen of Hearts' mean ways, so she defeats the beast.

Return and Reintegration with Society: Once back at the party, Alice decides not to marry Hamish and she decides she will no longer do what other people want or tell her to do.

Characteristics of the Hero's Journey

The hero has a strange, wise mentor: The crazy Mad Hatter is Alice's mentor, as he gives her advise on where to go and what to do. He also gives her some past history about the land.

The hero must go on a journey, learn a lesson, change in some way and return home: Alice sets out on her journey to save her imaginary land from danger and in the process learns that she does not like it when people tell her what to do, and that she likes to maker her own decisions.

The hero has a guide or guides: Alice has Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, Rabbit, Moues, the disappearing cat and the Mad Hatter as her guides along her journey.

The hero has a band of loyal companions: Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, Mouse, rabbit all help Alice along her journey and are loyal to her from start to finish.

The hero meets monsters or monstrous men: Alice meets the Bandersnap (a monster dog), Huge card soldiers and the Jabawokee (huge dragon-like creature) on her journey.

The hero often crosses a body of water or travels on a bridge: Alice comes across a bridge when she enters the imaginary world, crosses a river to get to the Castle, and crosses the water filled trench around the castle to get to her friends.

Situational Archetypes

The Battle Between Good and Evil: The Queen of Hearts in this movie is seen in a dark castle and represents evil, while the White Queen is seen in light and represents goodness.

The Magic Weapon: Alice must use the “Whoopoo” sword to kill the Jabawokee.

Symbolic Archetypes

Light vs. Darkness: The Queen of Hearts in this movie is seen in a dark castle and dark clothing, while the White Queen is always seen white and in bright light.

Colours:

White- The White Queen is seen, not only wearing white, but also has white hair, suggesting that she is innocent, good, peaceful and pure.

Blue- For most of the movie Alice is seen in blue, showing that she is a innocent, truthful girl.

Green- The Mad Hatter has green eyes, showing that he is full of hope and sympathy. This hope is shown through him hoping Alice will save the land, and his sympathy is shown when he supports Alice through making the decision to kill the Jabawokee, even though this is against Alice's values.

Red- The Queen of Hearts is seen in red from the beginning to the end in this movie, symbolizing that she has a violent passion and is an angry person. This is supported by her becoming very easily angered and screaming “chop of their head” whenever someone upsets her.

The Queen of Hearts' card soldiers are seen in red, as they also have a violent passion, and they sacrificed themselves for the Queen and her wishes.

Once captured by the Queen of Hearts, Alice is seen wearing red, creating the idea of sacrifice, suggesting that she will sacrifice herself in the battle against the Jabawokee in order to return the crown to the White Queen. Although she is seen in a red dress, there is also white in there too, symbolizing that she is still innocent and good and wants peace.

Black- The Prince of Hearts is seen wearing black throughout the whole movie, showing that he is purely evil.

Orange- The Mad Hatter has orange hair, which suggests his ambition to return the land to it's natural setting when the White Queen once ruled.

Nature:

Tree- In the start of the movie, Alice falls down a rabbit hole under a tree. Because trees represent knowledge and learning, it is suggested that Alice will learn a lesson or come out of her journey with more knowledge.

Fire- In a flashback to when the Queen of Hearts took over the land, fire covers the land. Although fire usually represents love and life, in this scene it is used to represent hatred and death as the Queen of Hearts hated the White Queen so she burned down the village and killed many of the people.

Objects:

Heart- The heart usually represents love, however in this case, the Queen of Hearts makes the heart represent hatred.

Character Archetypes

Hero: Alice is the hero as she sets out to save her imaginary land.

The Friendly Beasts: Rabbit, Mouse, the disappearing cat, the caterpillar and Dog are all “Friendly Beasts” in this film. They are all animals who give Alice some sort of help on her journey, either through advise or physical effort.

The Evil Figure with the Ultimately Good Heart: There are two of these types of characters in “Alice in Wonderland”. Dog is the first, because he helps the Prince of Hearts find Alice, but after meeting Alice, he leads them away from her on purpose to let her escape.

The last “evil figure with the ultimately good heart is the Bandersnap, as he is out to kill Alice in the first half of the movie, but after loosing his eye in the first battle and having it brought back to him by Alice and her kindness, he decides to help Alice by showing her where the magic sword is, and taking her quickly to the White Queen.

The Creature of the Nightmare: The Jabawokee is considered to be the “creature of the nightmare” because he is the most evil creature in the movie, and he is summoned by the Queen of Hearts in the dream to battle Alice. This archetype is ironic in this situaton, as the beast is actually from Alice's nightmare.

The Loyal Retainers: Rabbit, Mouse, the Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb are all Alice's friends who help her throughout her journey and never leave her side until they are taken away by the Queen of Hearts.

Throughout the movie “Alice in Wonderland” we see many mythological archetypes being used to portray opposite meanings to what they normally suggest.

This is seen through the use of fire in the movie, suggest hatred and death instead of life and love which fire usually symbolizes.

Another example of this is seen through the use of the heart, being worn by the Queen of Hearts and her minions. The heart, usually symbolizing love, is shown and proven to be used to suggest hatred and evilness.

This movie leads me to think that in some ways, mythological archetypes can be used to try to confuse the viewer, and make them believe something opposite about the characters. Although many symbolic archetypes were used to present opposite ideas with regards to the archetype's original meaning, this could also be a way of showing the viewers what the person thinks of themselves.

For example, the Queen of Hearts does not think she is evil and my have believed, when she burnt the town to the ground in order to gain the crown, she was doing a nice thing for the civilians by taking the crown away from the White Queen and making herself the Queen instead.

Do you think that this idea of using archetypes to convey a different idea, other than what they originally symbolize, was meant to confuse the viewer or portray a character's thoughts about themselves?

In our society today, do you see the opposite meanings of these mythological archetypes being used?

Consider colours, nature, shapes, etc.

For example the other day, I saw one of the sweetest girls I have ever met, dressed in black from head to toe.

Does this mean that she has an evil side to her or do these mythological archetypes not exist in our society at all?