This is the presentation of Alice's Adventures in the Wonderland by Lewis Carroll that I prepared for a final essay at college. It is quite a summary for the whole story.
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND’ S SUMMARY
Alice is sitting with her sister on the bank and is very bored with her sister’s book having no pictures when, all of a sudden, she sees a White Rabbit with a waistcoatpocket and takes a watch out of it. Then, Alice who is very curious about this, decides to follow the Rabbit down the hole. She finds a hall with doors all around. She tries them, however they are all locked. Then, she comes upon a little three-legged table on which there was a little golden key. She hadn’t noticed before there was a little door behind a curtain, but the key fits in and when she opens it, she sees that it leads into a small passage.
Thereafter, she finds a bottle with the label ‘Drink me’. She tasted because it was not marked ‘poison’. She got ten inches high after drinking the bottle. She also starts crying feeling sad about the situation. Then, she sees a cake, a very small one with the words ‘Eat me’ on it. She ate because she thought she could reach her normal size, but surprisingly, she remains the same way.
Suddenly, Alice finds herself growing and she continues growing until she reaches the ceiling. Now she is able to get the key from the table, but she is too big to pass through the door. All these makes her cry and she cries until there is a large pool all around her. Alice asks the Rabbit for help, but he is so frightened that he drops the gloves and fan and runs away. Alice takes them and thinks about her life sadly. When she realizes, she shrinks again due to the Rabbit’s fan and then, she throws it away. After, she slips into the pool of tears and finds a mouse. As Alice talks to him about cats and dogs, she also gets scared, hating her conversation. Lots of animals fall into the pool. They are all in the way to the shore.
All animals and Alice wander how to get dry again. The Dodo suggests a caucus-race. In this game, they could start and leave the race whenever they liked and Dodo finishes it. Alice was given the task to give them prizes, and then she gives things from her pocket. She asks again about why the Mouse did not like Cats and Dogs, but the mouse always gets offended. He tries to tell a tale, a sad one, joining all animals around, but when she mentions Dinah, her cat, all animals run away... Alice feels lonely.
The White Rabbit returns, looking for his fan and gloves and he takes Alice for his housemaid, demanding his gloves and fan. She enters into his house to search for them. As she was very tiny, she decides to drink a bottle without any label on, hoping it makes her larger. It does, but it makes her so large that she fills the whole room. Alice grows larger again and the Rabbit can not get in his house. The Rabbit sends the lizard Bill and Alice warns them about Dinah so as to frighten them. She decides to eat a cake that appeared there and she can get out of the house. She gets very tiny again and finds a puppy which might want to eat her, but nothing happens, she only plays with a stick to get him tired so that she can escape from it.
Then, she comes across a Caterpillar that asks Alice who she is. She answers that she does not know because she has changed so many times that day. Alice gets a little irritated because the Caterpillar keeps making very short remarks at what she says. Alice starts complaining that she is too small and the Caterpillar advises her to eat from the mushroom: one side will make her grow taller and the other side will make her grow shorter. So, she tries to nibble on both sides and gets a very long neck. Because of this, a pigeon mistakes her as a serpent in search of her eggs. Alice convinces it that she is only a little girl and eats again from the mushroom until she is reduced to her normal size.
Alice decides to visit the March Hare since she is nearby. She stands in front of a house, thinking about what to do when a fish-like footman knocks on the door and a frog-like footman opens it. The fish-footman delivers an invitation from the Queen for the Duchess to play croquet and leaves. The frog-footman sits on the ground outside the house. Alice walks to the door and knocks, but the footman tells her that it is no sort of use in knocking as he is on the same side of the door and they are making too much noise in the house to hear her anyway. However, Alice opens the door herself.
When she gets in the house, she meets the Duchess, a cat, a baby and some other creatures. The soup she tastes and also the air have a lot of pepper. The creatures all make much noise. The Duchess leaves the baby with her because she needed to play croquet with the Queen. The baby makes some strange noises, turns into a pig and runs into the wood. Alice finds a cat ‘who’ can appear and vanish many times. This cat tells her he is going to play croquet with the Queen.
Thereafter, Alice sees a large table set out under a tree in front of the house. The March Hare and the Mad Hatter are having tea at it and a Dormouse is sitting between them, fast asleep. Alice sits down in a chair, although the Hare and Hatter tell her there was no room. The Hatter’s watch does not tell the time but the day of the month. The Hatter tells her that he quarreled with Time last March and “he” punished him with a forever six o’clock which is always the teatime.
Alice leaves after interrupting the Dormouse’s story, because she gets really offended after his remarks over her. She finds herself in a long hall, close to the little glass table. Alice notices a tree with a door in it, she takes the key and unlocks the door, eats from the mushroom to make herself smaller and is finally able to enter the beautiful garden.
Alice comes upon a rose-tree with white roses. Three gardeners are painting them red because they are afraid of the Queen who asked to plant them red, not white. They can have their heads cut and Alice tries to protect them, but there is no way she would change her mind. She orders to execute them. After that, the Queen invites her to play croquet. Everyone plays without waiting for their turns and they constantly quarrel. The Queen orders the beheading of people. The cat can not be beheaded because he disappears all the time.
As the Queen has ordered so many beheadings that only she, Alice and the King are spared. They meet a Gryphon and the Queen tells him to take Alice to the Mock Turtle to hear his history. The King pardons all the prisoners in the way. The Mock Turtle starts telling his history which is interrupted by sobbings and long pauses. He tells he had a master turtle called Tortoise and he took courses like Reeling and Writhing.
The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle explain to Alice what sort of dance a Lobster Quadrille is. They start dancing around her while the Mock Turtle sings the words and they ask the Mock Turtle to sing ‘Turtle Soup’ for them. He is interrupted with a cry was heard in the distance: 'The trial's beginning!’. Alice and the Gryphon run away.
While waiting for the trial, Alice notices that the King is the judge and that the jurors are not very smart. The White Rabbit reads the accusation, claiming that the Knave of Hearts stole the tarts. The first witness is the Mad Hatter, providing no evidence. The next witness is the Duchess’ cook and she is cross-examined. To Alice’s great surprise, she called as to be the third witness.
She tells the King that she knows nothing about the stolen tarts. The King reads that all people more than a mile high must leave the court. Therefore, Alice refuses to leave because she suspects that he made up the rule. Alice is not afraid to contradict the Queen anymore, as she has grown to her full size. Alice yells at them: - You’re nothing but a pack of cards!, trying to beat them off.
At last, Alice finds herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, realizing that everything was a dream and tells her adventures to her. As Alice runs off for the tea, her sister thinks about the dream and falls asleep too. She dreams the same dream as Alice. She continues to dream about how her little sister will possibly become a grown woman and how she will always keep the simple joys, remembering her when she was little in her loving heart and the summer days, with this tale’s memories as part of her childhood.
