Aside from the dynamic visual effects of this film, Alice in Wonderland did an exceptional job of illustrating many philosophical ideas discussed by the philosopher René Descartes. He states that there are often no indications by which we can clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep. The 2010 film and the popular 1951 Disney film were based on the books by English mathematician and logician Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
The main character of the film, Alice, falls into a “dream” or a place called Wonderland that is very real to her. As for Wonderland, the connection between the place and its title is that everything Alice wonders manifests in her dream.
The movie begins with Alice in the “real world” where she feels she is constantly being controlled. It is clear that Alice is a rebel at heart and wishes to do the opposite of what the people around her want her to do. Shortly after Alice and her mother arrive at what Alice doesn’t realize it is, her engagement party, her “real world” and the “dream world” collide. Descartes believed that it was sometimes impossible to find out what was real, our dreams or the “real world.”
Alice sees a white rabbit that no one else can see while seeing is in the “real world”. If no one but Alice sees the rabbit, it suggests that possibly this real-world experience is not real at all, but simply a dream. Just as Alice is forced to accept a marriage proposal, she cannot resist the temptation to escape from this awkward situation and go after the white rabbit, which results in chasing her dream. Alice follows the white rabbit to Wonderland, where she is constantly told that she is not “the real Alice”. “How can I not be the real Alice if this is my dream?” she continues to ask. The characters Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb look at each other with raised eyebrows when she responds as if to say that this is not your dream.
At times, Alice was able to control her sleep, although she may not have realized that she could. For example, when the characters were being chased by the great beast at the beginning, they told Alice that she should run or they would devour her. Alice told herself that this was her dream and that they couldn’t eat her. Alice stood in front of the beast and, although it wounded it, it did not eat it.
In the end, Alice was able to defeat the jabberwocky, which was the great beast that she was destined to kill. Alice constantly told herself that she couldn’t kill the charlatan during her entire journey. It wasn’t until he discovered that he had in fact been doing “impossible” things on his journey that he declared that killing the charlatan was another “impossible” thing he could do.
After her journey, Alice returns to the “real world” and takes control of her life. She is no longer the silent rebel she was before entering Wonderland. He says what he has in mind and does not let doubt stop him from doing things.
