One of my favorite things of all time is the Cheshire Cat. I absolutely adore him in nearly all the forms he takes. He’s such a fun character. He’s completely neutral and serves only to point Alice in a random direction so the story can continue. Since I have such a history with this story and it plays a key role in some of my fondest memories, I thought I would tell you all about it.
We all know the story. A little girl from Victorian England fallows a rabbit down a rabbit hole and somehow ends up in the crazy messed up world of Wonderland. We follow her as she makes her way around the world, encountering strange people and creatures and eating food that makes you grow and drinking drinks that make you shrink. The Alice story was originally written by Lewis Carroll who was kind of a pervert. I once wrote a paper on him, for a History fair I believe. He liked little girls, but not little boys, and pretty much no one else. He actually based Alice on a girl named Alice Little who he used to play with. Yeah, he was a creep. At any rate, it’s a good story, though he was probably high while writing it. It’s become a classic, as has its sequel Through the Looking Glass.
There have been a lot of adaptations of the story in both film and play. The most well know, obviously is the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, the animated version. The version we grew up with. I will admit that I didn’t like the movie when I was young, and really, I’m still not a huge fan. It scared me as a child and I hated seeing Alice crying in the dark because it made me feel sad. When I got older and actually read the books it bothered me for another reason. It’s dumb, but it bothers me that they smashed the books together and just called it Alice in Wonderland. I realize that they do that in like every version, but still, it drove me nuts. At any rate, that was that. The new movie pleases me much more. Again, they took elements from both books, but this time I can forgive them because it wasn’t Wonderland either. It was Underland that she called Wonderland, there for it’s an entirely different matter and since it’s all in her head anyway, they can be smooshed together. I really loved the movie though. I’m a huge Johnny Depp fan so that helped. His mad hatter was brilliant~ I’m a fool for a Scottish accent. The whole idea of taking the story we know and love, twisting the characters a bit, and putting a nineteen-year-old Alice into the middle of the whole thing was a lot of fun. Adults react differently than children do and even though Alice is more sensible now, she still holds enough childishness inside her to get by in this crazy messed up world. As the opening suggests, I’m also incredibly fond of the Cheshire Cat. He’s so much fun to watch and read and act. He can do pretty much anything that he wants but doesn’t because he simply doesn’t feel like it. He’s awesome!~
So I guess you’re wondering why this has special meaning to me? I did say it contributed to some of my fondest memories. Well, aside from watching it with one of my best friends in the whole world, it gave me my favorite and first leading role in a play. I was in eighth grade and in the senior drama class in my homeschooler’s group. We needed something for the History Fair and somehow we picked Alice in Wonderland for our script. Admittedly it was kind of by default that I got the part. We were all in the Co-op play and the other two girls had bigger roles than my little part as the villain’s girlfriend. So since I had the least amount to memorize for that, I got the biggest part in this; Alice. Still, a lead is a lead and I was pleased to have it. It was so much fun, too. The script was pretty much word for word from the book and I got to memorize all of it for my part. Not because I had to, just because that’s how I am. I can still spout out pieces from the Cheshire Cat. We found pictures of it while getting ready for my grad party and it pleased me so much to remember it. It’s one memory I would love to relive over and over again.
So, if you haven’t read it, read it. If you haven’t watched it, watch it. It’s a fantastic and greatly amusing story that I’m rather in love with.
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