Unit 12 Fantasy

 

 

Now read the following extract from a novel, where Alice, dozing off as her sister

reads to her, jumps down the rabbit hole falling for quite a while and landing in

a mysterious hall.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having

nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book, her sister was reading, but

it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice,

“without pictures or conversations?”

So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made

her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would

be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White

Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out

of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when

she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at

this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a

watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started

to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with

either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she

ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole

under the hedge.

110 English: Grade 11

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world

she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly

down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before

she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very

slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went

down to look about her, and to wonder what was

going to happen next. First, she tried to look down

and make out what she was coming to, but it was

too dark to see anything: then she looked at the

sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled

with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there

she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She

took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled “ORANGE

MARMALADE,” but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to

drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of

the cupboards as she fell past it.

“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of

tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say

anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall nevercome to an end? “I wonder how many miles

I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre

of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think..... ” (for, you

see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and

though this was not a verygood opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there

was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) “...yes, that’s about

the right distance but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice

had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they

were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny

it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The

antipathies, I think” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it

didn’t sound at all the right word) “...but I shall have to ask them what the name of the

country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?” (and she

 

tried to curtsey as she spoke fancy, curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do

you think you could manage it?) “And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for

asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.”

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again.

“Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope

they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were

down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a

bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here

Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way,

“Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes “Do bats eat cats?”, for, you see,

as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She

felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in

hand with Dinah, and was saying to her, very earnestly, “Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:

did you ever eat a bat?”, when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap

of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked

up, but it was all dark overhead: before her was another long passage, and the White

Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away

went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh

my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she turned

the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low

hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been

all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down

the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass: there was

nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first idea was that this might belong to

one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! Either the locks were too large, or the key was

too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time

round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a

little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to

her great delight it fitted!

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger

than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden

 

you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall,

and wander about among those beds of bright flowers

and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her

head through the doorway; “and even if my head would

go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little

use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut

up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to

begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice

had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so

she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another

key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up

like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it (“which

certainly was not here before,” said Alice), and tied round the

neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words “DRINK

ME” beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that

in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not”;

for she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten

up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember

the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn

you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife,

it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle

marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to taste it, and, finding

it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple,

roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast), she very soon finished it off.

“What a curious feeling!” said Alice. “I must be shutting up like a telescope!”

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at

the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that

lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to

shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,”

said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should

be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the

 

candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the

garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had

forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found

she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she

tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when

she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself rather sharply. “I advise

you to leave off this minute!” She generally gave herself very good advice (though she

very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring

tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having

cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious

child was very fond of pretending to be two people. “But it’s no use now,” thought

poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to

make one respectable person!”

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and

found in it a very small cake, on which the words “EAT ME” were beautifully marked

in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach

the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I’ll

get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!”

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself “Which way? Which way?” holding

her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing; and she was quite

surprised to find that she remained the same size. To be sure, this is what generally

happens when one eats cake; but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting

nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life

to go on in the common way. So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

Lewis Carroll

For the Video

(44) Alice in Wonderland part 1: Down the rabbit-hole - YouTube

Ways with words

A. Find the meanings of the following words and phrases from a dictionary

and make sentences by using them.

peep into pop down remarkable hedge wonder tumble

doze off earnestly tiny creep

 

B. Match the words below with their opposites.

1.               Beginning - vi. ending

2.   Stupid - iv. clever

3.   natural - v. artificial

4.   disappointment- i. happiness

5.   ignorant - iii. educated

6.   anxiously - ii. calmly

C. Pronouncing /s/ and /ʃ/, /s/ and /z/

a. Practise the pronunciation of the following pairs of words.

see/she sip/ship sort/short save/shave

sock/shock seat/sheet so/show sew/show

sit/shit said/shed sake/shake seep/sheep

b. Pronounce the following minimal pairs of words correctly.

price/prize rice/rise peace/peas loose/lose

bus/buzz face/phase seal/zeal device/devise

Comprehension

A. Answer these questions.

a. What did Alice do while her sister was reading a book?

She fell asleep while her sister was reading a book

b. Why did Alice run across the field after the Rabbit?

Alice ran across the field after the Rabbit because she was curious to know more about the rabbit she had never seen before, in a waistcoat with a pocket watch.

c. Why didn’t she like to drop the jar? What did she do with it?

She did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath. She put it into one of the cupboards.

d. What idea came to her mind when she saw a tiny golden key?

The idea of opening one of the doors of the hall came to her mind when she saw a tiny golden key.

e. What was written on the bottle that she found? Did she follow what it said?

The words “DRINK ME” was written on the bottle that she found. Yes, she did.

f. Alice was fond of pretending to be two people. Who were they?

They were Alice, herself.

g. Why did she want to eat the cake that she found?

She wanted to eat the cake that she found because it could make her grow bigger.

B. Put these sentences in the right order as they happen in the story.

1.               Alice saw a White Rabbit and ran after him.

2.   Alice fell down a rabbit hole.

3.   Alice found a small key and unlocked a very small door.

4.   Alice drank something from a bottle and got very small.

5.   Alice tried to climb a table leg to get the key again.

6.   Alice ate a small cake, which said, ‘EAT ME’.

Critical thinking

a. “Down the rabbit hole” is a sort of writing called fantasy. On the basis of your reading of the story point out some special elements of this kind of writing?

Fantasy is a genre of fiction. It includes characters and events that couldn’t exist in real life. For example, someone is not likely to encounter a wizard penguin in real life. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Charlie and Chocolate Factory, The Lord of the Rings are some of the fine fantasy.

 

Most fantasy uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot, theme and setting. Plot of a fantasy includes a battle between good and evil, the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life- birth, growth and death, a hero’s journey, a heroine being rescued by a charming man and battling a make-believe monster.

 

In a fantasy, witches, wizards, fairies, prince and princess, kings and queens, knights, dragons, talking animals, angels and devils, elves, gnomes, unicorns, etc. are chosen as characters. A fantasy is set in faraway land, in an enchanted kingdom, in a magical forest, during medieval times, in an imaginary world, in heaven or during the afterlife. The fantasy authors rely on the theme of defending honor, loyalty, finding a mysterious object, completing a quest, sacrificing something, etc.

b. Is it good to imagine of things which are not possible to achieve in reality? Explain.

Most people believe that imagination has nothing to do with reality. They don’t not relate it with success, achievement and reality. They consider it as impractical. But imagination shapes the way which influences our hopes, actions and behaviors.

 

Imagination is one of the most significant keys to success. It is mostly connected with daydreaming, wishing and illusion. A person’s ambition, goal and plan begin with the imagination, and only later, turns into reality. Thomas Edison dreamt of electric bulbs and made it happen. Despite severe insult, Walt Disney imagined being the head of the world's largest animation empire and made it possible.

 

Various facts show that a successful person creates a mental image of his goal and make it real with suitable steps. An obvious mental image of what he wants to achieve, helps him to see his goal, and the way towards it, with detail. Moreover, he develops the qualities like willingness, enthusiasm, devotion and dedication in himself to make things true.

 

When somebody imagines something they really wants and proceeds with proper actions, things never become impossible. Things always seem impossible until they are done.

 

B. Express your wishes in the following situations in three different ways. Use I wish/If only…….

a. You don’t have a mobile phone (You need one).

I wish I talked to my father about it.

I wish I could buy one myself.

I wish somebody would gift me one.

 

b. You don’t know the answer of a question from the lesson.

I wish my friend told me the answer.

I wish my teacher would help me.

I wish I could read the lesson properly.

 

c. You can’t play the guitar.

I wish I brought a guitar lesson book.

I wish someone would teach me guitar chords.

I wish I could go to the guitar expert’s.

 

d. It’s cold.

I wish I drank hot water.

I wish my mother would burn some firewood.

I wish I could stay inside the house.

 

e. You are feeling sick.

I wish I were healthy.

I wish somebody would call a doctor.

I wish I could go to hospital.

 

f. You live in a crowded city.

I wish I lived in the country.

I wish the city would be peaceful.

I wish I could spend a couple of weeks far from the city.

 

g. You feel lonely.

I wish I listened to my favourite music.

I wish my friend would phone me.

I wish I could do the household works.

 

C. Rewrite the following sentences making correction if necessary.

a. I wish my father bought me a bike.

b. I wish I could write poems.

c. I wish I could remember her name.

d. I wish I had a good job.

c. I wish I were rich.