This semester, my favorite novel that we read was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll because it’s such a well known story but I wouldn’t have fully understood all the complexities of it if we hadn’t analyzed in depth in this class. That was beneficial to me because it caused me to look at something I thought I already knew about in a new light and that was enlightening. Tim Burton’s film Alice in Wonderland was a great accomplice to the novel because it portrayed Alice in a different, more feminine way than Carroll originally did. Although I found it very intriguing that the only way for Alice to become powerful and independent in that story is to take on a man’s role and even the physical clothes (or armor) of a man, and how feminist is that really? However, if I were to change one thing about the Alice in Wonderland unit in this class, I would suggest making Gavin Millar’s film Dreamchild a mandatory film. I did my final paper on a comparison between Millar’s film and Carroll’s novel and I think that Dreamchild has quite a lot to offer to the course and displays a perverse and invasive side of Wonderland that I found fascinating and would have liked to delve into more during class.
One text that I didn’t like as much in this class was The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason. To me, it seemed like the odd one out along with the other classic novels that we read. I didn’t find this novel to be as engaging as the others and also didn’t think there was as much depth to it as the other texts. There were no similar themes in this novel that coincided with any of the other novels. I can see where the fidelity and betrayal appear in this text but I didn’t find it compelling, nor did I find the film to be compelling. It didn’t interest me. This is merely an observation and is solely opinion based. Other than that I truly enjoyed the course material for this class!