¶ … Alice in Wonderland and the Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe The purpose of this paper is to compare and discuss the danger to the children in C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," and Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland."

THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" takes place during World War II in London. Four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, go live in the country to avoid bomb-torn London. They live with the rather eccentric Professor Kirke. One rainy day, the children are playing hide and seek inside, and Lucy hides in the wardrobe. Suddenly, she finds herself in the woods, and snow is falling. She has discovered the land of Narnia, and later brings the other children along to see her discovery.

Narnia is under the spell of the wicked White Witch, so it is perpetually winter in the land, but never Christmas. Humans can break the spell, so her assistants notify the Witch any time a human enters the land. The children are in jeopardy because of this, but some of the residents such as Mr. And Mrs. Beaver, and Tumnus, the faun.

However, Edmund enters Narnia on his own, and runs into the Witch, who introduces herself as the Queen of Narnia. She feeds Edmund enchanted Turkish Delight candy, causing him to crave the candy, and become greedy. She urges him to bring his other siblings to the land, so she can get rid of them all.

The White Witch can turn the residents and the children to stone with her magic wand, and she embodies evil in the story. Lucy tells the other children, "She calls herself the Queen of Narnia thought she has no right to be queen at all, and all the Fauns and Dryands and Naiads and Dwarfs and Animals -- at least all the good ones -- simply hate her."

Tumnus protects Lucy, even though he works for the Witch, and the Witch turns him into stone as punishment. All the children return to Narnia, and Mr. Beaver tells them they must find Aslan the lion, in order to save Tumnus and rid Narnia of the White Witch. Mr. Beaver tells the children about Aslan. "Aslan a man! Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion -- the Lion, the great Lion."

Edmund warns the Witch that the children are looking for Aslan, and she plots to kill the four of them. She is afraid of an ancient prophecy saying four humans will someday reign over Narnia and overthrow her.

As the children rush to meet Aslan, at the Stone Table, they begin to see signs of spring in the woods. They meet Father Christmas, who tells them the Witch's spell is broken, and the seasons will return. Meanwhile, the Witch is hurrying to the Stone Table with Edmund, who she plans to kill for being a "traitor," along with Aslan.

Aslan effectively bargains with the Witch, and gives his life to save Edmund. The next day, Aslan rises from the dead, and takes the girls to the Witch's castle, where they save all the prisoners who had been turned to stone. Peter commands a great army against the Witch's forces. Aslan kills the Witch, and Peter's army then defeats her forces. Edmund has helped fight the Witch's followers, and has atoned for turning in the children. They become adults, and reign over Narnia for many years.

One day, they come to the border of Narnia, and are thrown back into the wardrobe. When they emerge, no time has passed, and they are still children. Kindly Professor Kirke reassures them that they will some day return to Narnia.

Are...

They see Aslan killed, and Tumnus turned into stone, and know the same fate could await them. Edmund is in the most danger when the Witch discovers that he has accepted she is evil. She wants to kill him, and then the other children.
The children are also in danger when they fight the Witch's forces, clearly they are at war, and could be killed during the conflict. Underlying the danger is the belief that Aslan will protect them, and make sure that no harm comes to them.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

"Alice in Wonderland" first made its appearance in 1865, so the setting is much earlier than "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." Lewis Carroll writes with a wonderful sense of absurdity and wonder that brings the story to life. Alice meets the White Rabbit while sitting on the bank of a river reading a book. She is interested in the talking rabbit, who wears clothing and carries a pocket watch, so she follows him right into his rabbit hole.

She falls extremely slowly, and has time to observe the things around her, and think of things she learned in school. "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!'"

She finally reaches the bottom of the hole, just in time to see the rabbit disappear into a long hallway. She follows him, and finds all the doors in the hallway are locked. She looks around for a key, and finally finds one on a small table, but it is much too tiny for the locks. She finally finds a tiny door behind a curtain. She opens it to see a beautiful garden beyond, and is determined to find a way through the tiny door.

She finds a bottle on the table that says, "Drink Me." She carefully checks to make sure the bottle is not marked "Poison," and drinks it. She shrinks to the perfect size to go through the door, but has left the key on the table. She finds a piece of cake that says, "Eat Me," and eats the cake. She grows tall enough to reach the key, and then keeps growing. The rabbit runs by, is terrified of her, and drops his fan and white gloves. When she picks up the fan, and begins to shrink again. She drops it before she shrinks away entirely, but has left the key on the table again. She falls into a salty pool, and discovers it is a pool of water her tears made when she cried earlier. "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" Finally, the mouse helps to rescue her, and they both swim to shore, along with several other animals.

Later, she meets the Caterpillar, who gives her some sage advice, and two pieces of mushroom, which she can eat to grow larger or smaller. "In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass merely remarking as it went, 'One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.'"

She also meets the Cheshire Cat, enjoys a tea party with the Mad Hatter, and plays croquet with the Queen of Hearts, and is called to testify in the trial of the Jack of Hearts, accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The Queen's army of playing cards attacks Alice during the trial, and she wakes up to find her adventures were all a dream.

"Oh, I've had such a curious dream!'" said Alice,…