NEB Grade-11(English) Unit-12 Fantasy : Down the Rabbit Hole

 

Unit-12 Fantasy

Down the Rabbit Hole

 

 Before you read

a.      Why do people have dreams?
People see dreams due to their unconscious desires and wishes, frightening events and if much pressure given to the mind. 

 

b.     Find any four other terms that refer to dreaming and explain their meanings.

Thinking- the process of considering or reasoning about something
Considering- taking (something) into consideration
Contemplating- look thoughtfully for a long time at
 Visualizing- form a mental image of

c.   What does 'down the rabbit hole' mean?
 ‘Down the rabbit hole‘ is a  phrase used as  a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully situation.

Lewis Carroll: The Author

     Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer of children's fiction, notably Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy.
Born: 27 January 1832 Daresbury Cheshire, England
Died: 14 January 1898 (aged 65) Guildford, Surrey, England
Occupation: Author, Poet, Illustrator, Mathematician, Photographer, Teacher, Inventor
Notable works: Alice’s in the Wonderland, Through the Lookin Glass, The Hunting of the Shark

    

Chapter: 1

Down the Rabbit Hole

•      Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ’s Chapter –I  Down the Rabbit Hole begins as a pleasant fairy tale where Alice and her sister are reading a book that has neither pictures nor conversations except anticipating the strange and nonsensical  and boring events . Alice finds the reading tedious and she  begins  dozing off. She enters into the world of dreams. At the edge of semi-sleep consciousness, she sees the form of a white rabbit scurrying toward a rabbit-hole. Immediately, Alice is curious and pursues him down the hole. The reason for Alice's pursuit is that she burns with curiosity; after all, the rabbit is wearing a waistcoat, talking to himself, walking upright, and he has a pocket watch; his image is thus unusual, suggesting romantic and fairy tale "people."
•      As she floats down, she notices that the sides of the well are covered with cupboards and shelves. She plucks a  jar from one of the shelves. The jar is empty, so Alice sets it down on another shelf. With nothing else to do, she speaks aloud to herself, wondering how far she has fallen and if she might fall right through to the other side of the earth or from the roof. In her fall, she has fantasies relating to the absence of gravity, the quality of infinite space, the shape of her body, mass, and velocity, or in News Zealand or in Australia. The narrator reminds us that both falls would still likely kill her.
•      She remembers her cat, Dinah whether she had food or not and thinks it would be better if she was here with her. Then, she says there’s no any rats.
•      Alice runs away from the Victorian world of her sister because she feels unfulfilled, but she quickly discovers that Wonderland will not fulfill any of her desires. Wonderland incompletes her expectations at every turn. The Rabbit represents this motif of frustrated desire. Alice desires to follow him down the hole and into Wonderland, but he constantly stays one step ahead of her. Led on by curiosity, Alice follows the elusive rabbit even though she does not know what she will do once she catches him. She pursues him out of pure curiosity with the belief that catching him will provide her some new knowledge or satisfaction. Even when the outcome is unknown, the act of chasing implies that a desired goal exists.
•      On a glass table, though, she finds a tiny golden key, and this key opens a small, curtained door; but the entrance-way is small, rat-sized, in fact, and Alice cannot fit even her head through the doorway. And the door leads to a beautifully colorful, seemingly "enchanted garden." Alice wishes so very much that she could reduce her size and could explore the garden. Her wish that she could reverse her size is consistent with the logic of fantasy. Then,  Alice had begun to think that few things indeed were really impossible."
•      Alice cannot enter the garden even though she wants to, and her desire to enter the garden represents the feelings of nostalgia that accompany growing up. Carroll dramatizes the frustrations that occur with growing older as Alice finds herself either too small or too large to fit through the passageway into the garden.
•      On the glass table, Alice finds a little bottle. It seems to have just magically appeared. The label on the bottle reads "DRINK ME.“ She drinks the liquid and is reduced immediately; now she can pass through the doorway leading to the garden! But she forgot to take the key before she drank the liquid, and now she has shrunk down to a tiny little girl. Disheartened that she can no longer reach the key, Alice begins to cry. The helplessness that comes with her exaggeratedly small size represents the feelings of insignificance of childhood.
•      Suddenly,  She sees a little glass box  with a cake inside it  with a sign: "EAT ME." Alice eats the cake, but there is no immediate consequence. She feels that she is the same frustrated little girl that she was before.  But the difference was that there's an additional problem. When she was a normal-sized girl, she could not get out of the passageway, and now that she is too small, she has no means to escape. Therefore,  she sits with an enclosed soul, trapped in the traumatic nightmare of a prison cell.
•      Finally, Alice feels that she can't trust her sanity. Here in this introductory part “Down the Rabbit Hole”, rational expectations have taken Alice to an illogical and fantastic destination and what took place was merely confusing and claustrophobic (an extreme or irrational fear of confined places) condition.

Ways with words

A. Find the meanings of the following words and phrases from a dictionary and make sentences by using them.
a.      peep into - to get a quick look into something
She peeped  into the kitchen for what was being cooked for dinner.
b.     pop down -  to go to a place  or downstairs
Why don’t you pop down for a visit?
c.      Remarkable - worthy of attention; striking.                
You're a truly remarkable man
d.     Hedge - a fence or boundary formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs.
The garden is hedged by flowering shrubs
e.  Wonder- desire to know something; feel curious.
I wonder as I see something new
f.   Tumble - fall suddenly, clumsily, or headlong.
  Children tumble over each other in play.
g.     doze off- to sleep for a short period of time
He closed his eyes and dozed off on the sofa.
h.   earnestly- seriously
I earnestly advised him to cooperate..
i. tiny- small
Even the tiny rose petal lips looked pale
j.       Creep- to move slowly, quietly, and carefully
I'll be as quiet as I can as I creep upto the bedroom.

B. Match the words below with their opposites.
a.      beginning -                                                                 vi. ending
b.     stupid -                                                                       iv. clever
c.      natural -                                                                      v. artificial
d.     disappointment-                                                         i. happiness
e.      ignorant -                                                                   iii. educated
f.       anxiously -                                                                 ii. calmly
 
Comprehension
a.      What did Alice do while her sister was reading a book?
She dozed off 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 wanted to know more about the Rabbit passed close by her 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  thinking that it might kill someone underneath. She put it into one of the cupboards.
d.     What idea came to her mind when she saw a tiny golden key?
When she saw a tiny golden key, she thought of opening one of the doors of the hall.
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 followed what it said.
f.       Alice was fond of pretending to be two people. Who were they?
Alice was fond of pretending to be two people. They were  the Rabbit and Alice, herself.
g.     Why did she want to eat the cake that she found?
She wanted to eat the cake that she found to grow larger so that she could get the key.
 

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

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

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

c.      Alice fell down a rabbit hole.

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

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

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

Answer:

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

     ii.            Alice fell down a rabbit hole.

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

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

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

  vi.            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?

•      According to Wikipedia, fantasy is a genre that employs magic or the supernatural as a principal plot element, theme or setting. Well do we see any of these in Alice?  Infact, Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore. It includes characters and events that couldn’t exist in real life. 

•      The setting of Alice in Wonderland is clearly a secondary world, quite different from our “primary” world. However, the story’s heroine, Alice, remains seven throughout her adventures with little maturation of her part. Further is no teacher or mentor figure who guides Alice.

•      Our conclusion has to be that Alice in Wonderland is definitely no high fantasy. At the end it is revealed that Alice’s adventures were just a dream. Nevertheless, Alice in Wonderland was written in the 1860s, long before the fantasy genre really emerged as such. Thus, above all it is still a fun book to read.

b.     Is it good to imagine of things which are not possible to achieve in reality? Explain.
          Even in this post modern era, most of the people believe that imagination has nothing to do the thing in the real life. They don’t not connect it with  achievement and reality. They take it as just fantasy. But infact, it plays vital  role in shaping our dreams and characters.
Ø The Wright brothers wanted to fly, and people considered them lunatics but they achieved their imagination reality .
Ø Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison and Bill Gates were considered as daydreamers, when actually, they were visualizing and imagining their vision but they achieved their dreams in real life, too. Whatever they were imagining years ago, is now a solid reality.
          Most people tend to treat imagination as something that has nothing to do with reality, but this is a wrong attitude. Imagination has much to do with reality. It shapes the way we see our reality, and therefore, affects our expectations and hopes, our actions and behavior. Infact, Imagination is a key to success but it requires much efforts and hard labour.
          Thus, Imagination is like a software that programs our behavior, expectations and actions. If we program our mind accordingly, and sooner or later see, act and behave accordingly, and create what we imagined.

c.   Do you talk to yourself when you are in a trouble? If yes, how does it help you?
•      Ofcourse, I talk to myself when I am in a trouble. I know well that  talking  to self  about a problem rather than rely on others for solutions, one is more likely to become more independent. Listening to one’s own voice can boost his/her confidence and make  more effective and specific at problem-solving.
It helps people  to solve the obstacles or troubles of their life in following ways:
ü You may find certain thoughts about how to interact with a colleague.
ü For example, when you talk to yourself while preparing for an upcoming meeting between the two of you, you may find your words drastically differ from what you say face-to-face.
ü Sometimes, what comes out of your mouth during your alone-time moments can reveal a lot about your inner desires.
ü Talking to yourself, Dr. Sapadin says, can help bolster  (support or strengthen) your intelligence by organizing your thoughts.

•      Thus, it is good to converse to ourselves as people face obstacles in life.

Writing
a.      Narrate, in short, a folktale that you have read or heard. ( See in ….   )
b.     Describe a strange dream that you have seen recently.

My strange dream

•      Yesterday, I  saw a strange dream which I’m going to share here. As I went to bed and everything was calm. I fell asleep as I was tired due to hard work of the day.
•      In the dream, I found myself in a dense forest. I was playing “HIDE AND SEEK” and my friends had already hidden in the bushes, behind the trees and so on. As I open I  opened my eyes, I saw a terrible black dog there. I was terribly frightened and I could move a inch. I thought to run away from there. I started to run from there. The dog started barking and running after me. I was running  fastly and I reached on the top of the hill. The dog was behind me. I was really horrified. All of sudden, I jumped from the hill and started flying like a bird in the sky. The dog stopped there. I was enjoying the natural beauty from the sky like a bird. I was very elated. But all of sudden I fell  fell from the sky. I cried, “Help! Help!” thinking  that I could not survive. Suddenly, I woke up and found my self on the floor from the bed of my room.  It was the strangest dream of my life.

Grammar : Wish

A.  Study the given examples.
•      I wish I had a car.
•      I wish I could speak English fluently.
•      I wish he would lend me some money.
•      I wish I lived closer to my family.
•      I wish they wouldn't park their car in front of my house.
•      He wishes he could afford a holiday.
•      They wish they hadn't eaten so much chocolate.

I  WISH / IF ONLY      (to express desire)     
•  I  wish / if only + sub + would + v¹  ............. (would+ v1)
• I  wish / if only + sub + could+ v¹ ............... (could+ v1)
•  I  wish / if only + sub + v² + ...................   (past tense)

•      Would (To express hope for help from others)                    
•    Could (To express the self hope to do something)                
•      Past tense (To express the hope of the different situation than the present

 
REGRET                 
•   I wish / if only + I had (not ) + v³ + obj.
•  I should (not) + have +  v³ + obj.
•  If I  had (not) + v³ + obj +   sub + would (not ) + have + v³ + obj.

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 somebody would gift me a cell phone.
•      I wish I could buy  a cell phone.
•      I wish my father bought a cell phone for me./ I wish I had  a cell phone.
b. You don’t know the answer of a question from the lesson.
•      I wish my teacher would help me.
•      I wish I could take tuition class.
•      I wish I solved/ knew the question myself.
c. You can’t play the guitar.
•      I wish my music teacher would teach to play me.
•      I wish I could go to music class.
•      I wish I had a guitar of myself.
d. It’s cold.
•      I wish it’d be a sunny day.
•      I wish I could sit near the fire.
•      I wish I had a thick jacket.
e. You are feeling sick.
•      I wish somebody would call the doctor.
•      I wish I could go to hospital.
•      I wish I were healthy.
f. You live in a crowded city.
•      I wish  the city would be peaceful.
•      I wish I could stay with my uncle.
•     I wish I lived in the village.

 g. You feel lonely.
•      I wish  my friend would call me.
•      I wish I could invite my friends over here.
•      I wish I  had a party.

Rewrite the following sentences making correction if necessary.
a. I wish my father bought me a bike. √
b. I wish I would write poems.  -  I wish I could write poems.
c. I wish I could remember her name. √
d. I wish I had a god job. √
e. I wish I would be rich.  - I wish I were rich
 
 

Questions for Practice:

Write three wishes for the following situations each:  a) would b) could c) past tense
1. It is raining.
   I wish someone would give me an umbrella.
   I wish I could buy a rain coat.
   I wish it was a sunny day/ I had a raincoat.

2. You are lonely
3. You are ill in bed.
4. Your car has broken down.
5. You are short of money.
6. You are in bed with flue.
7. You are lost.
8. You are out of work.
9. You are trying to communicate with a foreigner who doesn’t speak your language.
10. You are in love.
11. Your bike has stopped working.
12. You could not attend the classes.
13. You are tired.
14. You are asked by the bank to pay in time.
15. It is cold here.
16. Your bicycle has a puncture.
17. You are staying in a rented house.
18. It is hot here.
19. You are living in a small room.
20.  You works  in a remote village.

                       
Expressing regrets

A.  Susan has failed her exams. Now she feels sorry for not studying hard. Study the different ways of her expression of regret.
a. I wish I had studied hard.
b. I should have paid attention to the teachers in the class.
c. If only I had been regular to my classes.
d. I shouldn’t have ignored my parents’ advice.
 e. If only I hadn’t missed my classes.

REGRET                 
•   I wish / if only + I had (not ) + v³ + obj.
•  I should (not) + have +  v³ + obj.
•  If I  had (not) + v³ + obj +   sub + would (not ) + have + v³ + obj.

B. Express regrets using I wish/If only and should have /had with past participle based on the following situations.
a. Your friend has betrayed you.
-         I wish he had fulfilled his promise.
-         He should have fulfilled his promise.
-         If he had fulfilled his promise, I’d not have been sad.
b. You have got a cold.
-         I wish I had not gone for boating.
-         I should not have suffered from cold.
-         If I had not gone for boating, I would not have got a cold.
c. You are lost in a town.
-         I wish I had taken a city map.
-         I should not have gone there in such a foggy weather.
-         If I had taken a map, I would not have lost in a town.
d. You have lost your phone.
-         I wish I had been careful.
-         I should not have been careless.
-         If I had been careful, I would not have lost my phone.
e. You couldn’t attend your brother’s wedding.
-      I wish I had attended my brother’s wedding.
-         I should have attended his wedding.
-         If I had attended my brother’s wedding, my brother would have been happy.
 

Questions for Practice:

Express regrets using I wish/If only and should have /had with past participle based on the following situations.
1.     You are suffering from sunstroke.
2.      War has suddenly broken out and you’re stuck in your hotel room.
3.      Your house has burnt down.
4.     You feel seasick.
5.     You are short of sleep.
6.      Someone has just refused to marry you.
7.     You are stuck half way up a mountain in fog.
8.      You are suffering from persistent cough.
9.     You lost your passport.
10.  You forgot to write home to your parents.
11. You went to the party.
12.  You didn’t  unplug your television.
13.  You forgot your friend’s birthday.

14. You forgot to wish happy birthday to your dear ones.
15. Your purse was stolen.
16.   Your bike stopped working.
17.   You got up very late.
18.  You didn’t set up alarm.
19.  You didn’t check the petrol in your car.
20.  You lost your job.

(All images : Credit Google Images)

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