Alice_in_Wonderland_and_John_Keats

To travel into the unknown for anyone at any stage of their lifetime is frightening. Experiencing these journeys both physical and intellectual for individuals are leaps of faith into the unknown. Director Tim Burton's 2010 rendition of Alice in Wonderland supports and John Keat's two odes: Ode to a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale support this thesis. Alice Kingsleigh, the female protagonist of Alice in Wonderland, returns to the land of Wonderland to find her bizarre journey still continuing, there are twists and turns and she finds herself leaping into the faiths of the unknown. Alice meets creatures that otherwise she would have never known existed in a world where animals wear clothing and speak perfect English. Burton has added to the bizarre nature of the film by establishing a series of high angle shots, at the beginning of the film to show the audience Alice has many nerves and her insignificance. Burton also uses extreme colour changes from the Queen of Heart's castle to the depths of the forest to show the mood of the location. Setting the audience up for the unkindness of the Queen and the kind friends that Alice finds along her way who are parallels from her life in reality. Alice finds out that she fits in to the world of Wonderland because of she has received an open mind from her father. Similarly, John Keats's poems show the main changes journeys from one unknown to another and the mood changes that have followed the characters. In the second stanza of Ode to a Nightingale Keats has used alliteration to show his thoughts about champagne "Beaded bubbles winking at the brim." Also Keats has implanted tones of pain and joy captivating the audience to read more and create all kinds of interpretations making this has made the character’s journey an interesting one. "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains." Other emotions that Keats brings thoughts of death "I have been in love with easeful Death." Death is also a theme in another of Keat's poems entitled Ode to a Grecian Urn. The speaker travels around a Grecian urn to take a journey into the lives of the frozen characters on the urn 'Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss". At the end of the speakers journey around the urn, Keats placed a powerful quote that has many interpretations "Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." Through these two odes, Keats has explored the theme of journey into the unknown. Both John Keats and Tim Burton have used many techniques to create journeys into the unknown for their characters. Both artists have summed up their own ideas of journeys by ideas that journeys can be both physical and inner and that it is the individuals that partake into these journeys that learn to know themselves better and the world around them better too.