Alice In Wonderland vs Spirited Away

When I first watched Spirited Away, what stuck me almost instantly was how similar it seemed to a classic Disney cartoon, Alice In Wonderland. Yet it was later when I recently went back to rewatch the cartoon that I noticed it was greatly different as well. The main characters in particular, made all the difference. Both Alice and Chihiro may be young girls who entered a fanciful world, but their journey made greatly different impacts upon them.

Let's start with the beginning.

In Alice In Wonderland, the film starts off with Alice being bored with her sister's lessons. She then tells her cat Dinah that "if I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense". This obviously means Wonderland. She wishes that she can 'escape' the boring life and have fun adventures elsewhere. Then she notices the white rabbit, and out of curiosity, follows him through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. While she falls, however, she turns around and says "Goodbye, Dinah!" in a forlorn voice. In Spirited Away, Chihiro is grudgingly taken away from her old life by her parents, and she actually does not at all want to go forward with a 'new place', as shown by how she was sulking in the car and unwillingness to follow her parents, even asking them to "Go back!". The falling through the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland and the walk through the tunnel in Spirited Away may be similar in meaning, where they journey into a new fantastical world, but the situation in which the two main characters make that journey are vastly different.

Now that the two main characters have reached the beginning of their journey, how do they react? How do they deal with the problems that arise? How do they interact with the other characters in that fantastical world they're not used to?

To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed with the characterization of Alice. She is self-centered, rude and cocky, and I didn't like her at all. She insults or angers each character she meets, she wrecks havoc, she messes up the regular order of Wonderland (or at least, order as regular as Wonderland can be). I suppose, however, that it was a portrayal of exactly how childlike Alice is. A child dropped into the land of (supposedly) her own imagination must feel like she somehow can control it, no? According to her song in the beginning of the film, before she meets the White Rabbit, she has already wanted to speak to flowers that know everything and other magnificent creatures. It is later when she does meet the flowers, however that she finds out how mean the flowers are (although she herself was not all that polite as well). Her discourteous manner or inconsiderate attitude was already shown in the beginning, when she tried to open the Doorknob. She was irritated and frustrated she could not get to the other side. Another notable moment in the film was when she was rude to the Caterpillar. He gets into such a rage he actually turned red. Alice was impertinent to the Caterpillar, and after a while she stalks off, even when the Caterpillar was trying to help, somewhat. After she eats the mushroom she grows and knocks into a mother bird and her eggs. She never apologized (never once throughout the whole film, actually), and forgets about the incident afterwards. Later, after finding the White Rabbit's house, and being mistaken for his maid, she goes into his room and eats the EAT ME cookie. Keeping in mind that this film was produced in 1951, wouldn't it be rude to barge into someone's home and just simply eat things that are lying around? (Even now we don't take things without prior permission!) Of course it's a Wonderland habit, but this time Alice really didn't get permission, unlike from the Doorknob the first time and from the Caterpillar who told her to eat the mushroom. So then Alice grows huge and generally breaks everything in the White Rabbit's house. Neither does she apologize for doing so.

However she changes after meeting the Cheshire Cat. She had gotten sick of chasing after the White Rabbit and laments that she wants to go home. The Cheshire Cat pops out. Alice is quite scared by him, as she doesn't act as forward and mean to him as she had done to the previous characters. When the Cheshire Cat tells her there is no way back, she is worried. She also rejects the idea of joining the Mad Tea Party, but then the Cheshire Cat tells her that everyone is mad in Wonderland. Later when she does stumble upon the Tea Party, she is polite and courteous. Perhaps the Cheshire Cat had changed her mind about how Wonderland works. Alice obviously never thought of the dangers of Wonderland before, but now she is faced with potentially threatening characters - "mad people". So this time she does not demand, or argue. She tries to go along with the flow of conversation and is later distracted by the White Rabbit again. She loses him in the woods. It is only now that she feels scared and the urge to go home, it is only now she feels as if she might not find a way back. Thus, helpless, she cries, displaying that she is quite useless and weak. And like all good Disney cartoons, the creatures flock to her as she cries. Of course. Again she is saved by the Cheshire Cat, who tells her to see the Red Queen. She first meets the three cards painting the roses red, and she decides to help, which was a great change from how she is usually breaking things and being nasty to other characters. She also humors the Queen, most possibly because she thinks the Queen is her way back home. Later however, when she eats the mushroom at the trial and grows huge, she scolds the Red Queen. At the same time when she got smaller, she loses that courage. This shows that Alice actually is quite the bully and not a particularly nice girl. She gets chased by everyone in Wonderland in the end, all of them angry or worked-up. Compared to Chihiro, I felt that she is immature and quite self-centered.

Let's move on to Chihiro. At first she displays signs of being spoiled, because she whines a lot. In the car, she grouses that she had to move house, and later refuses to go through the tunnel. After her parents turn to pigs and she doesn't cross the river again in time, she is forced to work at the bath house. To be honest I thought she was quite dumb and useless as well, when she was in the boiler room and trying to "help" but not doing a very good job of it. Later when Lin takes Sen under her wing, she tries to work, but fails miserably in efficiency compared to the rest. No one quite knows what to do with her.

Yet she also shows that she's strong-willed and hard-headed. She demands Yubaba to give her a job, and she tries her best to do it, as shown by the lengths she would go to help the river god, and later, No-Face. While the rest of the workers in the bath house shy away from the "dirty customers", she undergoes her tasks dutifully, even using the best hot water and noticing that there was something wrong with the river god- and she helped him out. Not only that, when Haku fell ill after stealing Zeniba's secret seal, Sen took it upon herself to get to Zeniba and apologize on Haku's behalf. Even if she had to "walk there following the train tracks", she would make the journey. She doesn't think twice, she doesn't doubt herself. She just does.

People are drawn to Chihiro as well. Obviously she has Haku on her side, but later the boiler man Komaji can't help but be taken in by her simpleness. He produces the train tickets for her to go to find Zeniba, a particularly heavy gift. Lin also cares for her, though she may deny it. She guides Sen through the life of the bath house and supervises her work, sometimes giving her the easy jobs intentionally. No-Face desires to be her friend, giving her all sorts of present and wrecking havoc in the process. A little closer to the end, all of the workers in the bath house were- if not friends, then positive of their reception of her. When Chihiro correctly guesses her parents, they cheer for her happiness and success.

From this we can see that the differences between Alice and Chihiro are quite vast. Whereas Alice was rude to the people she met on her adventure, and ending it being chased down by them; Chihiro slowly
worms her way into the heart of the people she meets, and she leaves with the others cheering for her. Whereas Alice demanded things to be done for her, Chihiro gladly took things into her own hands and made it happen.

This also brings me to how the two of them had matured and learned from their respective adventures. Alice never showed any sign of maturation. She goes through the whole adventure as a bratty kid and comes out a bratty kid. Literally all she did was go though the experience, but never learning. Chihiro, on the other hand, changes vastly. She grew up, basically. She started her adventure timid and hopeless, but came out matured and fearless. She became a woman who wasn't afraid to look forward to the future.

I was quite surprised how such a similar story can be vastly different when properly analyzed. Alice In Wonderland and Spirited Away are both childhood favorites, and I am glad to have been able to compare them in this way, trying to understand the characters.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_(1951_film)#Cast

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043274/quotes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/quotes

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spirited_Away