Metaphors from Alice in Wonderland illustrate firstly the ridiculous ...

feelings and identity formation and transformation. Similarly, the goal of the fantasy genre was to
lead a reader/participant towards a better understanding of his/her own identity and of the world
(Timmerman, 1983). A wonderland under the earth‟s surface was a popular alternative world in the
1800s when Lewis Carroll wrote Alice‟s Adventures under Ground (1864). In later editions, the title
was changed to Alice in Wonderland. Underland and Wonderland are, therefore, synonymous, but I
used Underland as the space and time when the UFS had not yet become the Wonderland of
becoming an identity-conscious institution. A seeker often becomes a traveller, and after an
adventurous journey through Underland, s/he might enjoy the Wonderland of being identity
conscious.
My connection with Alice only became apparent in March 2010 after I watched Tim Burton‟s movie
with lecturers from the Faculty of Accountancy and Management at the Mahasarakham University
(MSU) in Thailand. One of the lecturers commented, “This movie is all about discovering identity!”
Only then did I discover the universal language of metaphors: my dear English- and Afrikaansspeaking
Alice is also a Thai-speaking Alice. There I started to use Alice in Wonderland‟s spaces,
events and characters as metaphors that formed the “map” of this study (Cook, 2004; Hunt, 2006;
Livingstone & Harrison, 1981; Perry & Cooper, 2001). The use of metaphors, therefore, supports
“reasoning and imagination and how we think and conceptualise our experiences” (McIntosh, 2010).
The metaphorical elements in Alice and Wonderland (as the primary subject) interact with
transformation processes of the UFS (as the object of study). The use of the fantasy narrative may
lead the reader to identify comparable properties at the UFS and invite the reader to construct a
parallel between the two subjects, thus creating a “system of relationships” (Au, 2007:279).
Foucault, after all, suggested that connective and transformative effects are created by interaction
with metaphorical narratives (McIntosh, 2010), forming parallel changes at the UFS. According to
Perry and Cooper (2001:55), metaphors are also a medium of searching, reflecting and meaningmaking,
which is what this journey is about. I chose to travel in juxtaposition with Alice in
Wonderland, or rather through Underland, not to escape into an unreal world, but to make sense of
my world by looking at it from a different perspective. Using metaphors by means of journal entries
deepened my insights and, as the traveller, I had the opportunity to understand myself in someone
else‟s environment, subculture and everyday life.
Selecting my methods of inquiry
As components of metaphors, rhetoric scripts and poetics contribute to learning, memory,
interpretation, impact, visualisation and knowledge. Therefore, I will include quotes from Alice in
Wonderland to illustrate the metaphorical connections with the UFS‟s transformation. The immediate
visual text (Mitchell, 2008) formed the basis of this study. Although I used existing text, I created, recreated
or re-imagined most of the text I used. I collected data by watching Tim Burton‟s 2010
version of Alice in Wonderland film. Thereafter, I compiled a map of Wonderland from cartographic
17