FREE ESSAY ON ALICE IN WONDERLAND

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Finding the Child in Us All
Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has entertained not only
children but adults for over one hundred years. The tale has become a treasure of
philosophers, literary critics, psychoanalysts, and linguists. It also has attracted
Carroll's fellow mathematicians and logicians. There appears to be something in Alice for
everyone, and there are almost as many explanations of the work as there are
commentators. It may be perhaps Carroll's fantastical style of writing that entertains
the reader, rather than teaching them a lesson as was customary in his time. Heavy
literary symbolism is difficult to trace through his works because of the fact he wrote
mainly for entertainment. In fact, Carroll's stories, including Alice, are usually
described as being direct parallels to Carroll's life. This is obvious due to the various
references Carroll makes of the favorite things in his life such as his obsession with
little girls and not to mention his nostalgia for childhood1. The most prominent
interpretation of Alice is the theme of fantasy versus reality. The story continuously
challenges the reader's sense of the "ground rules" or what can be assumed. However, with
a more in-depth search, the adult reader can find Carroll may have indeed implanted a
theme relative to the confusion Alice goes through as well as the reader. In Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll uses not only his love for children and logic but his
linguistic playfulness to create a story in order to show the psyche of a child.
Moreover, Carroll makes fun of the way Victorian children were raised. In the nineteenth
century people were expected to 
behave according to a set of rules and morals. Carroll's nonsensical behavior of his
characters can be seen as making fun of the way children were forced to behave and their
rationale. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland overall is contradicting the standard way
children's literature was written. As one can see, the story of Alice takes its reader
through many different levels. With the lovable creation of a fantastical world, Carroll
invites his readers on a nonsensical yet familiar journey of the questioning of identity
by child yearning to take the step into adulthood prematurely, enabling him to entertain
while simultaneously satirizing the Victorian Era.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland begins with Alice sitting beside her sister commenting,
"what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations" (Carroll 3). Alice's narrow
point of view will now begin to raise fundamental questions in her head about who she is.
Alice "has reached the stage of development where the world appears explainable and
unambiguous where, paradoxically, curiosity is wedded to the ignorant faith in the sanity
of things" (qtd. In Otten 50). Alice's curiosity will proceed to carry her on a complete
rebirth in order to question the inevitable step from childhood to adulthood. It seems to
her that she is quite the young adult. This is not such an unfamiliar thought as it is
quite usual for a young child to want to behave as an adult. Her journey will sure enough
challenge her belief of who she is. This journey begins when she "found herself falling
down a very deep well" (Carroll 5). By falling down this hole, Alice is acting as a
father. In hitting the bottom of the well she has moved on to the fetal stage. The first
problem Alice encounters is finding a way to fit through the little door so small that
she could not even fit her head through the doorway. She soon find a bottle labeled
"drink me". "The wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry" (At this point,
Alice is still behaving the way a proper Victorian child would conduct themselves in the
Victorian period.) She must find a way to exit the "womb" she is in so she can question
the world she exists in. Thus, she compromises to drink what's in the bottle causing her
to shrink in size. This is the beginning of what the reader will see as Alice's way of
questioning her identity. Being just the right size to fit through the door, however
forgetting the key, Alice begins to weep causing the entire room to fill with tears. Now
Alice can be seen as becoming a mother in creating the amniotic fluid. Alice makes two
more changes in size before she enters the magical world of Wonderland. The reader is
well aware that Alice is very torn between childhood and adulthood as she begins her
journey through the terrifying world of experience.
Throughout the rest of the story Alice continues to question her identity. Naively an
image of the fallen adult society that she embodies at an age when she wholeheartedly
embraces its values and assumptions, Alice barely retains the most precious gift of
childlike innocence- a potentially redemptive imagination that gives her passage to
Wonderland (Otten 51). The reader becomes aware that Wonderland attempts to evoke the
child back out of Alice, who they know already feels so grown up. Her attitude towards
people in Wonderland illustrates her attempt to prove that she is in fact an adult. For
example, she fears being Mabel because Mabel lives "in that pokey little house" and has
"ever so many lessons to learn!". Later, she feels no remorse in knocking the Rabbit into
the cucumber-frame or in kicking Bill out of the chimney. Perhaps the most convincing
argument for Alice occurs at the Duchess's house. In her attempt to save the baby from
abuse, Alice assumes moral responsibility: "Wouldn't it be murder to leave it behind?"
(Carroll 69). Her compassion here coexists with her adult-like and proper behavior.
"Don't grunt. That's not a proper way of expressing yourself." It seems however, in most
all of the other instances in the book, Alice appears more piteous than authoritative.
Challenged by the Caterpillar's rude questions about her identity, Alice realizes she
"knew who she was when she got up this morning, but she seems to think she's changed
several times since then" (Carroll 50). Obviously, Wonderland is beginning to take its
toll on Alice. Alice realizes her lack of control in this situation and complains "three
inches is such a wretched height to be" (Carroll 56). This results in Alice once again
changing her size. She is now a giant, towering above all the trees, described as a
serpent by the Pigeon. Alice of course claims she is a little girl. The reader of course
knows she is both. The big question here is which one will she leave Wonderland as,
knowing her stay is temporary. It is in fact, the final climatic chapters where Alice is
introduced to the King and Queen of Hearts. It is at the trial of the Knave of Hearts
that Alice decides she has been ultimately defeated by the nonsense of the characters
throughout the book and ends her journey with the classic line, "You're nothing but a
pack of cards!" (Carroll 147). It is precisely this breaking of tension between her
expectations and the actuality of Wonderland and her regressing back into Alice the child
that the book is all about (Kelly 82). Thus, the underlying message of Alice is the
rejection of adult authority and the vindication of the rights of a child.
Finally, analyzing several of his works leads the reader to believe the search for
identity is actually a common theme Carroll uses in order to parody the Victorian Era.
The Victorian Era was a time in which proper etiquette meant everything. "The Victorians,
however, had certain expectations of children's literature ; Carroll choose not to follow
the established pattern of children's books." (Kelly 80)2. Thus much of his humor for
most of his life is based upon social protocol. One of his earliest attempts is a
hilarious parody of the sort of copy-book maxim that every Victorian child would be
familiar with entitled "Rules and Regulations"3 . Carroll's use of social parody
continued with his Alice books. He particularly makes fun of Victorian attitude towards
morals and several customs. One of the numerous rules which governed a proper Victorian
lady's behavior was against "cutting." Alice encounters this rule at the feast given for
her when she becomes a queen in Through the Looking Glass4. Clearly, Carroll is poking
fun at etiquette here both through the punning of the term "to cut" as well as the
ridiculous bowing of the leg of mutton. The Lobster Quadrille that Alice encounters in
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a parody of the quadrille, a dance that was used to
open nearly every fashionable ball at the time that the book was written and published.
The Mock Turtle and Gryphon's mad romp can hardly be associated to the politeness the
original dance had5. Thus, again Carroll points out the stupidity of a social protocol.
Another point Carroll makes is that Victorian children were expected to behave at all
times. When Alice is at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, Carroll parodies this sort of
rule and the expected behavior by having Alice "talk back" to the King6. Merely allowing
Alice to question the authority of the King and point out the stupidity of his rules he
is pointing out the stupidity of contemporary standards set by the time, otherwise
symbolized as the King. These scenarios "perhaps symbolize the author's hopeless struggle
in his own quest" to fight between the simplicity of childhood and the stage in adulthood
in which one realizes the actual chaotic and ridiculous standard of living (Chang 1).
More so, the absurdity of the Victorian Era is comparable to that of Wonderland. Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland is one of the world's most translated books, and Carroll ranks
among one of the most quoted authors. The characters he created have lived in the
imaginations of his audience. Lewis Carroll has often times been described as the master
of nonsense. Although this is true, Carroll's sense of humor has been proven that it was
not just to entertain. The creations of many of his poems and books are the results of
the struggles he faced throughout his life. His incorporation of logic and puzzles, puns,
rules and anarchy elaborate the main point of his stories. Thus, a single interpretation
of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the battle between bridging from childhood to
adulthood. With a simple overview, Carroll truly fulfilled that function in his writings.
He seems to bring out the imagination and childhood in all his readers. It is obvious
Carroll also found the rules and obligations of the time were ridiculous as he satires
them throughout most of his works. Thus, the Alice books have provided the world with an
inexhaustible fairy tale which has achieved a purity that "is almost unique in a period
so cluttered and cumbered" (qtd. In Kelly 141).
Bibliography
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. New York: Random House, Inc., 1946.
Chang, Annette. "The Grotesque and Chaotic in Alice in Wonderland". The Victorian Web. 23
January 2000. .
Kelly, Richard. Lewis Carroll. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977.
Otten, Terry. "After Innocence: Alice in the Garden." Lewis Carroll: A Celebration. Ed.
Edward Guiliano. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1982.