An analysis of Alice’s Adventures in WonderlandThe following text is a small part of a project from:Jerry Maatta, HII, Katedralskolan, Uppsala, SwedenWritten in March 1997Interpretations and opinionsIt is important to bear in mind that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, however special it may seem and however many different interpretations onethinks one can find, is, after all, but a story written to entertain Charles Dodgson’s favourite child-friends.
It is very obvious in the story that it was written for the three Liddell girls, of whom Alice was the closest to Dodgson. In the introductory poem tothe tale, there are clear indications to the three, there named Prima, Secunda and Tertia Latin for first, second and third respectively in feminizedforms. The part considering rowing on happy summer days was derived directly from reality. It is said that he used to row out on picnics with theLiddell girls and tell them stories.
On one of these excursions it started raining heavily and they all became soaked. This, it is said, was theinspiration to the second chapter of the book, The Pool of Tears. The ever-occurring number of three points out Dodgson always having in mind thethree girls he tells the story to. It could, of course, having in mind the fact that he was a cleric, be the Christian Trinity or something completelydifferent.
Many people have seen Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a prime example of the limit-breaking book from the old tradition illuminating the newone. They also consider it being a tale of the variations on the debate of gender and that it’s continually astonishing us with its modernity. Fromthe looks of it, the story about Alice falling through a rabbit-hole and finding herself in a silly and nonsense world, is fairly guileless as a tale. Theunderlying story, the one about a girl maturing away from home in what seems to be a world ruled by chaos and nonsense, is quite a frightening one. All the time, Alice finds herself confronted in different situations involving various different and curious animals being all alone.
She hasn’t got anyhelp at all from home or the world outside of Wonderland. Lewis Carroll describes the fall into the rabbit-hole as very long and he mentionsbookshelves on the sides of the hole. Perhaps it is an escape into literature he hints at. Carroll is an expert at puns and irony. The part with the madtea-party is one of the best examples of this. There’s a lot of humour in the first Alice book, but in the second the mood gets a bit darker and moremelancholic.
The theme with Alice growing and shrinking into different sizes could reflect the ups and downs of adolescence with young peoplesometimes feeling adult and sometimes quite the opposite. The hesitation so typical of adolescent girls is reflected in Alice’s thoughts: She generallygave herself good advice (though she very seldom followed it). Many short comments point to teenage recklessness, restlessness and anxiety in allits different forms. One other example of maturing is Alice getting used to the new sizes she grows. She talks to her feet and learns some of the new ways her bodyworks in. Her feelings are very shaken from her adventures and she cries quite often when it’s impossible to obey the rules of the Wonderland oris it adulthood? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, as Alice often repeats to herself.
Alice doesn’t like the animals in Wonderland whotreat her as a child, but sometimes she gets daunted by the responsibility she has to take. The quote Everyone in Wonderland is mad, otherwisethey wouldn’t be down here told by the Cheshire Cat can be given an existential meaning. Is it that everyone alive is mad being alive, or everyonedreaming him- or herself away is mad due to the escape from reality? Time is a very central theme in the story. The Hatter’s watch shows daysbecause it’s always six o’ clock and tea-time. Time matters in growing up, I guess, but further interpretations are left unsaid. The poem in chapter12 hints at forbidden love, and it is entirely possible that it is about his platonic love for children, or Mrs.
Liddell, for that matter. Considering the fact,that the first manuscript was called Alice’s Adventures Underground, and that some at least the Swedish translation of the title is a bitambiguous, it becomes more apparent, that the world Alice enters isn’t just any childrens’ playground, but a somewhat frightening and dangerousplace for maturing. The underground part of the old title undeniably suggests drawing parallells to the direction of Dante or the Holy Bible. Continuing in this direction, the wonderful garden, into which Alice wants to get, can be a symbol of the Garden of Eden. It can be assumed thatDodgson, being a cleric and a strictly religious man, had read and was very familiar with the biblical myths aswell as Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Itbecomes more interesting when Alice finally gets into the garden and finds a pack of cards ruling it, with a very evil queen at its head. It appears tobe a way of saying that even The Garden of Eden can be in chaos, or that the garden isn’t really what it appears to be. Or, having in mind hisVictorian irony in the tale, a way of saying that our lives on Earth are, in fact, the closest we can get to a paradise, and that it is ruled my amalignous queen with little respect for human lives. These theories are, of course, merely speculations and it would be quite rude to suggest evenmadder parallells, which isn’t at all difficult with a childrens’ story of this kind.
Some people have gone very far in their claims that Lewis Carroll wrote the stories while influenced by opium. They say the fifth chapter with thesmoking Blue Caterpillar is about drugs. These claims have no real evidence or facts to point at, and it seems that they’re just mad rumours made upby people who want to see more than there is in a fairy tale. It is fairly obvious that the visions of the stories derive from the genious of a man, andnot from drug influence. If the worlds in the books are somewhat surreal it surely comes from Dodgson having a vivid imagination and an ability tomake nonsense worlds alive. He definitely had his share of problems, but drugs don’t seem to have been one of them.
At a closer look, there seemsto be a whole lot of anguish in the story. This becomes even more apparent in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, and its introductory poem,where the following can be found: I have not seen thy sunny face, / Nor heard thy silver laughter; / No thought of me shall find a place / In thyyoung life’s hereafter. The part surely expresses Dodgson’s feelings for missing the young girl Alice used to be before growing up. Perhaps the first story is more like a description of a young friend growing up and disappearing out of one’s life by becoming an adult, and as such,out of Dodgson’s reach. Dodgson lost contact with Alice Liddell in 1868, a few years before the publishing of the sequel.
It seems that the first bookis a tribute to a friend who, in time, will be lost to Dodgson, and that the sequel is, considering its tone, an epitaph. This is clearly seen in the last lines(actually, it’s just one long sentence) of the first story when Alice’s sister thinks of Alice:Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman ; and how she would keep,through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make theireyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long-ago: and how she would feel with all theirsimple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child- life, and the happy summer days. It appears to be Dodgson’s own thoughts about the girl growing up expressed through one of Alice’s sisters. Another quote that expressesDodgson’s feelings for getting old found in the same introduction mentioned above: We are but older children, dear, / Who fret to find our bedtimenear. This melancholy tone of Dodgson’s can be found in various parts of the sequel, which expresses his grief of losing the close friend he oncehad before she grew up and vanished. The very last poem in the sequel begins its lines with letters that make up Alice Pleasance Liddell hercomplete name.
Charles Dodgsons academic education shows in his books. The exotic fantasy creatures who inhabit the worlds of his imaginationall have very peculiar names made up from real words in English, French and Latin. For example, the Dormouse is a sleeping mouse. Dormire inLatin means to sleep, while there’s no need to explain the rest of the word.
ConclusionIt is very difficult to decide on or write a conclusion to a project concerning so intricate subjects as this. I’ve tried to show some differentinterpretations and keep the whole project as objective as possible. The subject is vast and there could probably be years spent on it withoutreaching a definitive answer, and therefore I suggest people use their own imagination, common sense and logic when discussing the book Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland. One of the few certain things are that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson really loved children and dedicated his works forthem. Whether this love of his was sexual or platonic is almost impossible to decide with the few indications he left after him. (used to be available here)- BACK -Bibliographywww.
rand. org/ilosearch/public/at-equery. htmBrown,David. The Flaws In Life.
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