Spiraling Alice S Adventures in Wonderland,Down the Rabbit Hole

Doe1

Jane Doe

Mr. Cuffe

AP Literature

January 12, 20XX

Spiraling Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,down the Rabbit Hole

While the process of growing up is the most challenging obstacle a child has to go through, it is often forgotten how troubling it actually is. Lewis Carroll creatively expressed the challenges of growing up through his novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which follows a young girl named Alice through her surreal experiences in Wonderland. Alice is roaming through a garden when she spots a rabbit hole, and as any young girl would do, she is compelled to follow it. As she is spiraling down this never-ending rabbit hole, she comes to the conclusions that maybe this was something she should have reconsidered. Once she arrives in the alternate world of Wonderland, nothing she had learned in the real world seems to be relevant anymore. Every situation that is put before Alice requires knowledge that although she thought she had, she does not. Whether the situation is caring for a baby or testifying in front of a jury, all previous knowledge no longer matters, because this alternate world does not require real world solutions, but the logic is like that of the people of Wonderland, and Alice quickly realizes that she does not fit in. Alice spends her time in Wonderland not only trying to make sense of the world she landed in, but also trying to escape, but to no avail. This mimics the cycle that children go through when they are forced to leave their childhood behind and grow up. They find themselves in a world of which they cannot make sense, and all the rules and knowledge that they had gathered throughout their childhood no longer matter, because they are in a world run by entirely different people, and must learn to fend for themselves. Many children spend years of their childhood wishing they could grow up, but once they are finally forced to, they wish they could return to their childhood. While the overall theme of growing up throughout the novel is pretty explicit, it is often overshadowed by the overt “nonsense” of the situations at hand that Alice is facing. Lewis Carroll creates this parallelism between his novel and the path from childhood to adulthood through his use of comparisons between “Real World” Alice and “Wonderland” Alice, juxtaposition of the apparent normalcy of Alice and the abstractness of Wonderland, the paradoxes expressed through growing and shrinking, and the variety of sexual symbolism throughout the novel.

While the central meaning behind Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is often interpreted in various plausible ways, one way a reader can see it is through Carrol’s development of Alice in both the “Real World” and in “Wonderland.” Alice is a young girl pushed into an alternate world all by herself, where she is forced to fend for herself. While this world that she finds herself in does not always make sense, she tries her best to use previous knowledge that she learned in her “real” world to help her make sense of the Wonderland that she is in. Scenarios in which Alice compares her old world self to her new world occur persistently throughout the novel, and one example can be found in the scene where Alice finds herself in the courtroom of the Queen, where a very bizarre and apparent “unjust” trial is taking place. Alice thinks to herself when she confronts its jurors thinking, “‘I suppose they are the jurors.’ She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it all” (Carroll 125). Alice compares herself to the old world that she was accustomed, and this is a satirical way of Carroll exemplifying the process of growing up. This Wonderland is essentially the “real world” that adults try to prepare their children for; however, the fact that even though Alice has her old world knowledge, she has trouble adjusting to Wonderland shows that even the best preparation cannot make a child ready to grow up for certain. This is further explained by Will Brooker in his critical analysis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Brooker explains:

However, [the story’s] appeal has to be explained beyond a Victorian social allegory, and Haughton maintains that their deeper, most central theme is the construction of identity and meaning. Alice is, measuring herself against what she remembers from the real world … but questions of who we are and what words signify are, of course, broad-ranging enough to apply beyond Alice’s schoolroom … [The novel is] grounded in [its] specific social context, although there is disagreement about the extent to which they intentionally reflect of parody individuals, debates, and locations in Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll’s lives. They are concerned with the child’s experience in an adult environment and with the process of growing up, with finding a sense of self (Brooker 93).

Alice is learning who she is on her own, making Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland essentially a novel taking on the journey of growing up. While no child is thoroughly prepared for the real world based solely on their home education, they can learn through experience – trial and error – just as Alice does in Wonderland. Perhaps Carroll choses this theme to warn children coming of age about the confusion that they might feel when they enter adulthood; or on the other hand, there may be an underlying motive Carroll is subtly expressing: the world of adulthood doesn’t always make sense.

Lewis Carroll continues to subtly compare “Real World” Alice to “Wonderland” Alice throughout the novel in order to progress the idea of a child blindly entering the adult world. In curious situations, Alice becomes weary as to how she should react to everything that is occurring. All the creatures in Wonderland seem to know exactly what is appropriate for the situation; however, their reactions are peculiar in accordance as to what Alice would have done had she been in her world. For example, when Alice is attending the Queen’s croquet game, she watches how the people around her are behaving, so that she knows to appropriately behave in order to please the Queen. Carroll remarks:

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a role at processions; ‘and besides, what would be the use of procession,’ thought she, ‘is people had all to lie down on their faces, so that they couldn’t see?’ So she stood where she was and waited (Carroll 92).

Alice compares her “Real World” self to the scenarios that she finds herself in, but her logic does not always coincide with what the animals and people in Wonderland are doing; rather, they often conflict. She often has difficulty finding meaning behind their logic, being that in some cases it is rather irrational and confusing from her own mindset. As Jan Susina concludes in his critical analysis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “[Alice] uses her lessons as a form of self-validation” (Susina 35). Alice feels sure of herself in these situations where her behavior seems irrational to these characters because she is behaving the way she had learned to behave at home. In her mind, lessons are more important than experience; instead of using the knowledge she has around her from the creatures in Wonderland who are behaving according to their customs, Alice is behaving the way she perceives to be normal. In comparison, a child may act the way their parents had taught them to act once they reach adulthood, but that is not to say that these morals that they have been taught are the most appropriate to use. As Natov asserts in his critical analysis of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland:

If only personality theory were so simple, children might feel a bit safer among complex and often erratic adults. How well Carroll depicts Alice's need to define, limit, control the chaos of so many of the Wonderland situations. Beginning with her free fall through space down the rabbit hole, Alice tries to find rules to relieve her discomfort. (Natov)

Alice resorts to previously followed rules and regulations to make herself feel more comfortable. She feels as though she is in the right if she is following directions that her parents had put before her back at home. For example, parents may teach their children to be trusting in others; but once they reach adulthood, they may learn that people are not always honest, and they have to learn to use their best judgment instead of trusting everyone that they meet. Carroll mimics this journey of children growing up through Alice’s behavior and rationale in Wonderland.

Alice also compares herself to the creatures in Wonderland by her level of education. Alice uses her education from home to label her social status, she believes that she is smarter than the creatures in Wonderland; and therefore, she acts as though her rationale is the best rationale, and is not accepting of the mindset of the Wonderland creatures. While they often recommend the opposite of what Alice would do, instead of trying to understand their logic, Alice dismisses them and resorts back to the behaviors she learned in her classrooms back home. One scenario in which Alice uses her schoolroom knowledge to label herself as smarter than the creatures of Wonderland occurs when Alice is having a conversation with the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle begins:

‘We had the best of educations – in fact, we went to school every day – ’

‘I’ve been to a day-school, too,’ said Alice. ‘You needn’t be so proud as all that.’

‘With extras?’ asked the Mock Turtle, a little anxiously.

‘Yes,’ said Alice: ‘we learned French and music.’

‘And washing?’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘Certainly not!’ said Alice indignantly.

‘Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. ‘Now, at ours, they had, at the end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing – extra.’’ (Carroll 110).

Alice uses what she has learned at school to try to one-up the Mock Turtle; however, they are judging each other on topics irrelevant to intelligence. While “washing” has nothing to do with whether the Mock Turtle of Alice is more intelligent, they are arguing simply for the satisfaction of being considered the smarter person. As Jan Susina claims in his critical analysis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “Alice uses her accumulated knowledge as a marker of social status … She and the Mock Turtle play a game of private-school one-ups-manship…as she shows her superiority by having gone to the school with the most extras” (Susina 35). This game of back and forth is only played so that Alice feels superior to the Mock Turtle, and so the Mock Turtle will feel inferior to Alice. Alice uses her knowledge to measure her power. Susina continues, “Carroll shows that education has little to do with understanding a subject. Alice uses it as a social marker to feel superior” (Susina 35). This further compares “Real World” Alice to “Wonderland” Alice. Carroll strategically places a child in an entirely new world to show the path from childhood to adulthood. As a children learn to grow up, they will always believe they are better because they may have been superior as a child; but, that does not necessarily mean that they will not come across someone in the “real world” who is inherently smarter than them, or superior to them in any way. Growing up becomes difficult when a child realizes that they are not as superior as they were once believed to be, and Carroll shows this through Alice’s “one-ups-manship” with the Mock Turtle.

Another thing that is created by Carrol is sexual symbolism. It is strewn throughout Alice’s journey. It is overtly shown in the scene in which Alice encounters a series of doors. None of the doors seem to be unlocked, but as Carroll states, “however, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight, it fitted!”(17). While it is peculiar that none of the average sized doors were open, it is stranger that there is a key strategically placed beside the only door of short stature. In Goldschmidt’s psychoanalysis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, he claims:

Here we find the common symbolism of lock and key representing coitus; the doors of normal size represent adult women. These are disregarded by the dreamer and the interest is centered on the little door, which symbolizes a female child; the curtain before it represents the child's clothes (Goldschmidt)

This assertion of an infatuation of female minors is often supported by critics. It is said that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is based off of a true girl, Alice Liddell. Lewis Carroll would often tell stories to the Liddell sisters, Lorina, Alice, and Edith. However, when Lewis Carroll began telling them the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice made a strange request. As W. H. Auden relays, “this time, Alice did what she had never done before – she asked him to write the story down. At first he said he would think about it, but she continued to pester him until, eventually, he gave his promise to do so” (Auden and Phillips 4). It is clear that this novel was written based off of a living girl whom Carroll knew very well, so it can be deduced that much of the sexual symbolism could be in reference to the Alice Liddell that Carroll knew. It is asserted that, “By befriending small girls, identifying with them, seeking to divert them, projecting himself back into childhood, and imagining stories explicitly for children, he managed to create two texts that have been, and are, as widely read, known, and quoted as any imaginative literature of the past two centuries” (Polhemus). On the other hand, there are literary critics who believe that the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has absolutely nothing to do with sexual symbolism. As critic Bernard M. Patten clearly testifies, “The Alice narrative is not about the zoo of interpretations that critics have contrived for it and for Carroll. It is not about … the proposition that Alice equals phallus. The narrative is not about a lot of things” (Patten 11). While there is no exact proof as to what the novel truly is about, these speculations help readers to form their own opinions, and while in some cases these opinions may be that Carroll had a love for little Alice Liddell, others may see it simply as a child’s story, and nothing more.

The central theme of growing up in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is further evident when considering the paradoxes that are expressed in the novel. The story seems to be contrived of nothing but a constant string of paradoxes. Readers often find themselves trying to make sense of something that possibly is not meant to make sense in any way. It is possible that Lewis Carroll meant for these paradoxes to represent something on a much larger scale, not to just make it meaningful for his narrative, alone. With this said, perhaps the paradoxes should be taken as a whole, not taken one by one to each mean something. For example, one paradox that can be broken down into meaning is Alice’s consistent change in stature. Alice begins by shrinking, Carroll expresses, after she drinks a mysterious liquid in one segment of the narrative, “she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden” (Carroll 18). Shortly after, Alice eats a mysterious biscuit and begins growing uncontrollably, as it is explained, “Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now rather more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door” (Carroll 23). While it is hard to exactly determine why Alice continually shrinks and grows, it can be nothing more than a paradox of sorts. As Gilles Deleuze contrives:

She is larger now; she was smaller before. But it is at the same moment that one becomes larger than once was and smaller than one becomes. This is the simultaneity off a becoming whose characteristic is to elude the present … Alice does not grow without shrinking, and vice versa. Good sense affirms that in all things there is a determinable sense or direction, but paradox is the affirmation of both sense or directions at the same time (Deleuze 1).

Carroll may have made Alice shrink and then grow to create a paradox – she cannot grow without having been small, and she cannot shrink without having been large. It is possible that Carroll is just trying to further confuse his readers, as he did throughout the majority of this novel, creating nonsensical scenarios and absurd situations. Perhaps these paradoxes were simply to get readers’ minds moving. Another paradox that Carroll iss famously known for was, as Patten puts it: