The works of Lewis Carroll, and in particular Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, cannot be read without noting the author’s mastery of wit. The creativity and insight permeating the humor in these texts are so clever and artful that the parody, pun, and nonsense are themselves the topic of many a critical essay. Most literature on the subject claims one of two things: either that the humor in his writing is inspired by his mathematical inclinations, or that it is a byproduct of an astounding innate linguistic aptitude. It appears, however, that these two approaches are motivated by the same analysis and that the concepts underlying mathematical and linguistic thought are equivalent.
Helena M. Pycior’s essay “At the Intersection of Mathematics and Humor: Lewis Carroll’s Alices and Symbolical Algebra” attempts to explain Carroll’s wit through concepts in Symbolical Algebra (which is today more commonly known as simply Symbolic Algebra or included in the related subject, Abstract Algebra). The first section of the essay begins with a rather detailed history of the development of Symbolical Algebra, and outlines some of the concepts the subject addresses. Pycior deals very little with Carroll in the first two-thirds of the article, focusing instead on George Peacock, Augustus De Morgan, and William Frend, all of whom were accomplished mathematicians. Eventually Pycior connects Carroll to the others by pointing out their common interests and influences. George Peacock was the mathematician who first “chose to redefine algebra as a science dealing with undefined signs and symbols, governed by laws of the mathematician’s making.” (Pycior 152) This redefinition was necessary, because in the years leading up ...
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...bjects of scrutiny in abstract algebra and linguistics, respectively.
Since there are very few instances in Lewis Carroll’s Alice books explicitly deal with solely math or solely linguistics, the arguments in the two mentioned papers could easily be revised to be the same: that Lewis Carroll had the kind of mind that thought naturally along the conceptual lines shared by mathematics and linguistics, and that this mode of thinking is readily apparent in his works.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Alice in Wonderland. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1971. 1-99.
Nilsen, Don L. F. "The Linguistic Humor of Lewis Carroll." Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor (1988): 35-41.
Pycior, Helena M. "At the Intersection of Mathematics and Humor: Lewis Carroll's Alices and Symbolical Algebra." Victorian Studies Autumn 1984: 149-70.
Carroll’s works illustrate a firm understanding of nonsense. His stories and poems thrive in fantastic worlds of imagination. Because of this, they effortlessly thrive in the worlds of children, as well. Carroll writes with the mind of a child. He understood that, “For young children, whose brains are struggling to comprehend language, words are magical in any case; the magic of adults, utterly mysterious; no child can distinguish between "real" words and nonsensical or "unreal" words, and verse like [his] brilliant "Jabberwocky" has the effect of both arousing childish anxiety (what do these terrifying words mean?) and placating it (don't worry: you can decode the meaning by the context). Lewis Carroll, in whom the child-self abided through his celibate lifetime, understood instinctively the child's propensity to laugh at the very things that arouse anxiety…” (Oates 9)
One of the key characteristics of Carroll's story is his use of language. Consequently, much of the nonsense in Alice has to do with transpositions, either of mathematical scale or in the scrambled verse parodies. As an illustration of mathematical scale transposit...
Lewis Carroll, world renowned author, known most for his tale of literary nonsense published almost a century and a half ago, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Several conditions of Carroll’s life molded and shaped his writing. Evidence from Carroll’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ,one can conclude that Carroll has engraved moments from his life, people around him ,as well as his beliefs and love of logic into his story, considering these are the things that Alice Liddell would recognize.
There are some critics that argue that Lewis Carroll wasn’t highly religious if religious at all. A popular topic relating to Lewis Carroll’s religious practices is whether or not he expressed any of his beliefs in his widely known story Alice in Wonderland. Hidden deep in the contexts of Alice in Wonderland, it’s clear that Alice in Wonderland is an allegory to the Christian Bible and contains multiple references to some biblical themes, characters, or events. Whether intentional or not, Lewis Carroll wrote characters, paragraph, and even chapters that mirror some of the most well-known scenes in the Bible.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland . 3rd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print.
On January 27, 1832 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born in Daresbury, Cheshire Country, England. In 1943 his family moved to the croft Rectory in Richmondshire, North Yorkshire, while he was enrolled at the Richmond public school. Three years later at the age of fourteen in the year of 1846, he went on to the Rugby school in Warwickshire. He spent three years at the school in Warwickshire and left in the year of 1849. Later he went to Oxford in 1851 and earned a B.A. with first class honors in mathematics and second class in classics in 1854. Several years later in 1857 he graduated with an M.A. finishing his studies at oxford. The year 1856 was advent of the use “Lewis Carroll” an Anglicized pseudonym, which he took to publish all his literary works. Mirroring his father’s career path, he obtained the position of Mathematical Lecturer at Oxford which he maintained from 1856 to 1881. Year 1861 he received holy orders, becoming a deacon at the Christ Church Cathedral, however he was unable to be ordained a priest due to his lack of interest in ministration. In 1865 he published the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, his most renowned literary pieces that is still talked about to this day. Four years later he published Phantasmagoria, a ten year collection of poems, and seven years after that was The Hunting of the Snark. All work associated with his knowledge of mathematics, such as Two Books of Euclid, Elementary Treatise on...
“’But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'” quoted by a very creative and imaginative author, Lewis Carroll, author of the hit Alice novels. This short novel was written by an extremely upright, ultra conservative man in which his unique character and many experiences had a great influence in the creation of Through the Looking Glass. Of all of Carroll’s works, Alice’s Through the Looking Glass, has a unique way of expressing adventures and stating the events in which occur throughout the whole novel making the novel standout in the category of whimsical, nonsense literature. The novel includes 12 chapters in which every new chapter brings you into different exotic settings introducing you to many peculiar characters involving the only and only Alice, the Tweedledum twins, Red Queen, White King, Humpty Dumpty Walrus and Carpenter. Meeting these characters brought her to finally achieving what her destination had been since the start; she finally became her normal size, making it into the garden. The events and settings involved with Through the Looking Glass make it a very fictional, imaginative novel. Carroll's imagination takes readers with Alice into where she finds the Looking-Glass House. Using the game of chess as the setting of his novel, he fills the novel with situations and puzzles from the ordinary to the extraordinary; including silly characters and adventures in which may be nonsensical, using the game of chess as the setting.
Lewis, Carroll. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. New York: Oxford, 2009. Print.
In such a cherished children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865, has caused great commotion in political and social satire. It slowly but surely grew into one of the most adored publications in the Victorian era, expanding into today’s modern age. Lewis Carroll was the pen name utilized by Charles L. Dodgson and has forth created a sequel named Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There composed first in 1871. In short, the text of the story presented with a feminist approach, a corrupt judicial system of Victorian England, the caucus race, and the absence of a childhood, the evolution of species, and Marxism.
Walker, Stan. "An overview of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 May 2015.
With many speculations as to what the story is about, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a tale that still entices readers. Written in 1865, Charles Dodgson created a tale under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Within that tale Carroll inevitably created a character of ambition within the little girl, Alice. From the beginning of the tale, she is displayed as being adventurous, leaving her sister’s side to follow a white rabbit down a mysterious hole; complacent until she finds herself in a predicament. New ideas about the story revolve mainly around drugs, speaking as if it were some psychedelic LSD trip. Another theory also led to the belief that its’ author was nothing more than a pedophilic gentleman who had too close of a relationship with
The classic stories “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll consist of dreamlike adventures in a crazy world of nonsense. However this nonsense can be deciphered into a complex new system of thinking. This way of thinking can be transferred and directly applied to the mind. How the mind works, its many varying functions, and lastly the unconscious mind can all be tied to Alice. The unconscious mind can be compared to Alice, as can a dreamlike state of mind.
If you have ever read the book “Alice in Wonderland” it is sometimes hard to understand. The Ethos aspect of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the 1951 version titled Alice in Wonderland are basically the same. Each centers on a young girl in Victorian era England and an imaginative world best known as Wonderland. Alice falls down a rabbit hole and lands in a place that is so absurd and baffling that it is hard to think that a world such as this could exist.
His writing is easy enough for children to understand but the text itself holds a variety of different themes. Lewis Carroll’s writing style in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is detailed and humorous. He describes every event that Alice endures and the struggles she faces while still having a humorous tone that gives the novel dimension. For example, while describing Alice's entrance to Wonderland, Carroll gives a vivid image of what she saw such as the hallway lined with doors and the different people and animals she saw including the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, and the chesire cat. Lewis Carroll also has a way of incorporating cleverness into this novel. His use of puns and confusing homophones such as the mouse in the story describing his “long and sad tale” which Alice assumes is about his physical tail and not a
Richard Morton, (December, 1960). "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass". Elementary English. 37 (8), pp.509-513