Alice's Adventures in Darwinism and the Realm of Child Versus Adult

Alice in Wonderland, the most famous work of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, is the enduring tale of one girl’s journey into a world of whimsy and imagination. The story was written for the enjoyment of all children, as Carroll had a strong love and attachment to them, especially little girls. It was however, written more specifically for a dear, close child-friend of his by the name of Alice Liddell, who was the inspiration for the title character. Alice in Wonderland has been, throughout the years since it’s publication in 1865, endlessly deconstructed, analyzed, and studied for underlying meaning in the text (as in Martin Gardner‘s The Annotated Alice). One of the most noticeable and famous facets of the story is the many changes in size that Alice goes through. Alice changes size eleven times to fit her changing predicament in the tale. This can be easily seen in the animated Disney interpretation of the story that came out years ago. Throughout the book, Alice is given the opportunity to change size numerous times, this aiding

her in getting in and out of different situations and places in Wonderland. Alice accomplishes this through eating and drinking different tonics and mushroom pieces. It is interesting to note that the time period in which Carroll wrote and published Alice was the same time at which Charles Darwin was writing and publishing his historic book The Origin of Species in which he puts forth the now universally known ideas of evolution and survival of the fittest. Darwin developed these ideas while he served as naturalist on the ship the Beagle from 1831-1836. During this time, he studied wildlife on the Galapagos Islands, and was amazed by the great diversity of life. He was especially interested in the birds of the island, which had highly adapted beaks that fit their particular eating habits and lifestyle. (Coincidentally, in one of the first scenes in Wonderland, Alice arrives on shore with a group of different birds.) Carroll may have been inspired to have his title character change size according to her needs and predicament by the emerging science of the time. Alice also seems to get better at, and becomes more comfortable with changing her size as time goes on, and a parallel between evolution and Alice can be drawn on that point, in that as evolution progresses, it becomes more refined. Lewis Carroll...

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...bsp; Alice in Wonderland, the work of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, has been the enduring tale of one girl’s journey into a world of whimsy and imagination because of the multi-layered meaning that exists within. The story was written for the enjoyment of all children, but as Carroll once wrote himself, "we (adults) are but older children, dear."(499). Inspired by a dear, close child-friend of his by the name of Alice Liddell, the Alice of Alice in Wonderland has been the mediator between childhood and adulthood, and staying innocent and becoming experienced for over a hundred years. One of the most noticeable and famous facets of the story is the many changes in size that Alice undergoes, a phenomenon of evolution that was brought to the forefront of scientific and everyday Victorian life by the revolutionary thinker and naturalist Darwin.

Charles Darwin wrote and published his historic book The Origin of

Species at the same time Carroll’s arguably equally famed book was written and published, a coincidence that can not be overlooked when we observe the clear links between Darwin’s theories and Dodgson’s themes.