Analysis Of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Most critics agree that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is not a frivolous child’s tale born of pure whimsy. Rather, it portrays the problems inherent to the process of growing up and becoming an adult. More specifically, in “Educating Alice: The Lessons of Wonderland”, Jan Susina posits that the novel pertains to the act of conforming and finding one’s place in an existing adult society. He suggests that Alice is generally pleasing and agreeable and even cites Alice’s physical changes in size and shape as metaphors for her desire to fit into the new environment in which she finds herself. One of Susina’s key ideas is that Carroll created Alice as an idealized Victorian girl, and he even suggests that Alice’s various encounters with characters,

In Victorian times, young girls were idealized as obedient, modest, and diligent since their age suggest child-like simplicity and dependence on their parents (Gorham 5). Meanwhile, Alice, despite being frustrated by the creatures and puzzled about the rules of Wonderland and her identity, refuses to be dominated by the creatures and even cleverly answers back to them, and in doing so, she asserts her strong will and shows that she is neither modest nor obedient. Alice bravely follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole towards the unknown without any qualms as to how to get out, demonstrating her unusual strength both physically and mentally (Carroll 10). However, unlike Susina’s notion that Alice’s changing sizes was her adapting to her environment, Alice seems genuinely distressed by the identity crisis symbolized by her size changes. When conversing with the Caterpillar, Alice says that she is not herself, which she attributes to changing sizes repeatedly, yet he dismisses her concerns (Carroll 40-41). Despite this dismissive tone and attitude, which she encounters in other characters like the Gryphon, Alice continues to talk back to those who want to dominate her, even aggressively disagreeing with the Queen’s nonsensical reasoning. This shows independence and resilience that is not expected from young Victorian girls, especially ones going through an identity

Alice starts off as a curious youth, but unlike the idealized image of a young Victorian girl, she bravely enters Wonderland and asserts herself in the face of some dismissive, and some outright hostile creatures. Amongst the inhabitants of Wonderland, the Duchess and the Cook resent their subservient and maternal roles, respectively, and they express this in aggressive and physical manners that are not consistent with the Victorian ideals of women from the “above-world”. The Queen of hearts is similarly aggressive, abusing her power and using violence to solve her problems independent of her husband. Thus, the female presence in Wonderland shows no capability of transforming Alice into the gentle, domestic mother that Victorian society envisions. However, Alice’s triumph in returning to the “above-world” with her assertiveness and independence intact may be a metaphor in which Carroll suggests that repressed women’s feelings, symbolized by the discontented females of Wonderland, may eventually emerge into reality, just as Alice