How Is Alice In Wonderland Related To Queer's Denotation

Language is a powerful tool that has vast abilities. It can portray strong emotions from simple words and make statements indirectly. Language not only affects the work, but the way readers consider certain words. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a prime example of making readers think about the text. Carroll plays around with the connotation and denotation of words, forcing the readers to figure out what each word truly means and implies. The usage of the term queer is one case in Alice in Wonderland where there are multiple denotations and connotations with a touch of ambiguity.

Queer’s denotation has taken many forms over time. Denotation, or the literal definition of a word, can greatly change the interpretation of a text. The

In Alice in Wonderland, queer meant to be odd or strange to the late 1800s readers; there was no other meaning for the word for their generation. Time skip to the early 1900s, where queer was beginning to be used to address a person’s sexuality as being gay or lesbian. It didn’t start out as referring to homosexuality, but due to the amount of times the word queer was used in articles, newspapers and even among people about gay clubs or homosexuals, the word stuck. One notable example was the Los Angeles Times describing a gay club as “composed of the ‘queer’ people” (“Queer”). Queer was frequently used as a negative slur in the 1950s against homosexuals up till the 1980s, where the younger LGBT (the group name for people who fall under lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) members started to use the word queer to identify themselves as a way of self-reassurance and to fight against rising homophobia and the AID crisis (even calling themselves “Queer Nation”). The 1990 New York pride march was when LGBT members decided to “reclaim the word as their own” (Marusic). Queer is still debated among the LGBT community as being offensive, but most members consider it a neutral term (“queer”). Queer has even widened its audience over the past few years as it’s developed less to refer to someone as gay or lesbian but to anyone who doesn’t fit the “norm” regarding gender or sexuality (Ogle). Due to the many forms of queer over the years, Alice in Wonderland’s queer has ambiguity to present day readers. When people of today’s culture see the word queer, they immediately think of gays and lesbians; because of the complexity of the definition of the word, people from 2016 and those of the late 1800s have different denotations and connotations (negative and positive), leaving a sense of confusion over the