The Military Use Of Child Soldiers In Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland

There is no exact known number of children currently being utilised in warfare worldwide. The issue of the military use of children is so widespread that no figure can be calculated, although it is estimated that there are currently over 250,000 child soldiers across the world. Many are drugged and brainwashed into murder, many are forced to sever all ties with their family or watch them die. Most are faced with a simple choice: kill or be killed. Although the notion of child soldiers is vastly alien to contemporary Australian society, it is a reality in many parts of the world. ISIS have been known to employ the use of children in warfare and over 30,000 children have been abducted into the Lord’s Resistance Army for military purposes. It

The black silhouette of a child carrying a rifle accompanies the quote, a visual element that conveys to the audience the shocking reality of how small the child seems next to his weapon. This is in direct contrast to the image that opens the piece; a Tenniel illustration of Alice peering curiously behind a curtain, signifying the discovery that is experienced by both the reader and the characters within the short story. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland was a story that I wished to thread subtly through my piece, in order to develop an idea of childhood wonder and curiosity, as well as a loss of innocence. The significance of Alice’s name is not entirely clear without the opening quote from Carroll’s Behind the Looking Glass (“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do just to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”) By including a relevant quote from an Alice text, the naming choice is able to fully portray the notion of childhood I desired. The quote itself successfully conveys a playful innocence, and leaves the dark tone of the piece unexpected by the