The famous fairy tale Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, is an allusion in its entirety to life after childhood innocence is shed, and adulthood is reached. This is shown in the decisions that Alice must make, and the things that she experiences regarding trust, puzzles, lessons, and power. Alice uses the whimsical and mystical creatures and situations in Wonderland to make the difficult realization that adult world will be different from the world that she is used to as a child, easier to accept as she slowly loses her child-like innocence.
Alice has to make decisions concerning who, and what, to trust as she encounters the white rabbit, the ‘drink me bottle’ and the ‘eat me cake’. While Alice is sitting on the bank, a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and sporting a pocket watch runs by saying, in plain English, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late! ” Without a second thought, Alice puts her trust in this abnormal rabbit, and chases him through a field and down a rabbit hole. When Alice is in the room with a seemingly endless amount of doors, she stumbles upon a bottle that says ‘Drink Me’ on it.
At this moment, Alice has second thoughts about trusting this label, and decides to check the bottle for a marking that says ‘poison’. This is a childlike thought that it would be marked both ‘poison’ and ‘drink me’, but it is a portrayal of the fact that Alice is, in fact, still a child and still possesses the innocence that many adults wish they have, but that she is still learning the ways of the adult world. The puzzles that are presented to Alice throughout her journey through Wonderland are representative of the unsolvable mysteries that make up life.
There are no clear answers to the riddles, just as there is no clear meaning to life. One of the more famous riddles that Alice is asked comes from the mad hatter. The hatter asks Alice “Why is a raven like a writing desk? ” and after Alice ponders this though for a little while, she asks him for the answer, to which he replies “I haven’t the slightest idea. ” There are numerous questions in the real world that will never be answered because there is absolutely no way to know.
Children have no reason to worry about questions such as ‘what is the meaning of life’ because they are, generally, lighthearted and carefree. The fact that questions such as these were asked of Alice, means that she is losing that childlike naivety, and starting to think of such things, though she will never accurately answer them. While in Wonderland, Alice discovers that not all of the lessons that she learns in her school will prove to be useful later in life.
When Alice meets the hookah smoking caterpillar, he demands that she recites the poem ‘You are old, Father William’ he mentions that she did not say any of the poem correctly even though it is in fact how she learned it in her lessons. As children, we learn nursery rhymes and songs and poems, but we never have to draw back on this knowledge for any practical reason, and the useless information that we hold onto for so many years never serves any sensible function. Alice also finds that she will never cease to learn something new.
When Alice meets the mock turtle and the gryphon, there are multiple curious things that she learns about the fictional animals. Children generally believe they know all there is to know, and it usually comes as a great surprise that they know barely anything. Alice learns of ‘The Lobster Quadrille’ and what a mock turtle is, along with many other fascinating things that are only in dreamlike places such as Wonderland. Another thing Alice learns when meeting the mock turtle and the gryphon is there will always be people who seem to think they are better than you because of the extent of their knowledge, studies and experience.
This is present everywhere in society, from people putting down other people who attended a less prestigious university than them, to people having contempt for people who work in a position below them. The mock turtle displays this type of disposition while turning his nose up at the meager lessons Alice has, and listing his extensive, and at times ridiculous, lessons ranging from French and music classes, to washing, drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils. This is the first time Alice would experience someone as unfriendly and arrogant as the mock turtle, but certainly not the last time.
Alice is lucky she experienced this in a comfortable and safe setting inside of her mind, instead of in the real world. She also encounters this type of personality when she meets the king and queen in the courtroom, because they are both very self-important people who belittle everyone around them solely because they are of a higher social status then the whole of the population of their kingdom. Alice discovers that there will forever be a different way to do things from what she is accustomed to.
One example of this is the lobster quadrille that the mock turtle tells her of. Alice is familiar with the dance quadrille, because it is a very proper customary dance at the time that she was this age, but the idea of a quadrille is an extremely foreign idea to her. Another activity that Alice is used to is croquet, which she agrees to play with the queen. It is a perplexing idea to Alice that instead of the mallets, arches and balls that she usually plays with, she had flamingoes, live cards and hedgehogs.
Both of these activities differ strongly from what Alice is familiar with, but both are perfect examples of how things have many ways to be done in the real world. There is no absolutely perfectly irrefutable way to do any one thing, because there will always be a different way to carry out the task. These methods range from simple techniques to exceedingly complex processes. Even something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich has countless different ways to be made, two slices of bread, one slice of bread, grape jelly, strawberry jelly, and numerous other interchangeable elements.
When Alice encounters the queen, she learns that there will always be people with more power and those with less, and people that will use what power they are given in order to inspire fear in those who they hold power over, and take advantage of them in every way that they can. The main source of this lesson is the Queen of Hearts who is the epitome of power put into the wrong hands. One example of how the queen inspires fear in her subjects is her constantly shouted threat “Off with their heads! at every miniscule occurrence that does not absolutely please her. This is ordered simply for situations such as a croquet player missing their turns, and talking in court. Another example of the fear the queen inspires in her subjects is the group of gardener cards frantically painting white roses red because they accidentally did not plant red roses as the queen demanded. Power is one of the most useful things to have in life, but it easily turns dangerous if it goes to one’s head.
Every child will, at some point in their lives, finally see the world through eyes not veiled with naive innocence. This can be a traumatizing experience for a young child, and these realizations are often implied in a setting that is comfortable, such as imaginary conversations with a favorite stuffed animal, or magical dreams. These settings bring about a deeper understanding of the adult world to a child.
Works sited:
Carroll, Lewis, and Donald J. Gray. Alice in Wonderland. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. Print.
Author: Jared Russell