Allegory and social portrayal in Alice in Wonderland and A Midsummer Night's Dream

Carroll Shakespeare

Allegory as a Device in the Work of Shakespeare and Carroll

The purpose of the allegory in literature is to deliver a concise narrative in which a clear plot arc and definable moral themes allow for the deliver of some broader philosophical message. It is in this regard that the allegory is often used in order to explore social themes, ideological debates and the humanities in general. Allegorical writing traces a long history through the scriptures and Roman and Greek mythologies, which were often conducted in palatable fables which could induce recognition of an intended message. This is a device which helps to enrich the experience of the reader consuming either Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy piece Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare's equally fantastical 1596 play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Both would combine the real settings of their respective characters -- England and Athens respectively -- with bizarre fantasy worlds in which the absurd could be possible. This absurdity would produce multiple allegorical opportunities which render both works as functional examples of this form of sociological critique. These fantastical allegorical devices are used to explore individual awareness and social hypocrisy for Alice and to examine the institutions of love and marriage as related to social status for the characters in Shakespeare's work.

To this end, the context which Lewis Carroll created for his work of preeminent fantasy fiction, Alice in Wonderland, is one that is uniquely effective in rendering it an intensely revealing series of allegories on social absurdity. A story which has come to assume relevance beyond its literary ramifications as an iconic piece of popular culture, its lessons are far less straightforward than those in traditional works which might be recognized as children's literature. However, the confluence of fantasy imagery and very real themes make Alice in Wonderland a work capable of delivering important structural revelations through individual allegorical moments. The sophistication with which it accomplishes such an aim is such that the impact is unlikely to be perceptible in concrete terms like a child's acquisition of new information from a textbook. Instead, Carroll's story is subtle in weaving an ideological framework through the book's amusing and colorful settings, making its educational impact one that establishes emotional responses to sociological concerns in its readers.

William Shakespeare's plays, derived as they were from the Greek and Roman mythology that had preceded them, were often layered with more than one concurrent plot. This could manifest itself in any variety of forms, from a play within a play to a series of evidently divergent plots that all reach a nexus in the denouement. Whatever the form, Shakespeare's plays were not extraneously complex. Rather, the numerous strands that comprise the playwright's works usually tie together, either thematically or principally, in order to convey the central idea of the play. To this extent, such diversions would function as allegorical pauses from the plays main action. As with Carrol's device of an alternative 'Wonderland,' Shakespeare appeals to these devices "in the Elizabethan comedy, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'

Here a number of sequences play out before the audience as Shakespeare seeks to deliver a cohesive exploration of love, lust and the various interactions resultant of meddling therein. As is common to most of his plays, this one parallels the exploits of mortals and supernaturals and, further, creates a dynamic interaction between the two worlds that drives the plot forward. It is thus that the plot, concerning a tangled morass of love and rejection amid four people, is affected and resolved by way of the subplot's urging as an enchanted forest's fairy population settles its own quarrel. The focus on the intervention of the royal court in the affairs of the four lovers contends to the idea of marriage as a an extension of social order. In this equation, the trickery which occurs in the forest is produced by the socially subversive antics of an irreverent fairy society. As the essay by Olson (1957) contributes to our discussion, these concurrent interactions would be used to examine the institution of marriage with an allegorical coyness that renders this particular play so entertaining and beloved. According to Olson, the play "was create for the solemn nuptials of a noble house . . . It is important that the significance of the play's symbolism and the rasion d'etre of its pageantry can come clear through an examination of the occasion of its presentation." (Olson, 95)

Throughout this examination, perhaps it is the notion of the 'play-within-a-play' though which gives the story its strongest social message. With three sets of parallel action (the four loves, the fairies and the theatre players) intersecting across the themes of love and lust, it is this costuming of reality that brings together the multifarious impasses of the play. The insertion of Bottom, in particular, into the larger action of the play helps to bridge the worlds of fantasy and practicality that intermingle so mystifyingly in Midsummer. His name alone channels the idea of a base social class, which unwittingly performs its own allegorical meditation on the twisted logic of love.

The gap between these worlds is thematically bridged when Oberon demands in a heated exchange with Titania, "How cans't thou thus, for shame, Titania, / Glance at my credit with Hippolyta., / Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?" (Shakespeare, ACT II, Scene I). Here we learn that the royal counterparts of both the court and the forest have bore relationships which are more than simply narrative coincidence. Though there is a clearly diminished emphasis on such conventions as courtship and marriage in the supernatural world, there is also a sense that these creatures experience love much as do people. In many ways, the confusion and deception which are also present in this world functions as a comment on the social blindness of love. With the eventual union of Bottom and Titania, this comment almost implies a rational endorsement of marriage as a reinforcement of class distinctions. For without the social implications which descend from the intervention of the Court -- instigated by Puck's potion but perhaps more accurately freed by the forest's isolation from society -- befuddled lovers have become controlled only by their confused lust.

It is compelling to note that ultimately, this is a narrative which would place its players in much confusion in order to ultimately reveal an allegorical truth. Such is perhaps the primary feature of Carroll's story. Overarching the entire narrative is the recurring theme of the acquisition of wisdom. Alice is but a mere child, even characterized as being made slow and stupid by the hot summer sun than induces her to submit to her imagination. But from the onset of her journey, her ignorance begets the opportunity for learning, a key feature of the allegorical mode. Carroll's protagonist is met with one revelation after another, passively surrendering her ignorance at every experience. From the commencement of her adventures with a seemingly interminable tumble down the rabbit-hole, Alice's eyes are immediately opened to new realities: 'Well!' thought Alice to herself, 'after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house' (Carroll, 2)

Here, Carroll executes a very effective literary trick. A line which appears at first frivolous, and indeed is humorous in its delivery like many of Alice's stolid observations, actually reveals quite a bit about the immediacy with which new experiences can initiate us to changes in social outlook. The novel experience of falling for such a duration was only the first of a litany of experiences that would necessarily alter her perspective. A fairly complex notion in the context of a dogmatic Victorian society to be sure, Carroll alludes to the allegorical notion that new experiences result in new knowledge which can be applied to previously familiar circumstances. Kincaid's (1973) essay alludes to this very idea, with the critic observing that "in the Fifth Chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is alarmed to find that her neck has stretched to such 'an immense length' that her head is above the trees. The narrator adds, however, that the alarm soon passes and that she 'was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent.' This simile, like other Wonderland similes, is more than ornamental; it suggests a critical and subversive perspective on Alice." (Kincaid, 92)

Quite to the point, it is not long before her new experiences have Alice examining herself. The book implies that introspection is a process which is especially encouraged by endeavors to confront the unknown. Alice engages in her own quest for such awareness, already showing herself to be far more intellectually advanced than her self only a few pages prior, pondering, "I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!" (Carroll, 8) Carroll uses Alice's experiences as a means to persuading his readers to demand similar questions of themselves.

At this juncture, we are unclear on Carroll's motives in altering Alice's perspective. However, as she descends deeper into Wonderland, she finds this knowledge is invaluable for recognizing its inherent absurdity and disorder. These are features which may be said to apply to the 'real world' from which Alice has descended, but it is only with the shift in perspective that each allegory in his narrative allows that she may actually recognized the absurdity of the society she had accepted.

Alice's revelations are in the area of self-awareness whereas Shakespeare navigates us through the revelations produced in the confusion of love and courtship. The messy situation which is produced in both human and supernatural context reveals the vulnerability even of the fairies to romantic impulses beyond their control. These are interceded in both the waffling quartet of lovers and the incongruous amour between Titania and Bottom, each a perverse exploration of lust now unrestrained by the consideration of society. A blindness shrouds all those affected by love, either simulated by the symptoms of the flower or genuine. Though there is evidence that Shakespeare intends to depict the fairies as being somehow more sensible, Titania proves herself to be no match for the effects of the love potion, and finds herself quite at the mercy of Oberon. The fairy king, upon tangling the web of circumstances seemingly beyond resolution, determines, "I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy; / And then I will her charmed eye release / From monster's view, and all things shall be peace." (Shakespeare, Act III, Scene II).

The play's supernatural affects are intercepted by a collision of the play's numerous plot strands, many of them distinctly human. And that seems to be a prime impetus of Shakespeare's pleasant production. Though a great many realities separate the plot from the subplot, the triple wedding in the court and the emergence of Titania and Oberan's theretofore repressed feelings, bring to bear a moral about love that endorses the institution of marriage. We find that in its absence, Shakespeare's work is troubled by the uncontrollable impulses of three cohabitating societies.

And if there is any question as to allegorical intention of Carrol's text, the author quite explicitly addresses it through a discourse between Alice and the Duchess. Herein, Alice is admonished that. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it." (Carroll, 59) Carroll equals himself to this claim, making it clear in eventuality that there is an actual purpose to Alice's adventures. With each experience, Alice finds herself edging toward a greater understanding of herself and, in turn, the society around her. Carroll's overarching message to his readers is that this will endow them with the power to ultimately control the realities of their world. By extension, this points a finger at the facade of the Victorian aristocracy and encourages that greater knowledge will cause us to grow to reject this facade. So is this demonstrated in the climactic moment of Alice's quest, where the Queen makes an assertion which Alice's new experiences allow her to reject: