Victorian Childhood and Alice in Wonderland

Victorian Childhood and Alice in Wonderland

The World of Victorian England

Childhood in the Victorian England of Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland as Victorian Literature

Analysis of Alice in Wonderland

Works Cited and Consulted

The children's novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865 by Charles Dodgson, under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, may well be the most popular, and imitated book in the history of the English language. It has inspired numerous screen adaptations, stage plays, and served as the basis for a number of fictional stories loosely based on Alice's adventures. Whether because of the 1951 Disney version, the 2010 Tim Burton film, or the sheer power of the novel itself, the characters have become archetypal in the modern world. Who has not heard of the Mad Hatter, or used the phrase grinned like a Cheshire Cat? Indeed, the sheer paradigm of imagination expressed in the pages as a juxtaposition of humor and satire makes Carroll's book suitable for children on one level, and certainly adults on another.

As a novel written during the Victorian Period of England, much of the nonsense in the book is based on common occurrences in Carroll's life. The songs in the book are burlesques of popular poems and street songs, all familiar to a child in England. Similarly, Carroll's abject platonic fondness for young females is expressed in the representation of Alice. Alice is a child struggling to survive in the confusing and sometimes hypocritical world of adults. Alice falls into "Wonderland," a rather cynical representation of England, and meets a number of creatures that mirror a number of adult stereotypes. As Alice travels through Wonderland, symbolic for her struggle to grow up, she continually tries to become more aware of the adult world, while clinging to the comforting imagination of childhood. In fact, it is through the struggle through Wonderland and Alice's confrontation with the Queen of Hearts that Alice learns about the dual nature of expectations and self. Certainly, childhood in Victorian England was fraught with different expectations that modern psychological stages provide. Still, the ever present theme of "journey," so popular in so many legends and myths, provides the basis for Alice's actualization and ability to not only reason as an adult, but see the world in a new light.

The World of Victorian England -- Great Britain in the Victorian Era was a modern empire like no other before it. Technology had advanced to the point in which Britain ruled the seas, the land, and with colonies and resources world-wide, much of the economic prosperity of the entire world. The entire focus of the Victorian empire was to trade -- import and export, use the colonies to prosper, allow Britain her expected might over all she surveyed. Between this and the massive increase in railways there was a need for more financing, more complex fiscal transactions, and thus more banks. In fact, between 1852 and 1957 "the deposits in a set of five London banks grew from £17.7 million to over £40 and the typical amount of bills of exchange were in circulation increased to 200 million from just 66 million" (Houston, 71). This "boom" occurred all over England, and the importing of goods flourished, so did stock speculation which mean that some won heavily and others became destitute -- and resentful at the same time.

Charles Dickens, perhaps the epitome of Victorian literature, described the economic victories as "happy strokes of calculation and combination," or "Gigantic combinations of skill and capital" and, technically, he "almost always couples the two terms, implying that each presupposes the other. Combine this economic boom with the divergent social nature of the very wealthy, the upper middle class, and then the rest of England (85%), and one can see that the very nature of life, and especially childhood, was expressed quite differently (Novak, 36-61).

This era, so prosperous and wonderful for so many, allowed the middle and upper classes a chance to read, write, and experience art as never before. However, in contrast, the huge population increase and rapid urbanization caused by the industrial revolution drew large numbers of skilled and unskilled individuals to the cities where they were paid wages barely at the subsistence level, and situations of such abject poverty and despair that not only drastic political theories arose, but the realities of urban life were reflected in much of the literature of the time -- whether tragic or fantastic, all as a response to social and cultural conditions (Daniels).

Childhood in the Victorian England of Lewis Carroll -- the concept of childhood is really quite a modern idea. Prior to the 18th century, for instance, children were widely seen as "little adults," dressed in adult clothing just of a smaller size. Economic and social class was everything to the conception of what a child could do -- the further down the economic ladder, the quicker one had to grow up. Childhood, however, as the 18th and 19th centuries evolved, became a marketable category when social and cultural issues changed to allow a new market for service such as schools, playgrounds, parks, toys, and new lines of clothing. The irony of the Victorian Era is, however, that sociologists see the origins of the source of the modern institution of childhood evolving during this time; along with the increase in child labor -- which amounted to little more than slavery. It was, though, this conception of what childhood should be that led religious and social activists (including Charles Dickens), to introduce the Factory Acts of 1802-1878 continually limiting how children could be used (Cunningham, 85-92, 106-14). There was, however, an underlying fascination with childhood in the growing literary classes in England. This fascination often manifested in a rather idealized relationship between adult and child, mentor and pupil. Like the romantic poets who saw only the good and ideal in nature, and therefore pined for it, so too did this idea of the Romantic child -- fresh, untouched and like a tabula rasa, completely and utterly ready to be molded, influence Carroll (Thacker and Webb, 13; Ackerman, 31).

Yet there was this seed of contradiction in Carroll's world. In upper and wealthier middle class families children were raised by servants or nannies; often women brought in from the lower classes as workers in the households. In other parts of the Empire, children were often sent home to England to boarding school, and thus parents were parted from their children until late adolescence. Children in poorer families, even under the best of circumstances had to help with household expenses. Until mandatory school became a fact (late 1800s), there was not much of a childhood playtime once the child was old enough to walk, talk, and communicate cogently (Mitchell, 146-49).

Carroll, however, held a very different view of childhood. He was a professor of mathematics at Christ Church, part of Oxford. Politically, he was conservative and rather snobbish, a skilled photographer (during the time in which photography was a new technology), a patron of the theater and a fan of games and magic. He was, however, quite squeamish about morality -- which kept him away from any artistic work that might be tainted; thus ignoring Shaw, Wilde and even Ibsen (Irwin, 60-2). His view of children, particularly females, was one of harmony, development of the imagination, and the process of using childhood as the slow and optimistic journey to adulthood -- the romantic child theme. Children, in fact, were the innocent; they had not yet been corrupted by society, and were therefore lacking sin and professing honesty -- a considerable turn from previous views (Sander, 6-8). In contrast to the hierarchical template most Victorians held for children, Carroll seem to believe that one of the main things that the child must grapple with on such a journey, and one of the principal themes that Alice takes up, is the question of his/her identity in that world. "Who are you?" Alice is frequently asked early in her adventures, "and it is a question that she at first has a difficult time answering. Her initial erratic changes in size could be said to represent her inability to "fit" herself into this world. Her mastery of this process enables her to begin to be the master of her own destiny - to "fit," by enabling her to walk through the door that leads to the "beautiful garden," which she has wanted to enter since the beginning of her adventures" (Walker). In actuality, reading Alice as a children's book is even more fascinating when realizing that the majority of children in the time period not only had no access to books but could not begin to explore the wonderful and imaginative world of Wonderland. The choice of using not only a dream sequence, but a morality play based on fairy-tale elements could not have been more "anti-Victorian." Instead of appealing to the rational nature of the child's parents, Carroll was, in fact, appealing to the child's inner self (Leach, 90).

Alice in Wonderland as Victorian Literature -- Being a child in Victorian England was difficult. They had to behave like the adults did, follow all rules, they had to be seen but not heard. Children, however, are naturally curious; unable to sit for long periods of time, and as part of normal cognitive development, consistently asking questions about the world. In fact, childhood is the period when a child acquires the knowledge needed to perform as an adult. It is the experiences of childhood that the personality of the adult is constructed. Alice's adventures, then, are really more of a set of curiosities that Carroll believed children share. Why is this, who is this, how does this work? and, her journey through Wonderland, somewhat symbolic of a type of "Garden of Eden," combines stark realities that would be necessary for her transition to adulthood.

For Victorians, control was part of not only the social order, but their understanding of place and time in the world. As Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole: "Down, Down, would that fall never end? (Carroll, 13), she still remains so "logical" in that, "I wonder what the latitude or Longitude I've got to?" Ibid.) Education, being part of "control," was the way proper young Victorian children accepted their social class and became good English citizens. However, Carroll seems to be telling us that sometimes knowledge is useless in certain situations and the Victorian idea of "knowing all there is to know," as Alice mistakenly believes the world will be upside down, is incorrect. This shows that education was very important at the Victorian times and children were taught morals, rules and warnings on how to behave and what to do in which situation but in real life this was not always applicable and even useless, and Alice rather grows up through experience than through schoolbook knowledge. Indeed, the idea of a topsy-turvy world for Victorians would be one that was unordered to their sensibilities.

Alice is almost immediately presented with the painting of the roses and the death sentences given the painters by the Queen of Hearts, "Off with their heads." This is certainly an example of the absurdity of the adult world from the point-of-view of an innocent (a child). Why, in the world, would the Queen want to kill painters (83)? However, seemingly answering that question for all, the Cheshire Cat informs Alice that "We're all mad here," as if this will explain any of the contradictions she sees. Indeed, Alice remarks, "I don't want to go among mad people," but is out-argued by the cat who also indicates that Alice must be mad, "or [she] wouldn't have come there" (66).

Additionally, all is not brightness and fun in Wonderland. Often Alice is treated harshly enough to cause her to cry, sometimes because of her lack of social grace and childish candor, sometimes because she cannot understand the various and contradictory motivations that seem to pop up. Indeed, Alice is never harmed, at least overtly. Part of Alice's initiation into adulthood is her ability to be clever, and her ability to tell fact from fantasy. "It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' he said, 'and see whether it is marked 'poison' or not'; for she had read several nice little stores about children who had got burnt and eaten…" (17). Still, she is a child, and a child is curious about the world, and after she tries the liquid she grows in size. This is an important theme in that at the beginning of the story, she cannot control the process and grows so big that she becomes unwieldy; but toward the end of the book she learns to control the process -- a marked symbol of maturation.

Alice, and likely Carroll, continually struggle with the problem of confronting the concept of identity. After falling through the Rabbit hole, Alice tests her knowledge in literature to determine whether she has become another girl. She is unable to answer who she is, thus it is implied that books or simple education in school cannot help one in determining "self" or in finding one's place in the world. Several times in the book, Alice is ordered to identify herself by the creatures of the Wonderland but is unable to answer, as she feels that she has changed several times since that morning. Alice's doubt about the identity mostly is influenced by her physical appearance, because she grows and shrinks several times, which she finds "very confusing." The White Rabbit mistakes her for his maid; Pigeon thinks she is a serpent:

"And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, "and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!"

"But I'm not a serpent, I tell you!" said Alice. "I'm a- I'm a-"

"Well, what are you?" said the Pigeon. "I can see that you're trying to invent something!"

"I- I'm a litter girl," said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through, that day (55).

Thus, the characters of Wonderland try to tell her what or, rather, who she is and Alice, of course, is confused but finally she understands that she must control the objects around her, rather than be controlled by them, and "grow up on her own terms." Children, of course, believe that adults want them to change -- behavior, attitude, time-management, etc., but are often resistant to change themselves. Whereas a child is more inclined to accept change as a normal part of life. Expressing a clear symbol of what modern readers would recognize as "the generation gap," not only do the Wonderland denizens tell Alice who she is (supposed to be) but how to be (D'Ambrosio, 1075). To which, Alice replies, "I've tried every way, but nothing seems to suit them" (65). This is an important and difficult lesson of growing up -- the idea of self-definition as opposed to letting the external world define one's nature. In Victorian England, it is likely that the external defined most everything about Carroll's life -- the Deans of the College, the religious community, the expectations held for someone as a math professor, and certainly in his dealings with children. In point of fact, Carroll presents us with adults who are either indifferent, incompetent, meddlesome, or often even disagreeable people (Ayres, 237-8). For instance:

The Mad Hatter -- "Your Hair wants cutting," said the hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity and this was his first speech (79).

Tiger Lily -- "I don't care about the colour," the Tiger-Lily remarked. "If only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right. (155)."

The Duchess -- "You don't know much," said the Duchess, "and that's a fact" (73).

The Red Queen -- "Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time" (158).

Clearly, Alice is found wanting -- not just in who she is, or isn't; but what she looks like, knows, and says -- all parts of the hierarchical nature of adulthood.

Then there is the age old notion of responsibility -- how much Carroll, and most likely, every reader of Alice, wants to throw off duties, responsibilities, and the self-limitations of modern society. In Alice, we see this well-bred little girl learning about the capricious nature of language, of cynicism and sarcasm, of an adult's ability to lie (and get away with it), and how the adult world is seemingly erratic. With the exception of the Tweedles, all the creatures Alice meets are clearly adult -- but not the kind of adult she is used to / it is always "tea-time" for the Mad Hatter, the march Hare, and the Dormouse and if anyone comes they do not like, they simply cry, "No room, no room." This is certainly a contradiction to the overly polite ways of Victorian society, where even a dressing down sounds like a polite poem. In fact, if one can find any singular moral of Alice it is in the hypocrisy of the Duchess when she declares: "If everybody minded their own business," the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, "the world would go round a deal faster than it does" (61).

Still, Alice views the world as orderly (very clearly Victorian), and when her adventures end with what she sees as one of the most egregious incidents of adult cruelty -- the Show Trial -- she is able to overcome this injustice through her new found mental acuity combined with her body growing (symbolically from child to adult?) as she fills the courtroom. It seems that Carroll is suggesting that the way to master such a weird, contradictory, and sometimes unpleasant world is to organize it; mold it to the way it should be ordered (again, as all good Victorians were prone to do), and to be self-assured in the confidence that the upper classes held, "God's in his Heaven, and all is right with the world."