Alice in Child-land

Alice in Child-land: Carroll’s Glorification of Childhood and Repulsion towards Adulthood

Those were the days... (Credit: http://3.bp.blogspot.com)

One of the greatest ironies of the world involves growing up—children long to be adults, and adults long to be children. The adult longing for their lost childhood is especially relevant in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where we are whisked away into a world of talking animals and food that can make one shrink to the size of a mouse or grow to the size of a tree in a matter of moments. Following a seven-year-old Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and a seven-and-a-half-year-old Alice in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, we are faced with a cruel reality: we are not children anymore. The days of the Mock Turtle, Gryphon and Jabberwocky paying us visits, for most of us, is at an end. Even if we are very imaginative, or a child at heart, it is difficult to go back to that place as an adult with adult responsibilities. This was a fixation of Carroll’s (many 19^th century writers were similarly intrigued by children and childhood), and one that we see clearly in his Alice novels. What I am interested in is in what ways he places children on a pedestal (juxtaposed with a less desirable adult life) in the Alice series and how our reading of the novel is affected accordingly.  

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice recounts an elaborate dream she had involving talking animals, incidences of growing and shrinking, and strange things in general. At a surface level reading, the story is about a girl’s various encounters with the inhabitants of Wonderland and what she draws from them. The conclusion she seems to reach is that growing up is overrated. All the animals she meets tend to be easily offended, unnecessarily bossy, and quick to contradict her every sentence. They seem to symbolize adults, offering a glimpse into her own future when she joins those ranks herself. If a relatively short dream includes so many unpleasant encounters, what awaits her in reality, with the rest of her adult life full of such unpleasant meetings? Unlike most children, after her dream she does not seem incredibly eager to be older or be an adult.

Come on, would you want to be an adult after playing croquet with a flamingo?! (Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org)

One specific occurrence that I feel is important to isolate is Alice’s “abduction” of the Duchess’ baby. Fearing it will be murdered, Alice takes it upon herself to take the child and protect it. Her maternal instincts quickly wear off, however, when the child transforms into a grunting piglet. This shows her rejection of adult roles, like motherhood, and her repulsion towards the thought of being forced into such a situation. Luckily, she is a child, and is not obligated to take care of someone else’s child, especially if it isn’t human. She lets the pig go, giving it no further thought except to mention it in passing to the Cheshire cat. (Carroll 49-53)

Uh... Am I the only one who would prefer the pig? (Credit: http://www.kcconfidential.com/)

In Through the Looking-Glass, Alice embarks on yet another journey, this time around entertaining herself with a game of chess in which she is a pawn. She seems more sensitive this time around, checking herself more often for fear of hurting the feelings of others. She is able to have pleasanter encounters overall, but what she is to become is clearer to us: we can see she is growing up. Her best friend from the first book, for one thing, has become a mother. Dinah the cat has kittens that she is constantly grooming and caring for, and Alice similarly takes on a motherly role, scolding the black kitten when it misbehaves (Carroll 107-109). We also see Alice in a motherly role with the two queens who fall asleep on her shoulders (Carroll 197), and also with the White knight who is constantly falling off his horse and assisted by Alice as a parent would help its child back onto a bike (185-186). (At the same time, the presence of the White knight also explores the idea of Alice’s sexual maturing, as she is a prize to be won from the Red knight who captures her first). 

Like this, only with a full-grown man and a horse (Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org)

The most important scene in Through the Looking-Glass for me is when she transitions from pawn Alice to Queen Alice. As Queen Alice, her temper worsens, as when she rings to be let into the house and no one allows her entrance (Carroll 198-199). She throws a small tantrum and barges in anyway. At dinner, she contradicts the Red queen by ordering the pudding back to the table, and even more surprisingly cuts it after it has made itself known to be a living thing (200-201). With the title of Queen, Alice becomes very much like the characters she has encountered, more adult-like, and it is not a pretty picture. In fact, she is whisked out of the land shortly after becoming this way, as if there is no place there for a dreamer who has begun to mature into an adult and act as such (205-206).

In the Alice series, childhood is glorified and made out to be something quite desirable. Adult responsibilities and traits are not looked upon very well in either novel, while childlike traits are revered. Alice’s wild imagination gives us these wonderful stories, and her way of viewing the world makes us long for a similar existence. We would never want for anything if we could allow our minds to explore the imaginary world of Wonderland as Alice’s can, and that is something to envy indeed. Carroll certainly wants us to see it that way, that is. Consider the closing lines of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.” (Carroll, 99)

And what a childhood it was! (http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/)

While this is a beautiful sentiment, it is in its own way a little heartbreaking. As a mother, Alice finds happiness through re-examining her childhood, and reliving it through her own children. There is something sorrowful in reminiscing, a strong yearning to return to the happy summer days when she was a child. Even though she has retained the “simple and loving heart of her childhood,” it is still her childhood that she is fixated on. It is what she experienced as a youth that follows her now into adulthood, and not being an adult that pleases her. There is no mention of her being happily married, not even a word spared for the father of her children. She is trapped in the past, only able to remember what happiness was like, but is she truly happy? Carroll doesn’t seem to think so, and based on what we’ve read, we might not be so quick to disagree with him.

~Justine Camacho