Two Levels:
Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books as Children’s Literature and Adult Fiction.

B.A. – Arbeit
an der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald
in den Fachmodulen Anglistik/Amerikanistik und Germanistik
im sechsten Fachsemester

Jessica Schweke

Greifswald, September 2007

Contents

Prologue - 1 -

1. Lewis Carroll’s Life and its Impact on the Alice Books - 4 -

2. Lewis Carroll and England in the Victorian Age - 10 -
2.1 Technical Advances in the Alice Books - 11 -
2.2 Mid-Victorian British Education in the Alice Books - 12 -
2.3 Politics in the Alice Books - 15 -
2.4 Culture, Customs and Victorian Items in the Alice Books - 16 -
2.4.1 Games and Toys - 16 -
2.4.2 Poems and Songs - 19 -
2.4.3 Victorian Customs and Culture - 22 -

3. Lewis Carroll’s Use of Language in the Alice Books - 23 -
3.1 Nonsense - 23 -
3.2 Lewis Carroll’s Linguistic Means of Creating Nonsense - 25 -
3.2.1 Metalanguage and Metalogic in the Alice Books - 25 -
3.2.2 Lexical Ambiguity - 26 -
3.2.3 Nonce-Terms, Neologisms and Nonsense-Verses - 29 -

Epilogue - 30 -

Zusammenfassung - 32 -

List of Sources - 34 -

Prologue

When Charles Lutwidge Dodgson decided to publish his tale Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the pen name Lewis Carroll, he could not have known that this little girl’s great experiences in Wonderland and also in the land behind the mirror in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There¹, published nearly a decade later, would become so popular. Meant as presents for two of his child-friends both books developed to a reading pleasure for children as well as for adults. Numerous theater plays and film adaptations of Alice’s story definitely show its fantastic impact that it has maintained until today.

However, besides different film versions there are of course also different interpretations of the tale itself. The availability of different readings in their collectivity suggests that the Alice books can be understood virtually completely only by adults in reference to these diverse and numerous aspects, which will be proven during the following examination.

In the subsequent B.A.-thesis I will point out various factors which indicate that Carroll’s Alice is not only a book for children, if not entirely meant for adults. The allusions to the author’s own life as well as Victorian culture and especially Carroll’s use of words and language for example require a preoccupation with these criteria which children generally would not show. Furthermore, adults have a completely different horizon of expectations when reading any piece of literature. This set of cultural standards, assumptions, and principles shape the way in which the reader evaluates and comprehends a book. “Such ‘horizons’ are subject to historical change, so that later generations of readers may see a very different range of meanings in the same work, and revalue it accordingly.” (Baldick 116) Thus, we have to distinguish between the books’ value as children’s literature in the Victorian era when the book was written and first published, children’s literature today as well as adult fiction then and today. Concerning the distinction between children and adults as readers Liede (173) states:

Wie lange Alice noch als Kinderbuch weiterleben wird, ist schwer zu sagen, da Carrolls Spiel mit der Bildung ein bestimmtes Wissen verlangt, das sich bei den modernen Schultypen später ergibt als im letzten Jahrhundert, sodaß [sic.] das Lesealter heraufgesetzt wird. 

Consequently, besides the reading age, the age of comprehension and also of appreciation is raised. Thus, when I talk about ‘adults’ as a possible target audience, I generally mean those adults that are willing to deal with different aspects of Carroll’s Alice books in order to understand and to appreciate the many references. I believe that adults are able to deal with literature in a way that children are not. Based on the fact that children often are not disposed and evidently not prepared enough to engage in any literary analysis in that form, I will deliberately omit those children who would understand and who would be willing to analyze. I tend to those adults that recognize wordplays, have a basic knowledge of history and therefore the period in which Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; those adults who scrutinize the events in both books so as to identify parallels pertaining to real life. The following paper will therefore be a composition of a number of diverse references and allusions and certain ways of interpreting them. These criteria will support my argumentation that Lewis Carroll’s Alice books are suited for adults in a more profound way than they are for children. Again, I want to make clear that there are as well those adults who would not be able to grasp the play on words or cultural constituents of that time. Likewise, there are also children that certainly would understand these elements and are glad to rejoice in the puns that Carroll presents.

This B.A.-thesis is structured as follows: The first part of my paper will deal with the biographical background as well as the role that Carroll’s life played for his Alice books. I will not account for a complete biography of his life, as on the one hand, this would go far beyond the scope of this paper. On the other hand, not all of the stages of Carroll’s lifetime are relevant to justify the suitability of his Alice books for adults. Nonetheless, a number of biographical facts are to be kept in mind. Except for autobiographies the author is not necessarily the narrator (cf. Meyer 53 ff.). Yet, the author always writes about himself in a way and he may even project his ideas, opinions and wishes onto his work or onto his protagonists (cf. Hein 90)².

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1 In the text I will sometimes refer to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as the Adventures or Alice’s Adventures. References to Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There will sometimes be given as The Looking- Glass in the text. All following citations of the primary text Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the course of this paper are noted with the abbreviation AW, the chapter from which is cited in Roman numerals and the page number in parentheses. Citations of the primary text Through the Looking-Glass will likewise be annotated with the abbreviation LG as well as the chapter and the page number in parentheses. Both works were published in Carroll, Lewis. The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll. All of Lewis Carroll’s Stories, Verses, Puzzles, Acrostics, ‘Phantasmagoria’ and other Comic Writings illustrated by John Tenniel. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1996.

2 „Autoren wissen, daß [sic.] sie, was und wie immer sie schreiben, vor allem über sich schreiben. Mit ihrem Blick auf den Gegenstand ihrer Arbeit offenbaren sie vor allem sich selbst.“ Hein, Christoph. „Die Zensur ist überlebt, nutzlos, paradox, menschen- und volksfeindlich, ungesetzlich und strafbar.“ Als Kind habe ich Stalin gesehen. Essais und Reden. Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1992, 90.