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

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

II

immer unterstützt und so dazu beigetragen hat, mich zu dem Menschen zu machen, der ich heute

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where -” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “- so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Motto: Lewis Carroll. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” 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, 64-5.

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 There ¹ , 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 .

The second part of this paper will treat certain references Carroll makes in both tales about little Alice that go beyond those to his life. This chapter will concentrate on those references that require a close look at the Victorian age or more precisely a number of historical and political, technical, educational just as cultural and customary component parts, whereas the latter two are closely linked. I will point out the different levels of symbolism and analyze them to back up my argumentation.

The third part will be concerned with the type of literature we are dealing with when reading Alice. Here the first section will resemble a short literary introduction of the genre of nonsense-literature and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. The second and more extensive segment will examine Carroll’s use of language. These different criteria will help to establish a result on the question whether Carroll’s Alice books are to be considered children’s literature or adult fiction. Many of these elements that enable variable interpretations are related to one another or have certain influences on each other as they combine given aspects and only then unfold their full impression. Some are preliminary stages or enhancements of others. Nevertheless, it should be considered that Carroll may already have intended some of these interpretations while writing the books, whereas he never even meant other considerations to be read in such a way.

I will close my thesis with an epilogue in which I will recapitulate the major arguments of my analysis and come to a conclusion on the quality of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Finally, the epilogue will be followed by a summary of my observation which is titled “Zusammenfassung” and written in German to meet the examination regulations for B.A.-theses at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald.

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

On a summer day in July of 1862, thirty years old mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson went on a boat trip on the river Thames. With him were his friend and colleague Reverend Robinson Duckworth as well as the three little daughters of the dean of Oxford’s Christ Church College, Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell. To entertain the girls, the two men invented funny stories (cf. Kleinspehn 46 f.). The imaginative tutor Dodgson told them the story of a little girl named Alice that followed a white rabbit into a hole in the earth and fell into an entirely new world. There she met strange animals and other truly fabulous creatures and found herself in unknown surroundings altogether. The party of five just wanted to pause and savor their picnic on the banks of the Thames, hearing more about Alice’s adventures, when a horrible thunder-storm closed in on them. The grownup men then agreed on bringing the girls along the road to see a mutual friend, since there was no use in taking the boat to get back home in a windstorm like that. So they all found accommodation with a friend until the storm was over and the Liddell-sisters could be brought home safe and sound (cf. Kleinspehn ibid.). Dodgson generally enjoyed the company of children, especially of little girls. He did not like boys as much, unless they had sisters that he wanted to get to know (cf. Kleinspehn 104). He rejoiced in the girls’ liveliness, innocence and beauty (cf. Kleinspehn 105). Lorina, Edith and especially Alice were happy about the magical stories that the young tutor could tell them, so their parents agreed with their rather regular gatherings (cf. Kleinspehn 47 ff.).

It definitely was the boating experience in the summer of 1862 and not just any reunion with his many child-friends, however, which particularly inspired mathematician and logician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson to continue dreaming up little Alice’s adventures in a world beneath our own. Yet, his love and affection for the three Liddell-sisters in general and for Alice in particular is not only expressed in the same name of his favorite child-friend and the protagonist in his most famous tale. It was Alice who asked her adult-friend to write down all the curious tales. Dodgson therefore thought out an entire adventure about little Alice in the wonderful land inhabited by talking animals and marvelous beings. He planned on writing it out and giving it to the real Alice as a Christmas present the same year. However, he did not manage to finish it until February of 1863, though, when he finally gave his favorite little friend a handwritten manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (cf. Kleinspehn 50 ff.)

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