Alice In Wonderland Essay, Research Paper

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll tells an entertaining story about a

young girl’s adventures in a strange “Wonderland.”

This novel represents a typical girl’s struggle to break away from adult control and

receive a desired freedom from their absurd society.

Although the novel was written during the Victorian age and many of the events of the

story are based on Victorian society, children today also feel the suffocation of adult

control and a society without morals.

Carroll uses symbolism and various scenes throughout the novel to show the reader the

freedom that Alice strives to achieve as well as how she tries to break away from the

domination and conformity.

The first scene in which Alice’s struggle to break away from adult control and

Victorian England’s society is in Chapter 1.

After falling into the rabbit hole, Alice finds herself lost in a corridor with many locked

doors.

The doors being locked represents Alice being controlled by society.

The reader can see Alice’s struggle to break away from this control when, finding a key,

she searches right away for the door that it fits in.

She finds that it fits a very small door and when she unlocks it, Alice first sees “the

garden.”

She believes it to be the “loveliest garden you ever saw” and “longed to get out of the

dark hall, and wander about among those bright flowers and those cool fountains…”

Alice’s strong desire to enter the garden is clearly evident.

After trying everything she can think of to get into the garden, Alice finally realizes that

she is not yet able to enter it and breaks down in tears.

Not being able to get into the “lovely garden,” which represents a place Alice can be

away from Victorian control and rules, shows that Alice is not quite ready to break away

from conformity and stand up to the adults.

A final scene in which Alice’s struggle is evident is in Chapter 7, when Alice is

just about to enter the garden.

It is here that the reader sees how much planning and preparation Alice made to be able

to break away.

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table.

‘Now, I’ll manage better this time,’ she said to herself, and began by taking the

little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she set to

work nibbling the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was

about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then- she found

herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool

fountains.

The preparation for her chance to enter the garden includes keeping the key as well as a

little piece of mushroom in her pocket so that she would be able to not only unlock the

door to the garden, but make herself the right size to enter into it.

It is apparent that Alice learned from her past mistakes of leaving the key on the table

after becoming small enough to enter the garden, and then becoming too big to enter it.

Alice was also cautious about nibbling slowly on the mushroom, so she would not shrink

too fast or too much.

Everything that Alice went through almost seems worthwhile when she “at last enters the

beautiful garden” and finds herself “among the bright flower-beds and the cool

fountains.”

However, when Alice enters the garden, she finds that she is not yet free from the control

of adults or society.

A final scene in which Alice’s desire to overcome Victorian England’s restrictive

environment is the at the trial, when the Queen is giving the Mad Hatter his verdict.

Here the adult victim’s view nicely corresponds with the child’s view up

grown-up authority. If a child is called to task, told to remember some rule or

duty he has forgotten about or never fully realized he was responsible for, who

feel like the Mad Hatter, who is told ‘Don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed

on the spot.’

The unnecessary power given to the monarchs was one thing mocked by Carroll in the

novel and in this scene in particular.

The monarchs had power to execute whoever they wanted for any reason.

The end of the trial also represents Alice’s revelation that society cannot be

changed so she must change herself in order to be happy.

Alice changed herself in this part of the book by standing up to the Queen and adult

society.

During the trial, Alice changes in height without meaning too, she just grows on her own.

`No, no!’ said the Queen. `Sentence first–verdict afterwards.’ `Stuff and

nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’ ‘Hold your

tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple. `I won’t!’ said Alice. ‘Off with her head!’

the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. `Who cares for you?’

said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a

pack of cards!’

Within Victorian society, it was not considered proper etiquette to raise your voice to

anyone, whether you are an adult or not.

Alice rebels against the rules of the Victorian culture by expressing herself in such a

manner.

Free in the garden, Alice defies the Queen when she tries to execute her.

It is then that Alice realized she must act against society or it would control her. .

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a paradoxical novel that

represents a typical child’s struggle to break away adult society’s beliefs and rules.

It is shown in three vital scenes of the novel how Alice struggles to enter the lovely

garden of “Wonderland,” which represents a freedom from society’s rules and

regulations.

Alice did understand until the closing of the novel that society cannot be changed and to

get away from it, you have to change yourself and rebel against it.