Alice, Food, And Inner Desires

Late rabbits, talking cats, and dancing cards are just some of the un-natural occurrences that take place in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In today’s society with competing books, such as Harry Potter, these elements in the book may seem like no big deal, but for the time period the book was published, these were anything but normal. This children’s book was first published in 1865 in the United Kingdom; during the Victorian time period, named after Queen Victoria. The book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland represents a satire on the Victorian Era and how people were expected to act, through which Carroll displays an overall theme of growing up.

In his analysis of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Richard Kelly describes Wonderland as a nonsensical place where Alice is “treated rudely, bullied, asked questions with no

     Carroll’s use of the chess board is also important in Alice’s transition to adulthood. Her journey across the chess board from being a pawn to reaching the status of Queen represents the growth of being a child to becoming an adult. This emphasis is conveyed primarily in Through the Looking Glass and Carroll conveys this through the encounters that Alice has with the various characters, mainly the Queens and the Kings. The Queen always seems one step ahead of Alice, similar to what a child feels in an “adult” world. Carroll continues to express the tyranny of adulthood through Alice’s encounters and journey. She soon learns that becoming a Queen was not all

Through Alice’s conversation with herself it becomes apparent that tension between Alice’s previous understanding of the world and the illogical world of Wonderland. Alice upon chasing a white rabbit down the rabbit hole finds herself in a hall which only has a small door in which she can not enter. Frustrated Alice looks upon a table on the hall, a bottle suddenly appears which tag reads, “Drink Me” (Carroll 13). Since Alice has learned that, “if you drink from a bottle marked ‘poison’ it will almost certainly disagree with you sooner or later” and she looks before drinking. (Carroll 14) Alice has come from a world that has a consistent rules and features, that contrasts with the

Out of the whimsical growth changes of Alice, a ninth grader learns to present themselves as their true self. In the novel, Alice grows and shrinks frequently; she finds this very confusing, especially when a talking Pigeon mistakes her for a serpent when she drinks potion that makes her neck longer. (Carroll, 34-35) When Alice eats, she grows and as she drinks, she shrinks. Alice feels uncomfortable in her skin and it frustrates her that she cannot achieve the right size. As Alice struggles to maintain a comfortable physical size, she does not realize that

In particular, Alice’s fluctuating size and “opening out like” (Carroll 11) a telescope parallel with a child’s seemingly spontaneous growth spurts, which occur frequently and most noticeably during pre-adolescent and adolescent years. In fact, Alice Liddell, the inspiration for the original tale, was ten when Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Dodgson) first told the tale (Vallone 245). In addition, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as tale about the adventures of seven year-old Alice Liddell (Vallone 245). In reality, most children like Alice Liddell grow, but in Wonderland, Alice changed drastically and symbolically. Physically Alice’s growth correlates in many instances with her behavior. For instance, prior to drinking the mysterious liquid, Alice ponders on the substance’s toxicity, however, she fails to consider possible outcomes while forgetting the golden key. Consequently, Alice grew smaller as her behavior was incongruous to a practical and experienced adult. In contrast prior to consuming the cookie, Alice muses “‘if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door so either way I’ll get into the garden’” (Carroll 9). Hence, Alice exemplifies problem

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then”(Lewis Carroll). Alice in the wonderland is a fantasy world Alice enters after falling in a hole for a long time. In her Illusion world she meets different types of creatures talking, singing and dancing. In her imaginary world, Alice notices potions and edible objects that say “eat me” or “drink me” which specifies a significant theme that interprets the fantasy of Alice, which also connects with the different sized animals she meets. In the two sequels Alice faces many ordinary objects along each chapter, and each character approaches Alice in their own perspective having to deal with a random human being in their “fantasy” world. The Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story of a young girl’s journey down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world where there seems to be no logic. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice experiences a variety of bizarre physical changes, causing her to realize she is not only trying to figure out Wonderland but also trying to determine her own identity. After Alice arrives in Wonderland the narrator states, “For this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 12). This quotation is the first instance that shows Alice is unsure of her identity. The changes in size that take place when she eats or drinks are the physical signs of her loss of identity.

Alice can be very childish, but throughout the story, she encounters many animals with human qualities that make her change her perspective of the world she lives in. The main obstacle in Alice's life is growing up. As she grows up, she looks at situations in a very distinctive way, such as the moment when alice meets the March Hare, The Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse. By the time the story is over, Alice is already a grown up because of all the experiences she confronted such as, the mad tea party, the encounter with the caterpillar smoking a hookah pipe, also Alice's encounter with the Red Queen during the croquet game and the trial.

During the nineteenth century, Victorian men and women held differing gendered positions within society. This was largely the product of the social order of the time, which was based on separate spheres – men functioning in the public sphere of economic power and women operating in the private sphere of domestic passivity. Not only did this model of separate spheres outline the roles of men and women, but it also emphasized the appropriate behaviour of the idealized man or woman. One of the main qualities celebrated in the ideal Victorian woman was her ability to control her appetite. As such, a woman’s interaction with food can be viewed as a marker of her adherence to or rejection of idealized notions of Victorian femininity. Two texts which critically engage with food and the agency of eating are Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Sarah Grand’s Babs the Impossible. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a particular emphasis is placed on the food Alice encounters while navigating her way through the curious fantasy world. While Alice’s enjoyment of food suggests she rejects the ideal woman’s modest appetite, the obedience she demonstrates while eating puts her feminine agency into question. Babs the Impossible, however, differs in presenting its female heroine with complete control over what she consumes. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Babs the Impossible, food is used to grant or deny agency to the female heroine – the former exposing

I am Alice when I read; Alice goes seeking adventure in wonderland, just as I do when reading, to escape reality. Alice was finding out herself that people could be little pieces of something, something that could be exchanged by a senseless force. Lost in Wonderland, the little girl was confused and scared and nevertheless shows true bravery in the face of her insecurities. She exchanges sense for non-sense, in an all-encompassing attempt to be able to take hold of even the most intimate core of her, so that she is forced to discover who she really is and find her identity. Like a child who is sleeping, ideology in fictional stories, quietly seeps through the narrative cracks of novels. It is embodied as an unconscious knowledge, a knowledge that doesn't know itself, and that needs to be understood and pondered by the readers. ‘Alice in Wonderland’, seen to most as simply a children’s story, has so much more depth and deals with classis themes such as coming of

When she comes in contact with a drink or snack, she cannot help but to finish it off. She does not question long what it will do to her, but instead, finds out on her own. Alice cannot resist, she is too curious, too adventurous. She is only a child. Her conscience does not bother her.

The Victorian Era was a time where not many ethical ideals and moral standards were sustained. Yet, it is also an Era in which modern society uses to make advancements in both humanity, and philosophy. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, was a novelist who wrote pass his time. He wrote further in the future of the "common" Victorian Era. The ideology he presents in Alice in Wonderland is conducive to an individual attempting to bring attention to the deteriorating mental health and humane conditions in Victorian-Era England. Alice is representative of a normal child in everyday-Victorian England. This child, Alice, has not been exposed to the likes of diversity, but instead solidarity. The type of solidarity that is all too prevalent throughout the Victorian Era, primarily in the upbringing of children during this time. Children in Victorian Era England were taught to be followers of the norms already established by adults, and to ask no questions. These types of parameters placed restraints on children growing-up during this time; not only physical restraints, but also mental restraints, such as their imaginations'. Carroll was no stranger to this ideal or the likes of this concept; In fact, he constructed Alice in The Wonderland with this in mind, to defy the imaginative 'norm' of Victorian-Era England. He created a character that dreamt of falling down a rabbit hole into another universe. This dream or imagination becomes so vivid in his novel that the

'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll seems a first a simple fairy tale, but in fact its meaning is a lot more profound. This novel criticizes the way children were brought up during the Victorian era. Carroll presents the readers with the complications these offspring must endure in order to develop their own personalities/egos, as they become adults. For Alice, Wonderland appears to be the perfect place to start this learning adventure. A way to understand her story is by compering it to the world as if being upside-down. Nothing in Wonderland seems to be they way it’s supposed to. The first lesson, Alice must learn in this peculiar journey through Wonderland is to achieve separation from the world around her and to stop identifying herself through others, in order to discover who she

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll endures as one of the most iconic children 's books of all time. It remains one of the most ambiguous texts to decipher as Alice 's adventures in Wonderland have created endless critical debate as to whether we can deduce any true literary meaning, or moral implication from her journey down the rabbit hole. Alice 's station as a seven year old Victorian child creates an interesting construct within the novel as she attempts to navigate this magical parallel plain, yet retain her Victorian sensibilities and learn from experience as she encounters new creatures and life lessons. Therefore, this essay will focus on the debate as to whether Alice is the imaginatively playful child envisaged by the Romantics, or a Victorian child whose imagination has been stunted by her education and upbringing.