Alice's Adventures in Wonderland- A Note
Lewis Carroll's "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" is unique creation of a Mathematician who was fond of children. It was revolutionary for its time, because the Victorian children's literature was moralistic and didactic. In contrast, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" openly criticised the hypocrisy and inhuman treatment of children in Victorian society. 'Children should be seen and not heard’. Children were considered as selfless with ‘no sense of self of their own’. Dodgson, a professor at Christ College, Oxford University challenged the societal norms of his time in the Alice books.
The Alice story was first told to three little children on a boat trip. One of them was Alice Liddell. Later, Dodgson wrote it under the title "Alice's Adventures Under Ground.” The book was finally published under the title “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". It became widely popular among children as well as adults. Later, its sequel, “Through the Looking Glass” was published.
Virginia Wolf said about Alice books, ‘they are the only ones in which we become children’. Auden said that there are good books which are only for adults but no good books which are only for children.
Alice falls down a rabbit hole while she was following a rabbit wearing a waistcoat one afternoon. She falls down the Rabbit hole and reaches Wonderland. Wonderland is not a fairy world but instead consists of strange animals, birds and Queen and King of hearts. Unlike the kind animals of Victorian moralistic rhymes, the animals in Wonderland challenge Alice's sense of self. She is called a serpent by a pigeon. The homicidal Queen keeps yelling “Off with their heads" and the Cheshire cat says Alice that she cannot avoid mad people. "We all are mad here.”
"Alice is wonderland" is an existential nonsense verse which challenges the norms of the Victorian society.
P.S. We are more Victorian than the Victorians themselves.