Queen Victoria herself was a fan of Dodgson’s work, demonstrating that she and many other Victorians were open to the idea of allowing a little nonsense into their lives. It probably came as a welcome counter balance to the weight of austerity that typified the age in other respects.
Dodgson’s work also set a benchmark for new writers. Literary nonsense became a genre in its own right and many subsequent authors have drawn inspiration from Dodgson’s ability to delve into his subconscious, almost as if he were taking psychedelic drugs to conjure a dream-like place, that he called Wonderland. In effect, Dodgson realised that literature is a true art form, just like painting or sculpture, in that so-called rules are there only to be tested and reset in the creative process.
Incidentally it seems likely that Dodgson had indeed tried hallucinogenic drugs. Opium smoking dens existed in Victorian London as it was long before the drug was made illegal. In addition to this, it was known that Psilocybin mushrooms could be consumed to induce mind bending effects. In the book a shrunken Alice meets a caterpillar, smoking a hookah pipe and reclining on a mushroom. Alice consumes morsels of mushroom that make her first shrink even smaller and then grow back to her normal size. Surely drugs had something to do with such ideas.
Themes of the Book
It is perhaps inevitable that people have read between the lines a great deal with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That is to say, they have searched for a hidden meaning, agenda or allegory that Dodgson wished to express through his work. It seems more likely though that it is what it is – literary nonsense. The book is an exploration of imagined possibilities.
Dodgson doesn’t seem to have harboured any desire to pass comment on Victorian society. Although it is known that many of his literary characters were based on the personalities of his friends, it seems that this was merely an aid to character creation and development rather than any intention to parody them in any way. He was a humanist at heart, so he used his friends because he enjoyed and celebrated their idiosyncrasies and foibles.
It was this encapsulation of the human condition that seems to have made his work so popular, because the characters are in fact familiar stereotypes, so that readers can recognise traits in themselves and in the people they know. What is more, they are ubiquitous traits, so that they exist in people the world over. For example; Alice is the attractively inquisitive and naïve girl, the white rabbit is the neurotic clerk, the caterpillar can be seen as the laid back artist, and so on.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 Down the Rabbit-Hole
CHAPTER 3 A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
CHAPTER 4 The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
CHAPTER 5 Advice from a Caterpillar
CHAPTER 8 The Queen’s Croquet-Ground
CHAPTER 9 The Mock Turtle’s Story
CHAPTER 10 The Lobster Quadrille
CHAPTER 11 Who Stole the Tarts?
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict ‘to begin it’ –
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
‘There will be nonsense in it!’ –
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast –
And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
‘The rest next time –’ ‘It is next time!’
The happy voices cry.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out –
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined