Lewis Carroll's Criticism of Society
Lewis Carroll's Criticism of Society
Lewis Caroll published 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', in 1865, mocking the children's literature of that time, which suffered from a lack of imagination, only containing morals to educate children. Education plays a large role in the Alice`s life. Alice refers to her lessons and her education very proud of the learning that she has acquired. The information that she remembers from her lessons is usually useless or wrong. For example, although she can remember how many miles down until the center of the earth, she believes that everything will be upside down when she passes through to the other side:
“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think —" (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) — yes, that's about the right distance — but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say) “.
The Victorian reader expected a children's book to instruct the child in religion and morals, and to prepare him for a righteous adulthood. Alice herself probably describes this type of book best while she is trying to decide whether or not to drink from the bottle marked "Drink me: "It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked
Lewis Caroll published 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', in 1865, mocking the children's literature of that time, which suffered from a lack of imagination, only containing morals to educate children. Education plays a large role in the Alice`s life. Alice refers to her lessons and her education very proud of the learning that she has acquired. The information that she remembers from her lessons is usually useless or wrong. For example, although she can remember how many miles down until the center of the earth, she believes that everything will be upside down when she passes through to the other side:
“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think —" (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) — yes, that's about the right distance — but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say) “.
The Victorian reader expected a children's book to instruct the child in religion and morals, and to prepare him for a righteous adulthood. Alice herself probably describes this type of book best while she is trying to decide whether or not to drink from the bottle marked "Drink me: "It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked
Bibliography: Gardner, M. (2001). “The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition”. England: Penguin Books. http://www.lewiscarroll.org/ http://www.victorianweb.org http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice1d.html