Puberty in Alice and Wonderland
One of the most prominent themes in children’s literature is maturation and grasping with adulthood. In keeping with this tradition, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland presents a girl who transforms immensely from the bored little girl who can’t imagine reading a book without pictures to the mature adult described at the end of the novel. Throughout much of the novel, the reader witnesses Alice struggling with frequent, rapid changes in her body. While the repeated size changes in the book serve to illustrate the difficulties of children in grasping the changes of puberty, the changes in Alice’s personality and state of mind that come with each fluctuation in size hint at the greater rewards of knowledge and certainty that accompany Alice’s maturation.
Alice’s first adventure in Wonderland presents the emotional frustration that comes with being so uncertain about one’s identity. After noticing a fifteen-inch door and the flourishing garden that lays behind it, Alice expresses a desire to shrink in order to fit through it, a wish that is then fulfilled by her consumption of a drink laying on a nearby table (Carroll 22-3). From the onset of her time in Wonderland, Alice is concerned by her inability to fit in with her physical surrounding. We see this in her initial reaction to shrinking; she’s immediately elated expressing her pleasure at being “now the right size” (24). Yet this joy quickly dissolves into apprehension.. Alice’s sudden diminution is accompanied by a strikingly different perspective of her surroundings that creates a more hostile environment. Small and out of place, Alice’s persistent effort to climb up the slippery legs of the glass table brings her to tears. This sudden inability to conquer her surroundings startles Alice and concerns the narrator, who begins to repeat variations on the phrase “poor Alice” (24), causing readers to identify her shrunken state with frustration and dejection. Essentially, Alice’s response to being small
Alice’s first adventure in Wonderland presents the emotional frustration that comes with being so uncertain about one’s identity. After noticing a fifteen-inch door and the flourishing garden that lays behind it, Alice expresses a desire to shrink in order to fit through it, a wish that is then fulfilled by her consumption of a drink laying on a nearby table (Carroll 22-3). From the onset of her time in Wonderland, Alice is concerned by her inability to fit in with her physical surrounding. We see this in her initial reaction to shrinking; she’s immediately elated expressing her pleasure at being “now the right size” (24). Yet this joy quickly dissolves into apprehension.. Alice’s sudden diminution is accompanied by a strikingly different perspective of her surroundings that creates a more hostile environment. Small and out of place, Alice’s persistent effort to climb up the slippery legs of the glass table brings her to tears. This sudden inability to conquer her surroundings startles Alice and concerns the narrator, who begins to repeat variations on the phrase “poor Alice” (24), causing readers to identify her shrunken state with frustration and dejection. Essentially, Alice’s response to being small
Cited: Carroll, Lewis. Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. New York: Signet Classic-Penguin Group, 2000.