Alice's Revolution
By Rebekah Folse
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll veils many adult themes of sex, drugs, violence, and darkness throughout his “children’s” story. While Carroll leaves room for interpretation of these adult themes, the 2009 SyFy original miniseries: Alice addresses these themes more directly. By studying these two sources together, one can determine that the particular events of the 1960s: the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement are the cause of this repression and openness of these adult concepts.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is categorized as a children’s story for its themes of curiosity and comfort. Children are curious beings as they yearn to know about everything and everyone. Lewis Carroll includes the theme of curiosity in his story through the main character, Alice. Alice is known for being interested in just about everything. For example, the children’s story begins with a white rabbit running past Alice and “burning with curiosity”, Alice chases the rabbit into his rabbit hole. (19) This scene is important to Carroll’s story as it is how Alice transitions into a state of wonder or in other words, travels to Wonderland. Alice’s curiosity and Wonderland itself create a tone of mystery and as mentioned before, children are intrigued with mystery. Carroll targets young readers by emphasizing curiosity provoking events in his story. With this emphasis, children are able to put themselves in the place of Alice thus building up curiosity inside of themselves to continue reading and encompass themselves in the story of Wonderland.
In attempting close relationships with his young readers, Carroll also chooses to emphasize a theme of familiarity, allowing children to find comfort in his story just as Alice finds comfort in the events she encounters in Wonderland. For instance, Alice has a cat named Dinah, and in his story, Carroll has Alice encounter the Cheshire Cat. The Cheshire Cat is comforting to Alice, reminding her of Dinah and instilling a sense of trust of her to him. “‘It’s the Cheshire-Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to’” (82). Alice says this to herself while she is attending the Queen’s croquet game. She does not know anyone at the game, but when she sees the Cat, Alice is comforted and feels as though she can approach him as if they have been life-long friends. In “The Abuses of Enchantment” by Wendy Smith, she mentions how Lewis Carroll “[was] dreadfully anxious to be a child’s best friend” (128). Carroll works to achieve this friendship with Alice and his readers through the theme of comfort. By creating comforting moments in the midst of a threatening environment, Carroll encourages the trust of Alice and of his readers. With this trust, his readers are able to continue with his story and find comfort in the things he has to say rather than feeling uncomfortable with the amount of threatening events taking place.
While many will argue that Carroll’s, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a children’s story, there is sufficient evidence to say otherwise. Carroll is said to veil adult themes throughout his story; themes of sex, drugs and alcohol, and threats are said to have been embedded in his story. A prime example of this is in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with the presence of the “Drink Me” bottle and “Eat Me” treats. (23) When Alice consumes these, she has “out of this world” experiences as she grows shorter and smaller with each drink and taller and larger with each bite. Experiences such as these are common for those who have consumed some sort of drug or too much of an alcoholic beverage. These people begin to go on “trips” where strange things happen to them in their minds and they are not in control of these happenings. Another scene in the story portrays a caterpillar sitting upon a mushroom smoking a hookah pipe. (48) For some readers, the mushroom is said to represent the drug: ‘shrooms’ and the hookah pipe in itself is not for children either. As for violence in the story, the Queen of Hearts beheads whoever so much as breathes out of sync with her. There is a point towards the end of Carroll’s story when the Queen addresses Alice as she shouts “Off with her head! Off with her head” simply because the Queen does not like Alice’s response to her question. (79) These brutal consequences for such insignificant behaviors are not usually in a children’s story. When a child reads this however, although shocking, they think nothing of these actions, for to them it is only a story. Yet for an adult reading this material, the beheading would mean something more than just a piece of a children’s story. While all of these circumstances are so obvious, they are also very subtle. Carroll has a way of embedding these substances within his story so that to a child, they are casual appearances and mean nothing, yet to an adult, these appearances are unmistakable and hard to look past. Wendy Smith writes, “Lewis Carroll spoke directly and usually coyly, to his audience, and the satirical poems went right over…[the child’s]…head” (127). Here, Smith is addressing Carroll’s veiling of adult concepts and acknowledging how they are unseen to a child’s eye but are bluntly point out to an adult.
Lewis Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the time of the Victorian Era, and during this time, “the Victorians thought it no small virtue to maintain the appearance, the manner, of good conduct” (Himmelfarb 223). In other words, modesty and morals were a major aspect of Lewis Carroll’s time and of his writing. In his book about Alice, he uses many dialogues that reference the Victorian time such as “Hold your tongue” (38), “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited” (68), and when Alice must recite readings she learns in school to the caterpillar. (50-53) The first two quotes regarding tongue holding and sitting when one is invited, refer to the importance of manners during the Victorian Era. Children are supposed to speak only when they are spoken to during this time, and if they were to speak out of turn, what they say is supposed to be appropriate rather than illogical or from their imagination. During this time, people are supposed to sit after being invited to, or else it is considered as rude if one invites themselves to an occasion rather than being formally invited by someone else. As far as Alice’s reciting of poems is concerned, it is very common for school children during the Victorian Era to learn and recite what they learn. This is brought up many times in Carroll’s story as Alice is frequently asked to recite the poems or readings she has learned throughout her schooling. These concepts are made open in Carroll’s story, but there are some made not as apparent.
Referring to the previously talked about narcotics in Carroll’s Wonderland, these were kept hidden and not made as apparent. The reason being is because Carroll’s story was written during the Victorian times. The Victorians valued repression of immodest things such as drugs, violence, dreams, and even sex. While these are repressed, sexual conduct still takes place, yet it is hidden and kept a secret. By Carroll implanting branches of these themes in his story, he is in a sense, rebelling against what the Victorian’s stand for and at the same time, he is creating a parallel in his children’s story that mimics the ways of the Victorians in the means of their concealing of sexual activity. Just as the Victorians preach about modesty yet break their rules behind closed doors, Carroll is preaching to the choir of children while breaking the rules and addressing the ways of adulthood. In a way, Carroll is bringing out what so many people of this time are trying to withhold (or secretly withhold), and he is foreshadowing a time of liberal thoughts and open communication about sexuality and drugs.
This time of liberal conversation and thinking started during the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement of the 1960s. During this time, people became comfortable with the conversation about sex. In addition to this, the use of drugs and alcohol became very popular and most everyone at the time was using these substances. Most of the people embracing this idea of a sexual revolution, drugs/alcohol revolution, or rather to make things easier, a societal revolution, were the young people. According to “Repression, Revolution, and Ambivalence: The Sexual Life of Three Generations” by Elina Haavio-Mannila, J.P. Roos, and Osmo Kontula, the youngest generation of people are becoming confused by the past norms of repression and the currents norms of liberation. (425) Overtime, people developed an opinion of the Sexual Revolution. The greater freedoms of the Sexual Revolution created a willingness in the youth to discuss sexuality and drug use more openly. For those embracing the idea of the 1960s, they were able to freely speak their minds without worry. Lewis Carroll, in his story, encourages both approaches to living out one’s life as he is not very direct about his use of adult themes and their presence in his story. As time goes on, the ideas of the Sexual Revolution continue to develop and grow, leading into the Women’s Movement also during the 1960s. This movement reshaped Victorian views on the ‘traditional’ roles of the female and encouraged independence among women. Both the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement have shaped modern society’s views on morals and on women.
In 2009, the SyFy channel creates a miniseries called Alice, and it is based upon Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This miniseries puts an emphasis on Carroll’s adult themes by focusing on things such as gambling, alcohol and drug use, sexual concepts, and a significant amount of violence. The majority of the show takes place in a casino where people are drained of their emotions, and these emotions are turned into drinks that are sold at bars for the people who live in Wonderland. By consuming the drinks, the people of Wonderland are able to experience the emotions that the bottles are labeled with. This concept strongly resembles the use of alcohol as it can make a person experience good feelings while loosening their muscles (thus allowing them to relax and have an enjoyable time). Seeing as the story takes place in a casino, sex surrounds the atmosphere. Dancers are put on show all about the casino to help add to the experience of pleasure. In another part of the miniseries, the duchess is introduced, and her character promotes the idea of sex as well. Her character wears all too revealing clothing, and she is constantly using her powers of seduction to sway the thoughts of her fiancé Jack, who is also the son of the Queen of Hearts. The Queen does not go without her famous line in this miniseries. In fact, her character in the miniseries highly coincides with the actions of the Queen of Hearts in Carroll’s story. She is consistently beheading people over insignificant things without giving a second thought. A twist in this series is of Alice. In Carroll’s story, Alice is portrayed as a young and innocent girl, yet in the miniseries, Alice is an adult and teaches karate classes for a living. This career choice for Alice highlights the Women’s Movement of the 1960s. Instead of taking on the role of an innocent little girl embarking on an unfamiliar and threatening adventure, producers chose for Alice to be more independent and capable of fighting her own battles. In doing this, producers also increased the intensity of violence, sex, and drug use in order to create a more threatening environment in the world of Wonderland. Shooting guns and fist fighting are constantly taking place in this show, which is a significant difference from Carroll’s talking animals and tea parties. The miniseries is much blunter about its contents in Alice than Lewis Carroll is in his Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Prior to the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement, it was unheard of to openly converse about sex and drugs and adult themes of the sort. However after the sixties, these concepts became socially acceptable and in fact, became the main topics of many conversations. In fear of being to direct, Carroll veiled mature themes throughout his story and depicted Alice in a more innocent way. On the other hand, SyFy was by no means trying to cover up its use of adult ideas as it utilized adults themes in every way possible and equipped Alice with the tools to serve as an independent woman. Both of these stories all come back to the time period in which they happened. If not for the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement, ideas on morals, modesty, and women may never have changed, and the truths of Carroll’s story may never have been brought about.
References:
Alice. Dir. Nick Willing. Perf. Caterina Scorsone and Andrew-Lee Potts. SyFy, 2009. Television Miniseries.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. New York: Signet Classic, 2000. Print.
Cruise, Wilma. "Revisiting Alice." Journal of Literary Studies 30.4 (2014): 71-90. Web.
Haavio-Mannila, Elina, J.P. Roos, and Osmo Kontula. “Repression, Revolution, and Ambivalence: The Sexual Life of Three Generations.” Acta Sociologica 1996: 409. JSTOR Journals. Web. 14 May 2015
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. “Manners into Morals What the Victorians Knew.” American Scholar 57.2 (1988): 223. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 14 May 2015
Smith, Wendy. “The Abuses of Enchantment.” American Scholar 74.4 (2005): 126-131. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 14 May 2015