The Great Puzzle
By Brianna Kessler
A common question among young adults in our modern society is the question of where they belong in the world and how they want to spend the rest of their lives. This struggle for answers can force many a high school or college student into a nervous breakdown or cause mild heart palpitations. These decisions and revelations can be difficult enough to figure out as a 20 year old; but what about as a 10 year old? How would a 10 year old today react to being told to choose their future today, and being made to follow through with their choice? This is a struggle that was much more commonplace a little over 100 years ago in the Victorian era, known for it’s rigid societal rules and high expectations of high born youth. Expectations of girls were especially different in Victorian times as it was commonly believed that a woman’s place was domesticity and that the career for women was marriage, (Weston Thomas). In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice exemplifies a young, female protagonist and her journey towards coming to terms with the ideals held during the Victorian Era and what would be required of her as she went from being a girl to being a woman. Through themes like time, growth and the inevitability of death, readers are able to observe how Alice reacts to and eventually accepts the different realities of adulthood throughout her adventures.
While Alice expresses ideas about time and the way it passes, her illumination on time occurs as she encounters more of Wonderland’s unique inhabitants. When we first encounter Alice, she is going about her normal day until she sees the White Rabbit run past with exclamations of “be[ing] late” (7). Curious, Alice follows the rabbit and begins her journey to Wonderland by falling down the rabbit hole. Beginning Alice’s journey immediately with a mention of time running out and Alice’s curiosity about the rabbit and the watch he carries indicates the importance that the idea of time is going to play in her journey, being the catalyst that starts the expedition. Alice’s exploration through Wonderland is fueled by her desire to follow the rabbit to see it’s final destination while he consistently proclaims throughout her pursuit of him “how late it’s getting” (10). The White Rabbit may serve as a symbol of Alice’s journey towards self-discovery, in that the rabbit’s worry over time and the being late for an event unknown to Alice could symbolize her impending adulthood and the uncertainty she feels in what will be expected of her, as the rabbit’s exclamations become increasingly panicked and he fears to have “kept [the Duchess] waiting” (15). The rabbit’s anxiety over keeping someone waiting indicate a similar worry in Alice that she will frustrate those around her with her conflicting feelings towards adulthood. Alice’s attitude towards time is also displayed through her conversation with the Mad Hatter as he informs her that she does not know “Time as well as [he] do[es]” (59). This observation perturbs Alice and she becomes increasingly annoyed with the Mad Hatter as he continues to critique different comments she makes throughout their conversation. As Alice inquires more about the subject of time, the Mad hatter proceeds to tell Alice a story of an execution being ordered due to the crime of “murdering the time” (60). This conversation reflects a more morbid facet of Alice’s thoughts on time, as she showcases a fear that older individuals understand more about time than she does and she is afraid of “murdering time” as she goes from a carefree childhood of lounging outside with her sister to spending her days reading, sewing, receiving guests, going visiting, letter writing, seeing to servants and other things typically expected of high society women in the Victorian Era (Weston Thomas). The idea of time and Alice’s compulsion to follow after the White Rabbit to see the consequences of his tardiness plays a role in her journey towards accepting adulthood.
The main struggle throughout Alice’s expedition seems to be her fear of accepting the unknown entity that is adulthood. Throughout her story, Alice’s experiences with both physical and emotional growth change her initial ideas about this topic. The first struggle Alice experiences concerning her size is as she finds a beautiful garden and finds that “she could not even get her head through the doorway” (10). As she finds a bottle of liquid to drink and a piece of cake to eat that should help her grow to a more advantageous size, she discovers that “to get through was more hopeless than ever” (15). This trouble with finding the correct physical size to achieve the goal of getting to the garden portrays Alice’s initial conflict towards the more figurative growth involved in becoming an adult. Alice first finds herself to be too large to get to where she wants to be, the seemingly unattainable garden, showing her fear that being an adult will keep her from having fun in her life, the way she did as a child. As Alice shrinks herself, she discovers that she is now to small to lift the key required to open the door to the garden, showing Alice’s fear that if she were to give in too much to childish fun she will experience trouble with the more practical nature of entering into the beautiful garden that represents her future. The beginning of Alice’s expedition exemplifies a common theme explored in children’s fairytales in regard to the acceptance of leaving childhood behind, since as Bruno Bettelheim writes, “this growth process begins with the […] fear of growing up, and ends when youth has truly found itself [and] achieved psychological independence” (12). Alice initially displays frustration with being too small or too large at any given time, and the way her size hinders her different desires. As her journey continues however, Alice begins to become increasingly discontent with “ being such a tiny little thing” (30). After speaking with the caterpillar, Alice finally decides she would “like to be a little larger”, and is assured by the caterpillar that although she “isn’t used to it”, she will “get used to [her size] in time” (42-43). Finally, Alice comes to accept her coming transition into womanhood after her talk with the caterpillar. She figures out how to manipulate her size although “it felt quite strange at first […] she got used to it in a few minutes” and felt quite comfortable with being able to change back and forth from large to small for the rest of the story, indicating that Alice finally realized a possibility of striking a balance between moments of childish fun and the responsibilities of an adult (45). It is also an important factor of this acceptance of change that Alice goes through this adventure by herself, as Bettelheim also notes that without “the security of […] family or of a well-integrated community” (11). Alice was therefore able to realize her own place in the world and feel confident in her choice because she found it on her own without outside influence, indicating the little independence she could wield as a woman in Victorian times. This independence in Alice’s travels through Wonderland could serve as a way for Alice to cope with another reality of transitioning from girlhood to womanhood, as Victorian women were expected to be fragile and delicate and want for nothing other than bearing children and providing a loving, domestic atmosphere for her husband (Weston Thomas). This was an extremely common belief Queen Victoria instilled in her subjects, as she had “a series of strong male figures whom she could dominate even as she dominated them” (Blumberg). This idea that while a woman ruled over men, she simultaneously allowed them to dominate her may be what caused this compromise of sorts between having Alice accept her duties as a woman in high society and having her come to this decision through her own solo adventure.
One of the realizations that comes with becoming an adult is the growing awareness that one day all of your life has been building up to its end. Death and its inescapability are referred to several times in the story, and are experienced by Alice in different ways. Despite being a children’s story, Alice is under a constant threat of death throughout her odyssey. After Alice encounters what she briefly considers may be poison, she feels nervous about a possible bad outcome to the liquid she has drunk and ponders that her life “might end […] in her going out altogether, like a candle” and wonders “what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out” (12). This question of what could possibly lie beyond death signifies the final morbid reality of Alice’s growth into an adult woman, and that is the constant, looming presence of death. What is dangerous about Wonderland, and perhaps the most perplexing, is how often life seems to be under threat of death and how unworried Wonderland’s inhabitants seem to be about it, seeing as their Queen “only had one way of settling all difficulties” and orders beheading without a second glance (71). The nonchalant attitude of Wonderland’s characters towards death and how it seems to be consistently lurking in the dark for when it is least expected mirrors the way death is treated in the real world as well. It is accepted as commonplace and a fact of life that must be taken in stride as dealt with when the time comes. Having this lesson taught to Alice through the childlike machinations of her dream of Wonderland serves as a coping method for one of the harshest realities of entering into adulthood; the fact that while time passes you by, eventually everything must “come to the end […] then stop” (101).
The ending of the naiveté of childhood is something everyone must experience at some point in his or her life. Modern times have softened the more alarming aspects that children deal with as they leave their youth behind, but the largess of the change being made has not diminished with time. As children stumble through adolescence and struggle with self-discovery, Alice’s poignant, existential questions remain as relevant as ever. As ambitions and goals are set and realized the question, “Who am I?” still remains to be the greatest puzzle for children who find themselves growing up without their permission.
References:
Bettelheim, Bruno. "The Struggle for Meaning." The Uses of Enchantment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. 7-19. Web. 08 May 2015.
Blumberg, Arnold. "Queen Victoria." Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia (2014): Research Starters. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
Weston Thomas, Pauline. "A Woman's Place In C19th Victorian History." A Woman's Place in Victorian Society. Fashion-Era.com. Web. 08 May 2015.