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LEWIS CARROLL AND THE CRITICISM
Having contextualised Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and analysed it from a linguistic point of view, I will now proceed with a brief analysis of the themes present in the text and their many critical interpretations. Furthermore, I will discuss the figure of Lewis Carroll going against some of the heavy critiques and accusations he received, explaining why most of them are simply ungrounded.
The vast majority of approaches and studies regarding Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are inexplicably psychological, although it is a book firstly dedicated to children. This could be due to the fact that the author himself was not seen so positively from the majority of his critical readers, who might have misinterpreted the real intent of the book, associating Carroll’s “passion” for children with an insane and pervert sexual desire towards them. It seems they necessarily wanted to find these unnatural feelings in the text, in the form of themes like cannibalism, sex, excessive desire for food, the choice of picking up specific species of animal characters and so on. As for the last issue, some critics say that Carroll’s choice is not casual. As Rose Lovell- Smith points out: “The animal characters do not behave or talk much like animals in traditional fairy tales or fables. They are neither helpers nor donors nor monsters nor prophetic truth tellers, the main narrative functions of animals in traditional fairy tales […] They do not teach lessons about kindness to animals, as animals in children’s stories often did, and they do not
much resemble the creatures in nursery rhymes.”1 Denis Crutch also affirms that: “There
is in Alice a hierarchy of animals equivalent to the Victorian class system but also suggesting a competitive model of nature: the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, and the March Hare seem to be gentlemen, frog and fish are footmen, Bill the lizard is bullied by everybody, hedgehogs and flamingos are made use of, and the dormouse and the guinea
pigs are victimized by larger animals and by humans.”2
This last hypothesis could be acceptable if we read the text from the point of view of an adult. But would children really be able to make such a reasoning? Would a child really
1
R. L. SMITH, “The Animals of Wonderland: Tenniel as Carroll’s Reader”, in Criticism, Vol. 45, N. 4, 2003, p. 386.
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think about more powerful or weak animals? I do not think so. In my opinion Carroll’s choice of picking up a White Rabbit wearing a coat and a clock, a blue Caterpillar that smokes a hookah and all the other animals with humanoid characteristics, is just for the mere purpose of making the children laugh and have fun. Imagine you tell a child that you have just spotted a rabbit wearing a rain-coat, or a caterpillar smoking a hookah, or a dog walking on two legs or any other animal wearing a hat, a skirt, a scarf etc. You will immediately raise up that child interest and hear a resounding laugh.
Talking animals have become commonplace in the realm of children's literature, and are perhaps even expected. Animals of every variety populate picture books and even chapter books, and display varying degrees of human like characteristics. This anthropomorphism is not limited to talking, but also includes wearing clothing, walking upright, cooking, playing instruments, and living in houses. Behaviourally, those animals who are fully anthropomorphic are almost indistinguishable from humans; they go to school, drive cars, and deal with the same daily issues and concerns that humans have.3
Many in fact are the books for children containing talking, dressed-up or walking upright animals. Just mentioning some of the earliest and most famous examples: the talking pigs in The Three Little Pigs (1895) by J. O. H. Phillipps; The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) by B. Potter, where the rabbits wear clothes like humans; The Wind in the Willows (1908) by K. Grahame, where animals are fully anthropomorphic; The Puss in Boots (1550-53) by G. F. Straparola, and many more.
www.wikipedia.com www.wikipedia.com
Illustration from The Puss in Boots, 1843 Ed. Illustration from The Wind in the Willow, by V. Assanelli.
3 E. A. DUNN, Talking Animals: A Literature Review of Anthropomorphism in Children' s Books, North
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Illustration from The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by B. Potter. www. s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com .
Actually, to find the origin of this custom we have to go back to the past taking into account Aesop who was the first to use animals in order to show humans how they should behave. According to Margaret Blount, Aesop "used the attractive power of animals and narrative to get at his audience in a peculiar way, and the method has been seized on, enlarged, used and copied until...the animal moral tale becomes almost
wearisome".4 Nowadays, in fact, the majority of children’s fiction is characterized by
animals with humanoid characteristics as protagonists. Just consider Disney’s production for children in which there is at least one animal character in each cartoon. If it is true that Aesop used to associate animals with moral lessons to be taught, it is not the same as for the latest examples of literary and entertaining production for children. With the developing of the anthropomorphism in children’s stories, animals have started being used for the purpose of entertaining the young public, rather than teaching it moral lessons and I am quite convinced this is the case with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland itself. However, I do share the opinion of C. Burke and G. J. Copenhaver when they affirm that: “The talking, thinking, acting animals could provide for children what they were already providing for their adult mentors, a buffered engagement with a message of cultural significance. The lively animals would soften the didactic tone and ease the
tensions raised by dealing with issues not yet fully resolved or socially controversial.”5
Indeed, if I try and teach a child a moral lesson like for instance “do not disobey your parents”, the child will easier learn it if I tell him the story of a rabbit (for example Peter
4
M. BLOUNT, Animal Land: The Creatures of Children’s Fiction, New York, W. Morrow, 1975, p. 110.
5 C. BURKE, G. J. COPENHAVER, “Animals as People in Children’s Literature”, in Language Arts, Vol. 81, N. 3,
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Rabbit) who gets into trouble disobeying his mother, rather than just telling him “if someone disobeys his parents, he will get into trouble and will be punished”. Anyway, this is not Carroll’s case since he explicitly rejected the idea of incorporating any sort of ‘moral’ or lesson into his books, emphatically proclaiming in an 1867 letter to a child friend that the book he had sent her contained “a moral”, and he “need hardly say it is
not by Lewis Carroll”.6 Similarly, in an 1872 correspondence with his uncle, Carroll writes:
‘‘Wordsworth ends with a moral, an example I have not followed”.7 “Carroll’s aversion to
morals explains why, when Alice finally awakens, she gives her sister an account of what she did in Wonderland rather than what she learned there. This allows the child reader greater room to interpret Alice’s adventures because Alice does not explicitly tell the
reader what to think of them.”8
www.i.ytimg.com
Cats playing instruments in The Aristocats, Two mice from Cinderella, by W. Disney by W. Disney. www.static.grazia.it
The Talking Cricket from Pinocchio, by W. Disney. www.ilbardoincompreso.files.wordpress.com
Going back to our survey, another very frequent theme that critics have studied in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is “food”. Again, this could be due to the fact that Carroll “was known to be extremely controlling with food, often bringing his own meals to friend’s homes when invited for dinner […] He did not want his child friends to eat too
6 L. CARROLL, ‘‘To Lilia MacDonald’’ in Letters, Vol. I, p. 96. 7
L. CARROLL, ‘‘To His Uncle Hassard Dodgson,’’ in Letters, Vol. I, p. 177.
8 S. L. SHATZ, “Lewis Carroll’s Dream-child and Victorian Child Psychopathology”, in Journal of the History of
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much, otherwise they might have got ill”.9 While Nina Auerbach and others have
suggested Alice is a subversive, active heroine, C. Garland “read the Alice texts as stories of the male author’s desire. Carroll exercises this desiring control over his heroine in regards to her appetite. In Wonderland, the male author doesn’t acknowledge the heroine’s hunger and has her consume without appetite […]There are many examples of this, the most obvious being Alice eating the objects marked ‘Eat Me’ simply because she
has been instructed to, without expressing any hunger”.10 I do disagree. It is not a matter
of “appetite” at all. In my opinion the fact that Alice eats or drinks the objects labelled “eat me” or “drink me”, is just a matter of curiosity, typical of children. Garland goes on claiming that “the grotesque Queen of Hearts […] is significantly a figure who has a strong association with food. The theft of her tarts renders her even more murderous than
usual, leading her to order decapitation.”11 Again I do not agree. I believe in fact, that the
Queen of Hearts has nothing to do with food. I think that, through her character, Carroll wants to criticize some too strict aspects of Victorian society as for the children’s education. The Queen of Hearts could symbolize an absent mother, a criticising teacher, or even a bad-tempered father. Furthermore, I am quite convinced that the tarts, in the chapter “Who Stole the Tarts”, are just a random expedient and do not have to be associated with food desire, since usually stealing food from a table or a cupboard is what children are not allowed to do, and in this case a child could identify himself with Alice, who is accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts, and participate with more empathy to the development of the events.
www.alice-in-wonderland.net
Illustration from “Who Stole the Tarts” chapter, by John Tenniel
9 C. GARLAND, “Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender, and Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Texts”, in
The Lion and the Unicorn, Vol. 32, N. 1, 2008, p. 26.
10 Ibidem, p. 28. 11 Ibidem.
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“In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them – ‘I wish they’d get the trial done,’ she thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’. But there seemed to be no chance of this; so she began looking at everything about her to pass away the time.” (p. 95)
“In this sequence, Alice desires the tarts and, realizing she isn’t able to eat them, represses this hunger by ‘looking at everything about her’ to distract her from the objects
she wants to consume”.12 The fact that Alice desires the tarts is quite obvious, but it is not
a matter of “obsessive desire” nor an “order” she obeys, as Garland claims: “Alice eats in Wonderland because the male author and the male characters direct her to. Importantly, Alice is rarely given the chance to satisfy her hunger. She eats without desire and without
knowledge”.13 I think this is due to the children’s natural disposition for appreciating
sweets, cakes and delicacies of various types. Alice, like every child, is just very greedy. Other authors deeply delve into the theme of food, like K. Jilkka who even makes a comparison between Alice and Eve: “Eating is associated with sin by the means that a garden, in which a serpent is present, represents the Garden of Eden. Alice, therefore represents Eve when she desires to eat the Queen’s tarts while there, even though she
knows it is wrong”14. A far-fetched comparison from my point of view.
On the contrary, a very interesting theory proposed by Jilkka, regards the influence of class themes throughout the text. According to Jilkka, in fact, “with her entrance into Wonderland, Alice, a member of middle-class Victorian society, experiences the reality of
class conflict in nineteenth-century England”.15 The author claims that the theme of
“food” is related to that of “social conflicts”: “Together, the themes of class conflict and eating can be studied in conjunction with one another to form an understanding of social power in Victorian England […] eating in these works is only the ultimate logical
consequence of a social relationship predicated on inequality and deception”.16
Therefore, according to Jilkka, the reader should be able to identify someone’s social class from the food he eats: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
12
Ibidem, p. 33.
13
Ibidem, p. 32.
14 K. JILKKA, “How Little Girls are Like Serpents, or, Food and Power in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books”, in The
Carrollian: The Lewis Carroll Journal, Issue 26, 2010, p. 5.
15 Ibidem, p. 7. 16 Ibidem.
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set up the dichotomy between the upper and lower classes through opposing representations of language and eating, centring social identity symbolically around the mouth. Just as the type of language characters speak serves as an identifying marker of their class, so the types of food they eat or the food available to them classify them to
their fellow characters and to the reader as upper- or lower-class figures”.17 As for the
“changing in size” theme, once more Jilkka offers a quite interesting theory:
Alice’s changes in size as a result of eating and drinking represent her own experience of the symbolic connections between food, class, and identity. Chapter II, ‘The Pool of Tears’, begins with Alice growing bigger and bigger as a result of eating a “very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants”. Eating, in this case, has transformed Alice’s body into a succinct illustration of the Victorian social spectrum as a whole, her head representative of the upper class and her feet of the lower. Supporting this identification is the physical distance between Alice’s head and feet, as well as her patronizing attitude toward the labouring, lowest “members” of her body and the service they provide her. Eating this cake causes Alice to grow, subsequently exhibiting upper-class characteristics, concerned about her ability to “sweet talk” her symbolically lower-class feet. She also begins to worry about her capacity to care for her feet, or even spare them much thought due to the increasing distance between her head and her extremities. This relationship suggests the problematic visibility of the poor in British society, as her feet grow increasingly out of sight and, thus, out of mind. To keep her lower-class feet happy and obedient, Alice decides to “give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.18
The theory is indeed very original, but again it is not applicable if it is a child who reads the story. The fact that Alice shrinks, grows and then shrinks back again, does entertain and amuse the child at the same time, just like, for instance, a child who is playing pretending to be a giant who can reach the sky with his hands or a tiny ant that can go wherever it wants. “It is undoubtedly funny from a child’s point of view”, says Roni Natov, “but if we look at it with the eyes of an adolescent, Alice's journeys can be relevant and painful […] In recent years, this new audience has been drawn to Carroll's work because of its overriding concern with the much written about adolescent preoccupation with identity. The question Alice asks after several changes in size, ‘Who in the world am I!’ is her underlying quest […] Adolescents do not feel accepted by the society, do not feel accepted by anybody, they try to find their place in the society, like Alice tries to find her
place in Wonderland”.19
17
Ibidem, p. 7-8.
18 Ibidem, p. 10.
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Alice does indeed lose her identity several times during her journey through Wonderland, and this could be seen as the child’s own search for identity in Victorian society, where, let us remember, children were “too young to work, but too grown up to play”.
Another important aspect within the text is the presence of the element of “work” and “rules“, but not in the sense many critics interpret it, that is, the importance of moral lessons to be learnt from children throughout the text. As we have already mentioned, Carroll does not want the text to contain morals nor it to be read in a “Victorian way”. The playful aspect of “rules” in the text lays in the fact that:
For children who are so governed by a variety of rules, breaking them or exposing how often they don't work can be exhilarating, within the safe confines of fantasy […] The need of rules of children can be recognized in Alice’s happiness and sense of satisfaction every time she finds a new “made-up” rule. ‘Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot tempered,’ she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, ‘and vinegar that makes them sour— and chamomile that makes them bitter—and— and barley sugar and such things that make children sweet tempered I only wish people knew that...’ (p. 77) […] And when Alice exhausts herself trying to remember all the lessons of the schoolroom, it is a relief for the child, I would imagine, to see that the rules don't work.20
The game, here, lays exactly in breaking those strict and odious rules imposed by society, until Alice finally realizes who she is in the last part of the story, when she regains her identity and pronounces the words: “Who cares for you […] You're nothing but a pack of cards!” (p. 108). This statement could be seen as a liberating cry from all Victorian children, a sort of outburst against the oppressive life conditions under which they were forced to live: “This victory is for child power over the irrational claims of adults, and even
as an adult, the child part of me rejoices in this affirmation”.21
As we have already seen in the previous chapter, the text is full of doggerels and funny rhymes, specifically chosen to entertain the children and to invite the reader to actively participate in the development of the story, starting with Alice’s falling down the rabbit hole, where Carroll makes use of onomatopoeic words like “thump! thump!” (p. 8) or repetitions such as “down, down, down” (p. 7), to create the typical fairy-tale atmosphere and delight children who usually take pleasure from nursery-rhymes and the sound of words.
20 Ibidem, p. 56. 21 Ibidem.
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The several little poems and rhymes, like for example “How Doth the Little Crocodile”, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat”, “The Lobster-Quadrille”, “You’re Old Father William” and even that weird poem about the Fury and the Mouse which progressively shrinks while someone reads it, are in fact all examples of the playful intent of this text:
The animation of the inanimate—the roses that are painted red and the game pieces that are all irrepressible living things, for example —are obviously amusing to children. Games themselves— and Lewis Carroll was known to be addicted to verbal and mathematical games—are a large part of the child's world. And the childish Father William, who literally reverses his head and feet, as well as his expected role with his paternal son, is an interesting study in incongruity for children; perhaps because they often struggle with a childish parent (whether or not they realize this); or because they simply enjoy playing at being the adult.22
www.alice-in-wonderland.net
Alice swimming in a “pool of tears”, illustration by John Tenniel.
The text contains also some dramatizations of the typical parental admonishments and warnings towards their children, like for instance “the warning often given children by their parents in an effort to stop them from crying—‘Watch out or you'll drown in your tears’—which provides humour through a similar process of literally depicting the cliché , when Alice does, in fact, swim in a huge pool of her own tears […] The pleasure children receive in recognizing dependable motifs like the Queen's shriek, the White Rabbit's lateness, the Duchess's moralizing, is another of the many ways in which Carroll's stories
can still appeal to children”.23 Furthermore, Carroll makes some humorous and ironic
caricatures of the typical authoritative figures present in every child’s life. The Duchess for instance, could represent a too strict mother who mistreats her baby in her first appearance and a boring nurse or a teacher who just wants to teach strict morals, in the
22 Ibidem, p. 52. 23 Ibidem, pp. 52- 54.
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second description that Carroll gives of her. But Carroll’s aim here, is not that of teaching something nor giving any specific lesson. On the contrary, he makes fun of and mocks all the “adults of Wonderland”, to make the children laugh at them. An offensive behaviour, one might think. Surely children did not think so. Is there anything funnier than an ugly, pompous Duchess finding morals (silly and nonsense ones, moreover!) everywhere and for every word Alice pronounces?
Very true’, said the Duchess: 'flamingos and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is - "Birds of a feather flock together."' 'Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked. 'Right, as usual,' said the Duchess: 'what a clear way you have of putting things!' 'It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice. 'Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; 'there's a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is - "The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours."' 'Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, 'it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it is.' 'I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; 'and the moral of that is - "Be what you would seem to be" - or if you'd like it put more simply - "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."' 'I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very politely, 'if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.' (p. 78-79)
Nor could the children, after reading the Duchess’ last statement. But that is the interesting thing. According to Carroll, children are not supposed to find answers to riddles or explanations to difficult sentences. What really concerns the author is to make the reader think using his/her own imagination and intellect. “The point is not for Alice to ‘learn’ the answer (a difficult task in such a carnival-like environment), but rather, for the
child reader to consider the question”.24
Alice and The Duchess, illustration by John Tenniel. www.upload.wikimedia.org
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Another significant example of this is the Mad Hatter’s riddle, “why is a raven like a writing-desk?” (p. 58). Alice cannot find the solution and gives it up in the end. But what is even more curious is the fact that neither the Hatter nor the March Hare know the answer. Actually, there is not a proper or specific answer to this weird riddle. Carroll, in fact, did not have any particular solution in mind when he invented it. But since many Victorian readers wrote him asking for a solution, “to placate his audience, Carroll offered the following explanation: ‘because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar [sic] put with the wrong end front’ […] Creative connections between ideas and concepts are the point, not ‘correct’ answers, polite answers, or even innocent answers […] What is important is the concept and the effort the reader makes in
trying and find the solution, but it is not the solution what matters“.25 Many other writers
have focused on the importance to “make the readers’ mind work”. Virginia Lowe, for instance, claims that the text has to be read from a child’s point of view and it has to be considered a learning tool for children: “these texts do not have to be beyond a child’s
reach”26; and F. MacArthur also points out that “contemporary studies in children’s
literature in education suggest that the Alice narratives have some value as learning tools for children. The ‘linguistic puzzles’ encourage children to engage in a ‘dynamic problem-solving activity’ in which they consider the meaning and function of metaphors and similes”.27
However, it is indeed evident that through Alice, Carroll implicitly criticizes Victorian society, in all its negative aspects: “Her persistent search for rules and attempts to recite lessons and facts suggests that her education has consisted largely of systematic memorization of ‘practical’ information—a learning model that was widespread in
England at the time”.28
One of the strongest critic of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, though, is Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). In an essay he claims that: “In Lewis Carroll, everything begins with a horrible combat, the combat of depths: things explode or make us explode, boxes are
25
M. GARDNER, “Introduction” to The Annotated Alice, by Lewis Carroll, New York, W. W. Norton, 2000, p. 72.
26
V. LOWE, “Which Dreamed It? Two Children, Philosophy and Alice”, in Children’s Literature in Education, Vol. 25, N. 1, 1994, p. 56.
27 F. MacARTHUR, “Embodied Figures of Speech: Problem-Solving in Alice's Dream of Wonderland”, in
Atlantis Vol. 26, N. 2, 2004, p. 51.
28 P. BRADLEY, “Victorian Lessons: Education and Utilitarianism in Bentham, Mill, and Dickens”, in The
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too small for their contents, foods are toxic and poisonous, entrails are stretched, monsters grab at us. A little brother uses his little brother as bait. Bodies intermingle with one another, everything is mixed up in a kind of cannibalism that joins together food and excrement. Even words are eaten. This is the domain of the action and passion of bodies: things welded together into non-decomposable blocks. Everything in depth is horrible,
everything is nonsense”.29 Deleuze’s most famous book is undoubtedly The Logic of
Sense, where he refers to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, reading it as an illogical and nonsensical example, in his analysis of the genesis and the structure of nonsense. Deleuze uses Alice to proceed into the distinction between things that can be measured and limited in what they become, and things that are of pure becoming, referring to the little girl’s several changings in size:
When I say, ‘Alice becomes larger’, I mean that she becomes larger than she was. By the same token, however, she becomes smaller than she is now. Certainly, she is not bigger and smaller at the same time. She is larger now; she was smaller before. But it is at the same moment that one becomes larger than one was and smaller than one becomes. This is the simultaneity of a becoming whose characteristic is to elude the present. Insofar as it eludes the present, becoming does not tolerate the separation or the distinction of before and after, or of a past and future. It pertains to the essence of becoming to move and to pull in both directions at once: Alice does not grow without shrinking, and vice versa.30
Basically, Deleuze makes a comparison between two different types of growth: the physical and the psychological one, claiming that while Alice is growing in size she is also growing “inside”, becoming more mature, even when she shrinks back again. That is why he takes Carroll’s book as a good example of paradoxes and nonsensical statements, since, according to Deleuze: “Good sense affirms that in all things there is a determinable sense or direction”, but this simultaneity of becoming larger and smaller at the same time results in a paradox which is “the affirmation of both senses or directions at the same
time”.31 Deleuze then goes on:
The paradox of this pure becoming, with its capacity to elude the present, is the present of infinite identity […] It is language which fixes the limits (the moment, for example, at which the excess begins), but it is language as well which transcends the limits and restores them to the
29 G. DELEUZE, Essays Critical and Clinical, Translated by W. Smith and M. A. Greco, London, Verso, 1998, p.
21.
30 G. DELEUZE, The Logic of Sense, New York, Columbia University Press, 1990, p. 1. 31 G. DELEUZE, op. cit., p. 1.
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infinite equivalence of an unlimited becoming […] Hence the reversals which constitutes Alice’s Adventures: the reversal of becoming larger and becoming smaller - ‘which way, which way?’, asks Alice, sensing that it is always in both the same directions at the same time, so that for once she stays the same, through an optical illusion […] The reversal of active and passive: ‘do cats eat bats?’ Is as good as ‘do bats eat cats?’ […] the reversal of cause and effect: to be punished before having committed a fault, to cry before having pricked oneself […] All these reversals as they appear in infinite identity have one consequence: the contesting of Alice’s personal identity and the loss of her proper name.32
Therefore, according to Deleuze, all these changes in size and play-on-words games have to be seen from a mere logic point of view and not from a linguistic nor a simple “children-entertaining” one. Another interesting example brought by Deleuze regards the episode of the caucus-race, where Alice and other animals run in circle to dry themselves off. While Carroll, in my opinion, uses this sort of “game with no rules” to make his children readers have fun, Deleuze analyses it from another prospective:
Not only does Lewis Carroll invent games, or transforms the rules of known games (tennis, croquet), but he invokes a sort of ideal game whose meaning and functions are at first glance difficult to assess: for example, the caucus-race in Alice, which one begins when wishes and stops at will; and the croquet match in which the balls are hedgehogs, the mallets pink flamingoes, and the loops soldiers […] These games have the following in common: they have a great deal of movement, they seem to have no precise rules, and they permit neither winner nor loser […] Such a game, without rules […] a game of innocence, a caucus-race, in which skill and chance are no longer distinguishable, seems to have no reality.33
From this perspective the caucus-race can be read as a puzzling race, “che non proclama né vincitori né vinti, come un lanciarsi da proposizione in proposizione per fermarsi laddove si vuole, quasi come se la principale preoccupazione dell'autore fosse stata la messinscena dei paradossi del senso. È impossibile, infatti, parlare dichiarando il senso che si intende dire; esso è sempre presupposto, ma mai espresso, sempre pronto a
divenire oggetto di nuove proposizioni, ma mai definibile”.34
Deleuze refers also to the episode in which the Duchess tries to find a moral to everything Alice says and he introduces the concept of “indefinite proliferation”:
32 Ibidem, pp. 2-3. 33
Ibidem, pp. 59-60.
34 M. R. PISANIELLO, “La Sospensione del Senso in Alice Nel Paese delle Meraviglie”, in Fantasmatico, n. 120,
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This simpler expression appears in a passage from Alice in which the Duchess is always discovering the moral or the morality which must be drawn for everything, at least from everything on the condition that it be a proposition. For when Alice does not speak, the Duchess is disarmed […] it is not a question of association of ideas, from one sentence to another; rather, the moral of each proposition consists of another proposition which denotes the sense of the first. Making sense the object of the new proposition amounts to ‘taking care of the sense’, in such conditions that propositions proliferate and ‘the sounds take care of themselves’. 35
Therefore, Alice is experiencing a world where everything is nonsensical, so the only way to speak about it and deal with it is to build herself a nonsensical language. So basically, Deleuze considers Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as one of the biggest paradoxes of sense: “Paradox is initially that which destroys good sense […] but it is also
that which destroys common sense as the assignation of fixed identities”.36
Other very common theories regarding Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the author’s intent are those relating to sexuality. As Garland points out: “It is quite clear that Carroll idealized young girls and wasn’t as fond of women, as manifested in his willing of his female child friends to stay young and small and the fact that no concrete romantic
interest or proven sexual relationship with a mature female was ever present in his life”.37
Carroll’s concept of “love” is somehow naïve, like a young child who is attracted by a little girl and scared of her at the same time. As we will later illustrate, Carroll was a religious
man “often presented as virginal, sexless or, at the least, highly repressed”38 and this
could have contributed to the common theory according to which there would be many elements linked with the sphere of repressed desire, passion and sex in the text. For instance, the “vagina dentata” notion, “which literally translates as a ‘vagina with teeth’ and sums up a male fear of an aggressive female sexuality, and is present in both Alice texts […] Alice is the only female child character and she is adored by Carroll, both in real life and in the text. Compared to her, the other female characters, who are all women,
are very frightening and reviled by Carroll through their representation”.39 The role of
adult women in the text, each of them quite scary and bad-tempered, is undoubtedly clear, but I disagree with Garland since I think that Carroll describes these female figures this way because he wants the children to identify them with the so hated and moralizing
35
G. DELEUZE, op. cit., pp. 30-31.
36 Ibidem, p. 88. 37
C. GARLAND, op. cit., p. 26.
38 J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 95. 39 C. GARLAND, op. cit., p. 25.
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figures of parents, nannies etc. It is not a matter of “fear of the other sex” like Garland claims, not within this text at least. “The relationship Carroll presents between sexual females, desire, fear, and death is contrasted strongly with female children, innocence, joy, and life. This dichotomy is key to understanding the concerns in the Alice texts
surrounding desire, gender, and subjectivity”.40 Honestly, I think that the dichotomy
Garland talks about is used by Carroll to underline the difference between an adult and a child, in terms of imagination, innocence, pureness and joy of living (all elements
naturally present in a child’s soul) and not in terms of anxieties surrounding female
sexuality or repressed desire. Furthermore, as for these female characters, Garland claims:
In Freudian terms, the Queen of Hearts’ tendency to scream “Off with their heads!” can be read as a castration desire […] This fear of castration is something Carroll associates with the adult females in Wonderland while the emasculation of men a frequent, strong feature of the text. Compared to the Queen of Hearts, the King of Hearts is portrayed as a weak, meek creature who is frightened of his own wife […] By making the female character the masculine, Carroll aligns a predatory sexuality with her that threatens men and, also, Alice. But this female sexuality is not infallible and is still inferior to the phallus. When Alice grows during the trial, she becomes ‘phallicized’ and it is only at this point that the Queen feels fear and becomes relatively submissive.41
This is an interesting and original theory, but again only if we read the book through a psychological point of view, which is not our case. Through the eyes of a child perhaps, the scream of the Queen of Hearts could symbolise one of the typical reproves made by parents to their children.
But Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland also received strong criticism from psychologists and medical experts, who criticized the text for being a “castle-building” tool and dangerous for children’s mental stability. Five years before the publication of the book in fact, the celebrated British psychiatrist Sir James Crichton-Browne published an essay in which he denounced the pernicious practice of imaginative flights of fancy in children: “Impressions, created by the ever fertile imagination of a child, are soon believed as realities, and become a part of the child’s psychical existence. They become, in fact, actual delusions. Such delusions are formed with facility, but are eradicated with
40 Ibidem, p. 27. 41 Ibidem, p. 29.
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difficulty, and much mental derangement in mature life, we believe, is attributable to
these reveries indulged in during childhood”.42 Whether this theory is valid or not, what is
sure is that Carroll did not take it into account at all when he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Indeed, Alice’s ‘dream of Wonderland’ is precisely the kind of deluded ‘castle building’ that Crichton-Browne and many other medical experts feared would
cause mental pathologies”.43 Furthermore, the 1865 publication of Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland coincides with the emergence of child psychology as a specialized medical field and with the birth of a new concept, the “dream-child” which is basically a particular psychological mental state where the child is not totally awaken nor asleep and he daydreams. During the Victorian era, this was considered a kind of illness by the majority of specialists and doctors: “There was great fear during the middle and latter half of the nineteenth century that dream-states could spill over into waking consciousness, contaminating reason with imagination and ultimately stifling one’s ability to distinguish reality from fantasy […] The inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality was either
a sign of madness or a precursor of it, even in a child”.44 This resulted in the pervasive
belief that, as Janet Oppenheim says: ‘‘any sort of daydreaming was unhealthy and should
be systematically routed out of children”.45 Although he was influenced by medical
interpretations of dream-states and the child’s mind, Carroll’s ‘‘dream-child’’ differed from these medical theories: “while psychologists increasingly pathologized dream-states in children as delusional, Carroll links his ‘dream-child’ with ‘wonder’, that is, an
expression of creativity, ingenuity, and complexity”.46
Furthermore, according to these theories, the character of Alice was criticized for being “a mad subject”, since she is not able to differentiate reality from fantasy. We do not know Alice is dreaming until the end of the story, and neither does she. An interesting theory associates the external sensory inputs with the creation of oneiric images and this could be applicable to Alice’s dream: ”when ‘sleep is not very profound’, a sleeper might recollect sounds, smells, and other sensory experiences that occur during sleep, even
42
J. CHRICHTON-BROWN, “‘Psychical Diseases in Early Life,’’ in Asylum Journal of Mental Science, Vol. 6, N. 3, 1860, p. 303.
43
S. L. SCHATZ, op. cit., p. 94.
44 S. L. SCHATZ, op. cit., p. 110. 45
J. OPPENHEIM, Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 236.
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though they did not awaken him […] Such stimulations often give rise to the most extraordinary mental combinations, and form the groundwork of the most elaborate
dreams”.47 An example of this interesting theory is the final scene when Alice is dreaming
about the cards that “rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her” (p. 108), before waking up and finding her sister “who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face” (p. 109).
As Schatz points out: “the ‘dead leaves’ prompted Alice to imagine that the Queen’s
guard was attacking her”.48 A very original theory indeed, if we look at the text through a
psychological point of view, surely not through the child’s eyes.
As we have already seen, the end of the book shows Alice’s sister daydreaming about her sister’s adventures in Wonderland and the narrator explicitly remains vague, describing the woman believing herself in Wonderland. This could be due to Carroll’s interest in not breaking his young reader’s dreams, his will of underlining the importance of imagination, despite all those medical studies which tried to “switch children’s mind off”. “In 1903, P. C. Smith, a Durham physician, advised parents that their children’s reading ‘should be carefully supervised and limited, and all dawdling and day-dreaming
rigorously repressed’”.49 “In order to persuade parents to do this, however, physicians
like Smith would have to first convince them to discard their children’s copies of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which had sold over 180,000 copies and continued to grow in
popularity by the time of Carroll’s death in 1898”.50
A GRIN IN THE SKY: THE CHESHIRE-CAT
Before going on with my analysis the strong critiques received by Carroll, I would like to dwell on a particular figure which differs somehow from the rest of the characters in Wonderland: the Cheshire-Cat. Alice first meets him at the Duchess’ house: “[…] a large cat, which was lying on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear” (p. 50) and she wonders
47
R. MACNISH, The Philosophy of Sleep, Glasgow, W. R. M’Phun, 1830, p. 24.
48
S. L. SCHATZ, op. cit., p. 106.
49
P. C. SMITH, ‘‘The Meaning of the Term ‘Neurasthenia’ and the Etiology of the Disease,’’ in The British
Medical Journal ,1903, Vol. 1, N. 2205, cit. in J. OPPENHEIM, Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 236.
50 R. KELLY, “Introduction” to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Second Edition by Lewis Carroll, Ontario,
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what kind of animal that was since she has never seen a cat grinning like a dog. But what kind of animal is actually a “Cheshire-Cat?”.
The Cheshire Cat, illustration from W. Disney. www.alice-in-wonderland.net
The origin of this name is not clear. “To grin like a Cheshire-Cat” was a common phrase in Carroll’s day. One theory claims it may have originated from a sign painter in Cheshire, who painted grinning lions on the sign-boards of inns in the area. Another source deals with the “Alice Window” in Christ Church at Oxford, where you can see three grinning animals at the top of the Liddell’s family arms and someone argues that perhaps this is what inspired Dodgson. Finally, there is a last theory regarding the famous cheeses in the town of Cheshire, which were made in the shape of cat faces to amuse buyers. Perhaps the appearance of the grin without the rest of the cat is a joke about eating part of the "face" of cheese and leaving the rest. What is sure is that this imaginary weird cat is the only one who listens to Alice, giving her advice and trying to be nice to her, without insulting or judging her. “It would almost appear that the Cat mocks and humiliates Alice, just as all the other creatures do. Yet for one thing, the Cat here is testing Alice’s logical
capacity, strongly impeded by her experience of Wonderland”.51 In real life, Alice has got
a cat, named Dinah, who is her best playmate and the one she thinks of when she feels alone or misunderstood: “ ‘Hold your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab little snappishly. ‘You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!’ ‘I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!’ said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. ‘She’d soon fetch it back!’ “ (p. 26). But unfortunately, Dinah cannot reach Alice in her “dream” so Carroll makes her meet another cat, with the role of helper and a kind of “spiritual guide” for Alice, the
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Cat: “The Cheshire Cat does indeed have the function of the mythical guide, telling Alice
at least a few necessary facts about the place she had involuntarily come to”.52 “ ‘We are
all mad here. I’m mad. You are mad.’ ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice. ‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here’ ”(p. 55).
Through these words, the Cat somehow reassures Alice, making her feel not the only mad person in Wonderland. Even though it is a very little cheering-up, at least the Cat is the only creature Alice relies on and whom she considers a “friend”, and she hopes to find him again in the wood. “She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but after watching it a minute or two she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself ‘It’s the Cheshire-Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to’ ” (p. 73).
The Cheshire-Cat in the movie Alice in Wonderland, by Tim Burton. www.s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com
“The Cheshire Cat, practices verbal equilibristic exercise with Alice, making her and the reader contemplate the conventionality of language and the illogical nature of logic: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,’ said the Cat. ‘So long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk
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long enough’ (p. 54)”.53 Through his bizarre statements, the Cheshire-Cat kind of
hypnotizes the young readers, making them reflect on the weird and nonsensical reality we all live in: “ ‘To begin with,’ said the Cat, ‘a dog’s not mad. You grant that?’ ‘I suppose so,’ said Alice. ‘Well then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad’ “ (p. 55). Furthermore, the constant vanishing and reappearing of the Cheshire-Cat creates a sort of magical and mysterious atmosphere, usually appreciated by children. As for this aspect, some critics argue that the Cheshire-Cat can be interpreted as a symbol of the uncertainty and instability of life and the fleetingness of our existence. “It is not possible, he seems to suggest, to be certain of anything, not even that you exist. No point in fretting over who you are if it is impossible to be sure you are
[…] What's left reigning in the sky as emblematic of our lives is the grin of ambiguity”.54 “
‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone” (p. 57).
The Cheshire-cat, illustration by John Tenniel. www.commons.wikimedia.org
53 Ibidem, p. 259. 54 Ibidem, p. 61.
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ON LEWIS CARROLL’S SIDEPicture of Lewis Carrol and Alice Liddell kissing each other. www.carrollpedia.com
In this paragraph, I will defend Lewis Carroll against the charges and gossip he was victim of. Starting from the picture above, we do not know who took it nor the year of publication, but this image of Dodgson holding a young girl who is kissing him, undoubtedly made and is still making people talk a lot about his private life. As we have already mentioned in the first chapter, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was accused of paedophilia because of his interest in young children, especially little girls, and his passion for photographing them, sometimes even naked. We have also already explained that this practice was a custom of the time and that a naked child used to be associated with purity and innocence. Even though kissing each other on the lips (no matter if it was an adult kissing a child or an adult kissing another adult) was quite common in Victorian society, this picture is somehow disturbing. But, although at a first glance it could seem real, fortunately it is an authentic photomontage and I am going to explain why. Firstly, the two figures are out of proportion, especially if you compare Alice’s head with Carroll’s one. Furthermore, lights and shadows do not correspond and the hands of both
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characters have an artificial appearance. The following pictures are the original ones, from which the two subjects have been taken.
www.alice-in-wonderland.net www.alice-in-wonderland.net
Alice posing with her two sisters, Lorina and Edith. Self-portrait of Lewis Carroll.
It can easily be noticed that the poses and the expressions of both Alice and Carroll, are exactly the same of those in the photomontage. But why should have someone created a “fake” photograph of Carroll and Alice? The answer is simple. As we have already explained, Carroll’s life was shrouded by gossip and whispers. Since he was very famous at the time, some people must have been jealous of him. But was all this rumour well-founded? Was Charles really a paedophile? Was the “love” he felt for little girls of sexual nature? Or was it just the kind of love that a parent or a relative could have towards his child or nephew? The discussion about whether Carroll possessed an unnatural and insane passion for young girls is still open. What is sure is that we do not have any evidence to prove he was actually a paedophile. On the other hand, many of Charles’ statements, writings and confidences must have been definitely misunderstood and misinterpreted. In a letter to Gertrude Thomson, an artist who used to sketch girlish fairies and nymphs, he writes: "I confess I do not admire naked boys in pictures. They always seem... to need clothes, whereas one hardly sees why the lovely forms of girls
should ever be covered up". 55 If we read this statement without lingering on it, we would
55
L. CARROLL, Letter February 27, 1893 to E. G. Thomson in M. N. COHEN, E. WAKELING, Lewis Carroll and
His Illustrators: Collaborations & Correspondence, 1865-1898, New York, Cornell University Press, 2003, p.
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undoubtedly feel quite disturbed and could wonder whether there is some kind of perversion in Carroll’s words. But on a second thought, we realize there is not anything wrong. Lewis Carroll was a man after all, and like all the other men, he could have a natural instinct in getting pleasure from looking at feminine forms and not at masculine ones. Miss Thomson first met Carroll in June 1879, when she was in her late twenties and he was nearly fifty. He wanted her to draw for him because he liked her pictures and they decided to meet in South Kensington Museum. “Miss Thomson forgot, however, to tell Carroll what she looked like, and, since it would have been unseemly for her to approach an unknown man, when she reached the museum she wondered what to do. However, punctually at the appointed time, she saw a tall, slim figure, with a clean-shaven, delicate,
refined face, arriving with two little girls”.56 “[…] Bending down, he whispered something
to one of the children; she, without a moment’s pause, pointed straight at me […] He came forward with that winning smile of his and said simply: ‘I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you I think?’ ‘How did you recognize me?’, I asked astonished. ‘My little friend found you. I told her I had come to meet a young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on
you at once… But I knew you, before she spoke’ “.57 And that was the beginning of a long
friendship. Carroll liked Thomson’s drawings that much, he asked her to illustrate his book Three Sunsets and Other Poems, first published in 1898.
www.futilitycloset.com www.c2.staticflickr.com
Portrait of E. G. Thomson, by L. Carroll, 1878. Two fairies and a frog, in an illustration by E. G. Thomson, from L. Carroll’s book Three Sunsets and Other Poems.
From the extract above, we cannot but notice the sensitiveness and delicateness Carroll used when he addressed young ladies. He was a real gentleman, and this must have been noticed by those young ladies he was constantly surrounded by. He possessed an innate
56 J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 98.
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ability to charm that fascinated all his female friends. He always knew the right compliment, the appropriate word a woman would have appreciated. “Did Carroll’s ability to charm, which is mentioned by several people and which he was aware of himself, have sexual undertones? […] What there was, was gossip […] The older he became, the more lady friends he acquired, and the more obtrusive the gossip became […] His unmarried status and his love of children’s company conveyed to Victorians the
idea that he was a person who had chosen not to be sexual”.58 Furthermore, some of the
letters he used to send to his female friends, may appear quite flirtatious and charming, but we have to remember they were all addressed to young ladies from the age of eighteen up, and that an older man flattering and flirting with a younger lady was not unusual in Victorian society. Here is a letter to one of his young lady-friends, Marion Miller, aged eighteen: “My dear May. Here is the photo. Looking at it, however, it is not much of a substitute for the live May. I wish you would come back again: I need not point out how cruel it is of you to be away so many weeks while I am here, for no doubt you are
already feeling a little ashamed of your heartless conduct”.59 And here is another one to
his twenty-two-year-old friend Edith Lucy: “My dearest Edith, why will you insist on my beginning so, when you know what a lot of Ediths I know… And how awfully hard it is to
decide which of them is the dearest!”.60 Actually, I would not define this way of
addressing to women “flirtatious” and not even “disrespectful” or “inappropriate”. I think Carroll liked being appreciated by the “female public”, and proof of this is the fact that: “there was no shortage of young women willing to go out to the theatre, art galleries, on
long walks, to tête-à-tête meals and on lengthy outings with him”.61 Maybe it was thanks
to his particular relationship with children that women were inclined to trust him and well-disposed towards him.
Therefore, a question rises up: “If he was so charming and so at ease with women, if he had so many loving lady friends, why did his diaries in earlier life never refer to women
whom he thought interesting or attractive?”.62 A very probable explanation is that many
of the letters, extracts from his diary and notes containing his most personal and intimate
58
J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 102.
59 L. CARROLL, Letter to Marion Miller, August 26, 1886, in J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 102. 60
L. CARROLL, Letter to Edith Lucy, November 26, 1893, in J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 103.
61 J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 102. 62 Ibidem, p. 109.
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feelings, never came to us. So we cannot know if he ever had a “girlfriend”, or if he remained a virgin for the rest of his life. But another question arises again: if he liked children that much, why did he not get married and have some kids himself? “In practical terms, marriage had always been difficult for him. Sworn to celibacy while he stayed at Christ Church, his heavy family responsibilities and the lack of family money would have made it hard for him to abandon his job and its secure income […] For various reasons, it was difficult for him to become a vicar, the usual procedure for men in his position who
wanted to marry”.63 In addition to this “practical” reasons, there were other psychological
motives that influenced him in his choice of being a bachelor for his entire life.
Carroll must have suffered indeed from some kind of psychological pathology (nothing dealing with children, anyway), perhaps something linked with depression. He was a solitary man, who did not like adults company so much. Even if he enjoyed the pleasures of life like going to the theatre, going for long walks, or giving large parties, he must have felt lonely even when he was surrounded by lots of people. He was an introspective and reserved man, who used to mind his own business. But most of all, he was a religious man and much devoted to God. In his diaries, though, he speaks about “transgressions and sins” he needed to expiate. What did he refer to? In his introduction to Curiosa Mathematica, Part II, Pillow-Problems, Thought Out During Sleepless Nights (1893), he speaks about
Skeptical thoughts, which seem for the moment to uproot the more firmest faith […] blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls […] unholy thoughts, which torture, with their hateful presence, the fancy that would fain be pure”64, which he tried and solve through mathematical calculation. Furthermore, “the diary volume that ends the four-year blackout contains a steady flow of self-criticism, importunities, fresh resolves, pleas and prayers […] They are the cries of a man keenly dissatisfied with himself […] Charles appeal to God to help him lead a more earnest life, a more thoughtful and Christian life […] He sends up prayer after prayer for change, better habits, and a holier life […] He complains that he has little time for any religious duties and longs for leisure […] He deplores the lack of time for Bible reading.65
So, was he somehow guilty of heresy? Was his faith insecure? Was he experiencing a spiritual crisis in that period? What is sure is that he was a very sensitive man, especially
63 Ibidem, p. 109. 64
C. L. DODGSON, Curiosa Mathematica, Part 2: Pillow Problems Thought Out During Wakeful Hours, London, Kessinger Publishing, 2009, p. 10.
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for the society he belonged to, so maybe it was first of all his excessive sensitivity that caused him his “sleepless nights”. But why did he considered himself a sinner? One theory regards the “fear of sex”, which many Victorians were taught to:
For the unmarried, masturbation not only violated religious principle but was medically condemned as a form of deviance that led to blindness, madness, and early death. Sexual dreams were reprehensible and the result of moral wickedness. Sexual fantasies, even when unbidden, and nocturnal emissions were excrescences of a sinful, debauched, evil inner force. Many strove to live a pure life but found that their natural promptings collided with the strictures of the time. Chastity, the supreme virtue, was not enough; a clear conscience required not only abstinence, certainly for a bachelor, but an absence of desire, a mind free of sexual fantasies, however involuntary. What we today see as a natural human impulses violated both religious faith and social morality.66
And perhaps this was the case of Charles. He had natural sexual impulses which he had to inhibit and suppress, even though he was not able to do it, feeling consequently frustrated, sinful and depressed. Maybe his priest career did not suit him at all, I would guess. Maybe he never really wanted to follow his father’s footsteps. What is sure is that all his “pillow problems”, his anxieties, his inner fears and even his stammer, disappeared when he was with his child-friends.
Maybe Carroll saw in children a light of hope, that purity and chastity he was looking for. That happiness and light-heartedness he had never had during his childhood. Playing with and entertaining them, he might have felt child again. “Little girls’ company usually cheered Carroll up. With them, he could be loved, admired and soothed as sinlessly as was humanly possible. He could lay aside his adult male miseries by teaching them gentle games, talking to them about their dolls and toys, singing songs with them – almost as if
he were a child himself”.67 The beauty he saw in children was totally non-sexual, but
aesthetic: “Their innocent unconsciousness is very beautiful, and gives one a feeling of reverence, as at the presence of something sacred […] They are three-fourths of my life, I
cannot understand how anyone could be bored by little children”.68
“If he was afraid of being seduced, he was safe, for his small child-friends could never deliberately seduce him, nor anyone. They were beautiful, but their purity was the antithesis of predatory female sexuality. So if he played his own part in keeping his
66
Ibidem, p. 221.
67 J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 118–119.
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thoughts pure, then drawing or photographing slightly older girls would be, to his way of
thinking, a celebration of God’s handiwork in the most harmless and pleasant way”.69 One
of the most frequent questions though, was why if he was such a child-lover, did he prefer female-children’s company and did not like little boys? Maybe it was just a matter of interests. In fact, it seemed he did not appreciate nor share the typical hobbies or interests of the other men. He did not smoke the pipe, for instance, he was not keen on fishing or doing sports and he disliked talking about war and vivisection. He also used to keep his hair quite long since he did not like to shave himself. “This failure to enjoy hearty, manly interests often stopped him relaxing with boys […] Carroll also had a strong need for loving attention. He needed his child-friends to respond kindly and affectionately
towards him, and little girls were more at ease expressing affection than boys were.”70
Not only did he love children, but he also was loved by them and this because he was very sensitive and could make them feel at ease, playing with them, telling them stories, but most of all understanding and respecting them. An example of his sensitiveness is this brief story about Edith Maitland, one of his child-friends, who had a particularly touching memory of him sitting on a bench and reading her the story of the Ugly Duckling, a tale which made a great impression on her, being a very sensitive girl about her aspect. Despite her “not so pleasant aspect”, Carroll never discussed whether she was ugly or not: “He made sure she knew that he loved her as she was, and impressed on her how it was much better to be good, truthful and concerned with others, than pretty, selfish and disagreeable. He reassured her about her looks by calling her ‘Ducky’ and cheered her up
by reminding her that she, too, might turn out to be a beautiful swan”.71 Carroll was
indeed a sensitive and imaginative man and his love for children was true and genuine. “Some people might gossip about the kisses he was getting in return for his love and care. Others might think he was odd, and indeed he was odd. But, as he said to his sister Mary, he had settled it in his mind, and he knew he was all right. His unfailing kindness and protectiveness to children showed how he cared for the helpless, and since they themselves wanted his company, and since his religion was genuinely and manifestly his
69
J. WOOLF, op. cit., p. 119–120.
70 Ibidem, p. 132-133. 71 Ibidem, p. 133.
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mainspring, he was welcome in many homes”.72 Carroll usually did not pay attention to
the gossip or people’s judgements and he used to say: “the opinion of ‘people’ in general is absolutely worthless as a test of right and wrong […] Anybody, who is spoken about at all, is sure to be spoken against by somebody: and any action, however innocent in itself, is liable, and not at all unlikely, to be blamed by somebody. If you limit your actions in life
to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much.”73 Despite all
these virtues, the sense of Carroll as a paedophile still persists. Why? I definitely share Ada Calhoun and M. N. Cohen’s view when they affirm that: “it has a lot to do with the suspicious era in which we live. It’s simply assumed these days that if an old man likes spending time reading to, playing with, and photographing little girls that he must be a
sick human being.”74 It is not necessarily true, actually. If we want to change this “wrong”
idea and all the misinterpretations of Carroll’s behaviour towards children, all these prejudices must be uprooted from the very inside of our society, and of course, it is not an easy step to take. George Masslich gives a quite detailed description of him:
Until he was eleven years old Charles lived on a farm, and, being left to himself much of the time, developed a most unusual strain of fancy and imagination, and played with such animals as snails and toads. Thereafter, living in a village, he invented games for the amusement of his brothers and sisters, did sleight-of-hand tricks, and wrote and gave puppet shows […] Mr. Dodgson was shy before adult strangers but made up to children on trains and at the beach, spending many happy hours with them. He always carried puzzles, games, and books in his pockets. He even had the habit of taking safety pins with him that he might pin up the little girls' dresses if they should care to go wading. He disliked photographers and interviewers, although he was a skilful amateur photographer himself […]He rarely accepted dinner invitations, had no memory for dates or for the faces of acquaintances, would never talk about his books, or read what reviewers said about them or about him. He was mildly interested in music, having in his rooms nearly thirty music boxes which he played for the entertainment of children. He even contrived to make the mechanism turn backward for the odd effect upon the tune. He studied art and did some drawing […] He seemed to care little for flowers, but liked the open air, the sea, and sunsets.75
To conclude, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was indeed an extraordinary, polyhedral, eccentric and sensitive man. Perhaps too deep and fragile in his soul, he could not be totally understood and accepted from the society he lived in. What is sure is that he gave
72
K. LEACH, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: the Myth and Reality of Lewis Carroll, Missouri, Peter Owen, 2008, p. 156.
73
L. CARROLL, The Hunting of The Snark, op. cit., p. 16.
74 A. CALHOUN, “The Man Who Loved Little Girls”, in The Austin Chronicles, Vol. 18, N. 6, 1998, p. 3. 75 G. B. MASSLICH, op. cit., pp. 120-121.
