Alice Escape 3

ALICES ESCAPE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Final Draft
Austin Cao
Dr. Neill, FWIS 181
12/17/14
There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the
miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen. -Arthur Conan Doyle
In "Secret Gardens," Humphrey Carpenter documents the evolving nature of childrens

literature, describing how the books we give to our children reflect current societal values. Only
after many generations of publications, from Aesops Fables to Alice in Wonderland, did we
finally become accustomed to childrens books which both satisfy the childs desire for
excitement and contain some moral truth or lesson.1 The contention between Romantic and
Didactic schools of thought has profoundly shaped childrens literature, and even today, this
conflict is still seen through modern forms of media. Carpenter further contends that escapism,
the tendency to seek distraction in entertainment and fantasies, is not only very present in all of
childrens literature, but is also a bridge between these opposing schools of thought. If the public
world was both vindictive and intolerant, then men and children should pursue a private
dream (Carpenter 11), where they could be creative and learn at the same time. Escapism seems
to be such an integral part of human nature that it inevitably influences the books we chose to
give to our children. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is the quintessential example of
1
Humprey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Childrens Literature (London: George Allen and Unwin 1985), 1-19, 1.
All further references to this source are from this edition and will be cited in the text by page number.
2
Lewis Carroll, Martin Gardner [ed.], The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (W. W. Norton, 1999), 124-127, 11.
escapism in childrens literature, where Alice's fantasies reveal the value of a romantic child, the
necessity of introspection in a childs escape, and the classism inherent in escapist work.
Perhaps the most important theme to this novel is the duality of Alices experience: she
trades dull, Victorian society for the romantic world of Wonderland, transforming as a result of
her adventure. Escapism requires the reader to imagine a world outside of reality, which is a
distinctly romantic idea. In history, this manifested itself as a rejection of the Lockean child, an
act that Carpenter argues was necessary to open up the genre of escapist childrens literature. He
asserts that raising and educating children in the 18th century worked along lines laid down by
Locke, practiced moderation in all things, and gave children virtually nothing to stimulate their
imaginations (Carpenter 7). Children were nothing more than growing adults, and with proper
care, they would soon break out of their moral chrysalis (Carpenter 9). Despite various other
factions that arose in opposition of Lockes philosophy, they all agreed on one contention: we
should not give children reading matter that would merely excite (Carpenter 7). Alice in
Wonderland opens with this theme by describing Alice as tired of sitting and reading her sisters
book. She asks herself, what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations,2 a
question that directly challenges the extremely narrow conception of childrens literature as
moderate and strictly educational. While Locke might wonder what the purpose of imaginative
elements would be in a childrens book, Alice completely reverses the argument. In fact, her
romantic nature seems to be suppressed by her environment (both natural and social): she thinks
the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid (Carroll 11). Alice feels as if she can only
function outside of Lockes restriction definition of childrens education, and so she uses her
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imagination to create this space for herself. Furthermore, the idea that Alice was changed by her
experiences in Wonderland supports Carpenters argument that childrens literature is necessarily
escapist. For Alice, romanticism and escapism become intimately connected in Wonderland,
where she both creates and experiences the characters and absurdities of her imagination. She is
literally providing the medium for her own escape, a characteristic unique in children. So what
does Alice actually learn from this adventure of her own creation? Perhaps instead of a lesson,
Wonderland provides Alice with a reminder. She discovers her own Secret Garden (Carpenter
1), a place where creativity and curiosity have no bounds. This is arguably her higher state of
spiritual perception (Carpenter 8), as described by Wordsworth and Vaughan. The ultimate
theme of escapist literature is that the reader must be willing to forgo their social and practical
expectations and embrace a fantastical, new world. Through scenes like the Mad Hatters tea
party and the Duchesss kitchen, Alice is forced to confront the fact that the Victorian society she
is used to no longer exists. Specifically, when she attempts to recite nursery rhymes or
multiplication tables, her education fails her. Thus in Alice in Wonderland, escapism provides a
reminder that it is often our most child-like qualities, the ones not taught in the classroom, that
are the most important to our growth as people. This is the theme that Carpenter argues is central
to childrens literature.
Alice in Wonderland also captures a mood of introspection that is key to escapism, where
truth can be found in the messy, absurd dreams and fantasies that Alice creates. Escape is not just
a self-righteous dream, but a tool we can use to learn about ourselves. It became important to
teach children that in order to live in this world, we sometimes have to turn away from it.
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Carpenter states that a movement was evolving to reject the public world [as] vindictive and
intolerant and assert that the man of vision must pursue a private dream (Carpenter 11).
This sentiment seemed to spillover to childrens literature in the form of introspective or
fantasy stories (Carpenter 16), where impossible events are used to separate fiction from
reality. This is of course the premise of escapism, and the reason that Wonderland even exists.
Arguably, Wonderland is Alices private dream, a place where she can isolate herself from
society and allow her true identity and hidden desires to come to the surface. For example, when
Alice is falling down the well, she thinks to herself, Dinahll miss me very much to-night, I
should think! (Carroll 14). It is strange that Alice would only think of her cat while she plunges
into an abyss, and not of her sister or her parents. While in her normal life, she has little control
over herself, the private dream gives Alice individual agency; thus in Wonderland, Alice must
separate herself from her family. Introspection also seems to bring the subjects subconscious to
the surface. When Alice chooses to think of Dinah before her family, she reveals how much she
loves her cat, a sentiment she may not express in front of her family and in her normal life. The
reader also see a pronouncement of Alices subconscious in her inability to repeat the knowledge
she gained in school. Her understanding of the poems and math problems she has been taught to
recite is superficial at best, and are clearly not understood on any meaningful level. Instead,
Wonderlands absurd cast of characters reveals that Alice prefers to be imaginative, as discussed
in the previous paragraph. In conclusion, Wonderland shows that introspection is a critical part of
escapism, and truths about Alice can be discovered in its absurdities.
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Carpenter argues that escapism is fundamentally classist, a line of contention revealed in

Wonderlands royalty and Carrolls frame plot, where Alice leaves and eventually returns to the
comforts of upper-class society. With the onset of industrialization in the 19th century, the gap
between economic classes only widened. Carpenter describes this effect on childrens literature
bluntly when he writes, comfortably off parents bought Alice and The Water-Babies for their
children, while the children of the poorer classes had to make do with the pious trash [of] Sunday
Schools (Carpenter 17). In its shift towards introspection, childrens literature had financially
cut off access for lower class families. On one hand, it is uneconomical to purchase books like
Alice in Wonderland for entertainment value only; struggling parents would much rather give
literary classics or religious texts to their children. On the other hand, Carpenter also argues that
the high birth rate of the lower class contributed to a tougher attitude towards children, while
the middle class enjoyed a falling birth rate, the result of which was closer attention [to] their
offspring and a sentimental idealization of childhood (Carpenter 18). This implied that small,
rich families favored romantic and escapist childrens literature, while poor, larger families
would never get the opportunity to meet an imaginary hookah-smoking caterpillar since they
simply had more pressing issues to worry about. Furthermore, the classist nature of escapism can
be found throughout Alice in Wonderland. While Alice can escape Victorian society by dreaming
up Wonderland, she cannot escape the inevitability of social class divisions. The characters of
royalty (King, Queen, and Duchess) are given many of the actual characteristics that historical
figures of power have been criticized for: the excess behind the croquet game, the Queens
nonchalant use of executions, the Courts focus on petty crimes (like tart theft), and the
placement of the sentence before the verdict. Behind all of this absurdity is the simple idea that
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those with money have the luxury to enjoy their time in Wonderland; escapism (and the
entertainment that comes with it) is only accessible to royalty, or the upper class. Contrast this
with the characterization of the Mad Hatter, who we infer went insane because of mercury
poisoning, a common symptom found in those of his trade. He spends all of his days at his own
tea party, and he offers wine to Alice even though he has none. Like the lower class, he does not
have access to the luxuries that the other characters experience, and his role in the book is
isolated to a single chapter. So where does Alice fall on Carrolls classist spectrum of characters?
Alice returns to the same Victorian society that she grew up in, and her sister tells her to run in
to your tea: its getting late (Carroll 125). She is a definitive child of the upper class. This is
further supported by her sisters imagining of Alices future children: [she] would make their
eyes bright and eager finding pleasure in all their simple joys, remember her own happy
summer days. Alices adventure in Wonderland is simple, romantic, imaginative, but ultimately
privileged. It becomes apparent that escapist childrens literature like Alice in Wonderland may
be biased towards children of high society, but it ultimately brings together both the Romantic
and Didactic schools of thought.
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ALICES ESCAPE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In "Secret Gardens," Humphrey Carpenter documents the evolving nature of childrens

Carpenter argues that escapism is fundamentally classist, a line of contention revealed in

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