Alice in Wonderland

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Alice in Wonderland
We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad"

• Nonsense and its Senses

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Outline

• Possible Approaches
• Quest for Identity
• Biographical Approach
• Psychological/Psychoanalytical Approach
• Sociological Approach
• Linguistic Approach
• Cultural Studies

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Quest for Social Identity

• 1) Defined by Appearance "I'm sure I'm not Ada,
  for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine
  doesn't...
• 2) Defined by knowledge "I'm sure I can't be
  Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and ...
  she knows such a very little! ? "I must be Mabel
  after all.
• 3) Changes in size and roles ?
• a maid to the Rabbit and then a monster
• a prey to "a dear little puppy"
• a serpent to a pigeon.

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Following Rules, Taking Orders ? Talking Nonsense
? Repudiating W as Nonsense ? A Curious Dream

• Chap 2 Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking! (8)
• Chap 3 Mouse You insult me by talking such
  nonsense!' (15)
• Chap 8 just a pack of cards Nonsense!' said
  Alice (40)

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Talking Nonsense ? Repudiating W. as Nonsense ?
A Curious Dream

• 4. Chap 10 "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD"?
  the voice of Lobster ? Uncommon nonsense (54)
  
• 5. You've no right to grow here,' said the
  Dormouse. Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more
  boldly (54)
• 6. Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. The
  idea of having the sentence first!' (64)

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A Curious Dream of a Sister and a Mother

• 1) Continued by her sister.
• 2) Kept in memory and sympathy she
• would feel with all their simple sorrows, and
  find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
  remembering her own child-life, and the happy
  summer days.

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Biographical Approach
Image Source Left Alice Lidden as a beggar
child right Lewis Carroll in his 30s.
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Psychological Approach

1. Alices Anxiety about her body or Alice in the
   Wonderland Syndrome (illusory changes in the
   size, distance, or position of stationary objects
   in the subjects visual field John Todd )
2. Charles Dodgson's sexual preferences sublimated
   in child-friendship, or subconscious pedophilia
   and problems such as migraine and stammering
3. Group Psychology Alices adaptation

source
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Alice

• Split personality always giving herself advice
  (6)
• She generally gave herself very good advice,
  (though she very seldom followed it), and
  sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to
  bring tears into her eyes and once she
• remembered trying to box her own ears for having
  cheated herself in a game of croquet she was
  playing against herself, for this curious child
  was very fond of pretending to be two people.
  But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, to
  pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly
  enough of me left to make ONE respectable
  person!'
• 2. Speaks to and sends present
• to her feet (p. 8)

10

• Sociological Approach

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Social Games in the Novel

• 1. the Caucus Race, the Mad Tea-Party
• and the Lobster Quadrille
• -- involve circular verbal and physical movements
  of the players in their proper place.
• 2. In the Duchess' household game, the croquet
  game and the trial
• -- some (or all) of the players digress from
  their assigned roles and move irregularly.

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Victorian Society Social Problems and Mannerism

• Chimney Sweeper Bill
• High rates of Death As Alice falls down the
  hole, she thinks after such a fall as this, I
  shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!
  Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I
  fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very
  likely true.) (4) ? mortality in Victorian
  society (Gardner 13)
• 3) Mannerism (chap 5) Frog footman and Fish
  footman Then they both bowed low, and their
  curls got entangled together

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Education

• traditional public schools in Victorian
  society emphasized Greek and Latin, house
  systems, school spirit, improving character, and
  that the goal of education was to mold the
  student into a young Christian lady or
  gentleman.
• This approach can be seen in Alice, since her
  knowledge seems to consist mainly of maxims and
  morals about obedience and safety. (source)
• e.g. chapter 1 2 when Alice decides whether to
  eat or drink what shes found.
• e.g. Pig and Pepper the Duchess
• e.g. Mock Turtles Tale

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Education (2) Pig and Pepper

• The Duchess moral
• "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find
  it"
• "Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take
  care of themselves.
• 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.

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Education (3) Mock Turtles Tale

• Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with
  and then the different branches of
  ArithmeticAmbition, Distraction, Uglification
  and Derision Mystery, ancient and modern, with
  Seaography then , Drawlingthe Drawling-master
  used to come once a week he taught us Drawling,
  Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.
• Grief and Laughing

• Reeling ???reading writhing ??writing
  ambitionaddition ?? distraction ??
  substraction ??
• uglification ??
• multiplication ??
• derision?? division??
• Seaography?????geography?? Drawling??????drawin
  g?? conger-eel?? stretching????scketching??
  Fainting in Coils ????painting in oils??
• Latin and Greek ???????

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Linguistic Approach Logic Fallacies and Word
Play
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Logic Games/Fallaciesof Alices

• -- (end of chap 1 6-7) binarist thinking
  before eating the cake if it makes me grow
  larger, I can reach the key and if it makes me
  grow smaller, I can creep under the door.
• -- (chap 2 9) falls into the sea ? and in
  that case I can go back by railway,' she said to
  herself.

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Logic Fallacies of/re. Cheshire Cat

• -- (chap 6 31) How do you know you are mad? A
  dog is not mad
• 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.'
• -- (end of chap 10 40-41) about beheading
  Cheshire cat
• The executioneryou couldn't cut off a head
  unless there was a body to cut it off
• The KingAnything with a head can be beheaded.
• The Queen Off with everybodys head if this is
  not done.

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Word Play produces connotations

• Puns in Mock Turtles Story
• -- a whiting ?? is called a whiting because it
  polishes (whitening) shoes under the sea
• -- Boots and shoes under the sea are made of
  soles??? and eels ??, the equivalents of
  soles and heels.
• Homonyms
• -- porpoise?? purpose.
• -- Tortoise taught-us
• ? Fishing Cooking (reeling and writhing) or
  reversing the process of fishing (throwing the
  lobster back to sea)?

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The Mouses Tale TailNot Knot

• You had got to the fifth bend. (tail enddeath)
• I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very
  angrily.
• A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make
  herself useful, and looking anxiously about her.
  Oh, do let me help to undo it!'

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Word Play (2)? words as signifiers ? confusion,
nonsense or sense?

• -- change of order Do bats eat cats? Do cats eat
  bats ? A cat without a grin, a grin without a
  cat.
• -- change of word form to dry everyone off,
  Alice uses a dry tale (about William the
  Conqueror)
• -- science ? tyranny chap 6 29 earth to spin
  on its axis ? axes, Off with her head
• (chap 7 34) at least I mean what I say--that's
  the same thing, you know. ? not the same thing.
• "I see what I eat I get what I like.

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Word Play (3)? nonsense poem and parody

• -- Elevated Style for a mouse chap 2 10O
  Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am
  very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse! (8)
• -- Twinkle, twinkle little bat
• -- How doth the little crocodile
• -- wine offered when theres no wine.
• -- riddle with no answer ("Why is a raven like a
  writing desk?)

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Nonsense or Sense?

• Answer
• Poe wrote on both,
• they both stand on sticks
• they both come with inky quills.
• because there is a B in both and an N in
  neither (source)
• ? Language an arbitrary system of differences ?
  suggests survival games or produces social games

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Nonsense or Sense?

• 3 girls in the well
• they drew all manner of things--everything that
  begins with an M--
• --mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and
  muchness
• Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse,
• M-Alice

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Word Play for rhyme, for game and witticism

• Dr. Seusss Green Eggs and Ham
• Doublets Word Game --Two words are proposed, of
  the same length linking these together by
  interposing other words, each of which shall
  differ from the next word in one letter only.
  That is to say, one letter may be changed in one
  of the given words, then one letter in the word
  so obtained, and so on, till we arrive at the
  other given word.
• E.g. 'heal, teal, tell, tall'. (source)

I will not eat them here or there. I will not eat
them anywhere!
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Word Play for rhyme, for game and witticism

• Doublets Word Game
• Connected by sounds
• ? ? ?
• ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ?
• ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ?
• (???)

Connected by alphabets SWORD ?? SWORE ?? SPORE
?? SPARE ?? SPACE ?? SPATE ?? SKATE ? SLATE
?? PLATE ??????? PLACE ?? PEACE ?? ?????????
??? (source)
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Cultural Studies

• Quest for meanings in a world of nonsense, rapid
  changes and growing chaos.
• Projected onto a (well-educated) girl whos grown
  too large to be contained/constrained.

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Photography

• The Rossetti Family, photographed by Lewis
  Carroll (1863).

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Dormouse
                                                
      

• Left Dormouse/Right "Dormouse surnamed
  Dwanging," by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c. 1834
  (age 6), pencil on paper.

http//www.lewiscarroll.org/category/publications/
poetry/
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References

1. ?????,?????
2. Video page from Lewis Carroll Society
3. A Math-Free Guide to the Math of Alice in
   Wonderland http//io9.com/5907235/a-mathfree-guid
   e-to-the-math-of-alice-in-wonderland