Homework Help

How does the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland represent the era?you know... this...

user profile pic

moon-light | Student, College Freshman | eNotes Newbie

Posted March 20, 2008 at 2:13 AM via web

dislike 2 like

How does the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland represent the era?

you know...

this novel is from the 19th ( the Victorian era )

and how the author Lewis Carroll represent also the era in this novel?

2 Answers | Add Yours

user profile pic

merehughes | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Assistant Educator

Posted March 20, 2008 at 8:20 PM (Answer #1)

dislike 0 like

In the novel when Alice falls down the rabbit hole, the entire Victorian world is set upside down.  The ordered Victorian world which young Alice inhabits is made systematically disordered by her journey down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland. The Victorian world was for example particularity interested in assigning scientific laws to the world.  So in the novel, Carroll plays with these ideas.  We see that the laws of nature as defined have no relevance here.  Time is irrelevant and the physical world around her no longer obeys the laws of physics.

Politically, Carroll plays around with the notion of an irrational ruler in a time in which Queen Victoria represented a strong adn stable government. Socially people or animals also do not inhabit traditional Victorian roles.  The rabbit has a young girl as a servant, a caterpillar is cryptically wise.  All of this inversion represents values and ideas that were dear to the average Victorian.

Lewis Carroll himself is a typical Victorian in his career choice, he was a mathematician however, he is also a contradiction as he was an avid photographer and a writer, thereby embodying two somewhat opposites at once just like his fictional world. 


user profile pic

pmiranda2857 | High School Teacher | (Level 1) Educator Emeritus

Posted March 22, 2008 at 5:02 AM (Answer #2)

dislike 0 like

The early Victorian era marked the emergence of a large middle-class society for the first time in the history of the Western world. With this middle-class population came a spread of - "family values": polite society avoided mentioning sex, sexual passions, bodily functions, and in extreme cases, body parts.  By the 1860s, the result, for most people, was a kind of stiff and gloomy prudery marked by a feeling that freedom and enjoyment of life were sinful and only to be indulged in at the risk of immorality. 

The tone for the late Victorian age was set by Queen Victoria herself. She had always been a very serious and self-important person from the time she took the throne at the age of eighteen. This emphasis on manners and good breeding is reflected in Alice's adventures. She is always apologetic when she discovers she has offended someone, and she scolds the March Hare for his rude behavior. Nevertheless, Carroll seems to share the view that childhood was a golden period in a person's life.  On the other hand, Alice's own experiences suggest that Carroll felt that children's feelings and emotions were fully as complex as any adult emotions. By the end of the novel, she is directly contradicting adults; when she tells the Queen "Stuff and nonsense!" she is acting contrary to Victorian dictates of proper children's behavior.

Join to answer this question

Join a community of thousands of dedicated teachers and students.

Join eNotes