Critical Reading on Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland - Book Report/Review Example

Critical Reading on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland The children’s fiction from the 19th century to the present day offers one with classic examples of fantasy, adventure and realism on the one hand; on the other hand, most of these novels do convey certain ideologies that the author propagates or that a careful reader can infer from the text. Most people tend to equate children’s fiction based on their qualities and modes of fantasy, fairy tale, animal fiction, folk tale and mythology. However, Children fictions such as Stevensons Treasure Island, Lewis Alices Adventures in Wonderland, and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels offer vast amount of ideological dimensions to the reader. In fact, children’s literature is a tool for cultural transmission and they reveal and are illuminated by the values of the time in which they were written. This paper seeks to explore Hollindale’s concept of the reader as an ideologist and the idea that meaning is inevitably inferential in a text is explored with special reference to Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One should have a thorough theoretical background of Peter Hollindale’s concepts of how ideology is at work in Children’s book. For Hollindale, ideology operates at three different levels within texts: explicit ideology (which includes the values and beliefs that the author consciously intends in the text), implicit ideology (unexamined values which the author is unaware of conveying), and the ideologies of the dominant culture (widely accepted values of the dominant culture that prevails in the given time and place of the text). These three levels of ideology are at work in any piece of texts and no doubt the reader’s perception of the text is very much affected by the level these ideologies occur. In this respect, Trites (2000, p. 70) observes how Hollindale “distinguishes explicit textual ideology from implicit textual ideology by asking us to investigate the messages the author intends to communicate in conjunction with those he communicates passively as “unexamined assumptions”; thus, for Hollindale the text communicates two opposing levels of ideology-one that the text explicitly states or implies directly and the other and inferred by the reader in the text. Thus, the implied meaning comes from the author whereas the inferred meaning originates from the reader and can vary from one reader to another depending on how one perceives the text. The authorial intended meaning dominated literary criticism in the past and theorists were preoccupied with the implied meaning that the author wanted to convey (intentional fallacy). On the other hand, critics who gave predominance to the reader held that it is the reader who breathes meaning into the text and the notion is termed as ‘the affective fallacy’. In fact, Hollindales’s theories on three levels of ideology in a text have strong roots in modern reading approaches such as the author-centred, reader-centred, text-centred, world-view-centred critical approaches. Hollindale argues that novels categorized as Children’s fiction also carries various sorts of ideology. It is also worthwhile to consider similar thoughts put forward by theorists such as John Stephens and Macherey. Rudine Sims Bishop, reviewing Language and Ideology in Childrens Fiction by John Stephens, states that in Stephens’ view “all fiction written for children carries ideology, and is intended to help inculcate a set of beliefs and values that will help shape the child reader’s socio-cultural development” (Bishop). Adopting Hollindale’s theories Stephens argues that ideology is manifested in children’s literature either as ‘the explicit, political, moral or social beliefs of the writer’ or as ‘the passive implicit, unexamined assumptions of the writer’, or as ‘the ideology inherent in the language itself’ (Bishop). On the other hand, Macherey believes that every text is incomplete as one can notice significant silences, gaps and absences in it. Eagleton makes this clear when he states that for Macherey every text is incomplete as it contains gaps and silences: “a work is tied to ideology not so much by what it says as by what it does not say. It is in the significant silences of a text, in its gaps and absences, that the presence of ideology can be most positively felt” (2002, p. 32). Thus, for him, the duty of a critical reader is to breathe meaning into these gaps and silences so that he/she can go beyond the author’s explicit ideology to the implicit and dominant culture ideology. However, one of the difficulties in detecting the values located in texts is that one’s personal values often interfere in the process of detecting the text’s ideological content, especially when it is implicit, in texts where the values are consonant with one’s own. Hollindale’s theory on the formation of ideological content in Children’s fiction can best be applied to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s use of language plays a pivotal role in conveying the notion that Alice is a little girl even when she displays a great amount of intelligence like an adult. As Katharine Swan rightly puts it, “Carroll uses language to set Alice apart as intelligent, even while he uses simplicity of diction to show that she is still a little girl. Using a mixture of introspection and conversation, Carroll explores the issue of identity, successfully demonstrating that Alice’s identity through her reasoning abilities, even though she herself doubts who she is” (Swan 2010). Very often, the reader feels that Alice is thinking and behaving beyond her age; on the other hand, one can also notice the conscious efforts made by the author to convince his readers that Alice is a little girl. In the very outset of the novel, the reader finds Alice peeping into the book her sister was reading and observing that there is no use with a book `without pictures or conversation in it (Carroll 2009, p. 9). Similarly, at another instance, when Alice refers to Latitude and Longitude, the author adds: “Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say” (Carroll 2009, p. 11). No doubt, the author tries to foster independent thought and moral behaviour in Alice in Wonderland. The response of Alice when she comes across a bottle with label “Drink me” is a typical instance for this. To quote the author’s own narration: “It was all very well to say Drink Me, but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. No, Ill look first, she said, and see whether its marked "poison" or not” (Carroll 2009, p. 14). Thus, it can be argued that one of the main values that are explicitly suggested in the novel is of critical and independent thinking. One also needs to take into account the implicit values, morals and ideologies that a critical reader can infer from the text. Even though Alice is governed by multitudes of curiosities like a little child, one can infer both philosophical and ideological thoughts in Alice’s conversations with other creatures. For instance, when Alice enquires the cat which way she ought to go, the cat’s reply “"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," (Carroll 2009, p. 62) sounds quite philosophical. Similarly, when Alice confesses she does not care where to go, the cat replies that it then does not matter which way she goes. A critical reader can grasp a lot of ideologies that are implicit in the given text and can very well associate the conversations with the plight of the modern man who lacks any specific goals, purposes or aims in life. In the same way, to a critical reader, the rabbit taking a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket shows the imminent future of technology and modernisation brought out by the industrial revolution. One can read a lot into Alice’s reply to the Caterpillar in chapter 5 when she is asked to define her identity. Alice relies shyly: “I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." (Carroll 2009, p. 44). To conclude, the Duchess’ advices to Alice that “Everythings got a moral, if only you can find it” (p. 87) is, in fact, a remainder to the readers to grasp the implicit morals that lie dormant deep in the novel. This is best put by Chris Murray when he observes that “for Lewis Carroll the truth or falsity of Alice story was not an interesting issue because his writing had another function than resembling reality. He was using a verbal construct with recognizable elements-of which the actual referent was a real thing” (2003, p. 28). The most dominant theme that is visible to an adult reader in the text is that of Alice’s journey from childhood to adulthood. The whole story can be read as depicting various learning stages by which Alice grows into the stature of adulthood through her myriads of experiences. As Carroll points out, “Alices adventures parallel the journey from childhood to adulthood. She comes into numerous new situations in which adaptability is absolutely necessary for success” (Carroll 2010). Similarly, the recurring concept of size change in the fiction shows the radical changes the body undergoes during adolescence and emphasises the individual’s need to remain adaptable to various real life situations. Games characterise life at Wonderland and every new encounter for Alice is a sort of game whereby she internalise various lessons for life. In fact, the theme of growing up in society is viewed in the novel through a child’s perception and understanding of the adult world. Children often approach the adult world innocently without any prejudices; however, Lewis Carroll “wanted to describe how a child sees our adult world, including all of the (in the eyes of a child silly and arbitrary) rules and social etiquette we created for ourselves, as well as the egos and bad habits we have developed during our lives” and in trying to understand the adult world Alice is forced to “overcome the open-mindedness that is characteristic for children” (Themes and motives in the Alice stories). Alice’s process of growing up also necessitates her to find a stable identity and in the text one finds other creatures asking Alice to identify herself a number of times. When Alice asks “was I the same when I got up this morning?” it clearly shows this constant identity crisis that she faces in life. It can thus be concluded that the text perpetuates, both explicitly and implicitly, the ideology of growing up, the importance of defining and understanding one’s personal identity, and the need to learn from new experiences of life. To conclude, it can be stated that Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland offers multiple perspectives and ideologies to the reader. One can find an iconic image of Victorian middle class girlhood in Alice and the ideologies that the text offer with regards to issues of gender and identity are governed by the dominant culture that prevailed in the Victorian England. Just as Hollindale pointed out the novel which belongs to the genre of chid fiction enables the reader to draw ideologies of three levels-that of explicit ideology (the values and beliefs that the author consciously intends in the text), implicit ideology (unexamined values which the author is unaware of conveying), and the ideologies of the dominant culture. As Deborah OKeefe concludes, “readers who enter the shifting worlds of this kind of book may become very big or small, or both, like Alice; may zip back in time or forward; may destroy gravity and fly on wings or carpets. They look and listen and think from dazzling new perspectives” (2003, p. 83). Therefore, an effective critical reader is one who is able to identify and understand these three levels of ideology that are at work in any given text. References Bishop, R.S, Review of Language and Ideology in Childrens Fiction by John Stephens, Language in Society, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 615-618, Published by Cambridge University Press, viewed 1 April 2010, < http://www.jstor.org/pss/4168569> Carroll, L. (2009) Alice in Wonderland. Illustrated by John Tenniel, Issue 13, Illustrated Edition: Collectors Library. Carroll, L. 2010, Alice in Wonderland Study Guide: Major Themes, Gradesaver LLC, viewed 1 April 2010, < http://www.gradesaver.com/alice-in-wonderland/study-guide/major-themes/> Eagleton, T. (2002) Marxism and literary criticism. 2nd Revised Edition: Routledge. Murray, C. (2003) Key Writers on Art: The twentieth century. Volume 2 of Key Writers on Art: Routledge. OKeefe, D. (2003) Readers in wonderland: the liberating worlds of fantasy fiction: from Dorothy to Harry Potter, Continuum International Publishing Group. Swan, K 2010, The Roles of Language in Alice in Wonderland, published on November 15, 2005, Associated Content, Inc, viewed 1 April 2010, < http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/13706/the_roles_of_language_in_alice_in_wonderland_pg5.html?cat=38> Themes and motives in the Alice stories, Lennys Alice in Wonderland site, viewed 1 April 2010, < http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/school/themes.html> Trites, R.S. (2000) Disturbing the universe: power and repression in adolescent literature, University of Iowa Press. Read More