Shifting Worldviews of the Younger Generation - Essay Example

Shifting Worldviews of the Younger Generation According to Donella Meadows, “Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm” (1991, 4). Essentially, a paradigm can be defined as a person’s assumptions about how things are supposed to be as well as a commitment to ensuring that things stay that way. It is how we position ourselves within the world and thus provides us with the emotional stability we need to make sense of our actions. As a result, we strive emotionally to enforce these ideas that are a part of our internal nature. Most of the time, they exist under the surface of our awareness because they are supported by the values and ideals of the society in which we live. In the constantly changing world of the dawning Industrial Revolution, though, people were no longer given this choice as even their children were beginning to see the world in a different light. Many of the novels produced in the 19th century thus tend to “exemplify the profound questioning of reality” that was taking place within the greater community Lewis Carroll explores these ideas of a shifting worldview and a deep questioning of established assumptions in his novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This story can be considered a frame story in that it is a collection of adventures experienced by the protagonist that are all contained by a unifying thread of narrative. The frame of Alice’s Adventures is the story of a well-bred English girl bored with the expectations society has for her and becomes distracted by an odd white rabbit that she sees disappear down a hole. “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do” (Carroll 7). Impelled by the same sort of natural curiosity that was infecting the nation, Alice follows this rabbit down the hole and then must find her way back home, experiencing a number of adventures in the process, most of which seem to be largely unconnected to each other. Alice’s experience at home is a vignette that launches her into the framing element while also providing the reader with the evidence that she comes from a similar background to their own. Alice interprets Wonderland from the perspective of a European child, only half-remembering the adult lessons she’s supposed to know and attempting very hard to maintain her understanding of life at home. However, her understanding of how things are supposed to be rarely match up with how they actually are in Wonderland and she must reconsider what she’s learned. “The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the realistic portrayal of social life, represented many Victorian issues in the stories of its characters” (Greenblatt, 2005). These conflicts force Alice to consider her individual truths in a world in which no standards of behavior and interaction is necessarily the ‘right’ way but some standard must be reached if she is to return home again. Immediately upon her arrival in Wonderland, before she’s even left the site of her landing, Alice is already forced to come to grips with new rules that completely break the rules of the society from which she came. This is true to such an extent that she begins to question everything she thinks she knows, such as her own identity. “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual … But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘who in the world am I?” (Carroll 22). As a means of coping with the strangeness of the world she finds herself in, Alice decides that she is actually someone else and determines to stay in the hole until she changes into someone she likes better. This concept reflects changing social standards that suggested it was possible for a man or even a woman to change the course of her life rather than having to simply accept the position one was born to. According to Greenblatt (2005), everything about life was changing in this period on every level as rich became poor, poor became rich, social status began to be assigned to what one had rather than whose family one belonged to and women began finding new opportunities for themselves in an economy shifting from the farm to the factory. Carroll introduces the idea that it is necessary to open one’s mind to differing perspectives in his introduction of an entire world of unrealistic characters. Even the mostly normal-seeming rabbit is unusual in that from its first appearance it is seen to have adopted human clothing and mannerisms. This aspect of the character only becomes more unusual as it is realized that the world Alice visits gives the rabbit no true reason for having adopted European attitudes as Wonderland operates to an entirely different tune. Although she doesn’t feel it all that unusual that the creatures all around her can talk and all have their own opinions, Alice becomes quite upset with the way they all argue with her and they all get upset over what to her are quite small issues. Her inability to see the world from another perspective is demonstrated in her conversation with the mouse as they swim in her sea of tears. Although he has already told her how much he hates cats and the obvious reasons why, she immediately launches into a discussion about her neighbors terrier who “kills all the rats and …” (Carroll 21) before she realizes she has offended him but not quite why it is an issue. This behavior is consistent with the ideas of colonialism that abounded at the time. “Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another” (Kohn, 2006) through the imposition of the dominant culture’s values and beliefs over the interests and the habits of the natives in much the same way Alice behaves toward the mouse. By the time she meets the queen, Alice suddenly realizes that she herself is the superior character because of her greater ability to consider the feelings of others. The need to question one’s own traditional rules and practices is also addressed in the book as Alice begins to refine her own worldview. She is horrified at the way the Duchess treats her child, but her attempts to correct the behavior get her nowhere. The Duchess shouts at the child, allows it to be struck by flying crockery and shakes it violently, but tells Alice “if everybody would just mind their own business … the world would go around a deal faster than it does” (Carroll 54). In this statement, it can be presumed that the Duchess means that people would get much more work done in a given day if they are focused on their own business instead of attempting to impose their values on others. Alice interprets her literally, though, and her attempt to save the child prove fruitless as it turns into a pig not far away from the Duchess’s house. This reinforces the idea that Carroll intended to be making a statement against colonialism and was urging instead a return to more childlike sincerity in attempting to get to know other cultures and ways of living. As she makes her way through Wonderland, Alice begins to figure out how to survive, but remains largely confused at the actions of the figures she meets. The Mad Hatter and his party almost seem to make sense to her when she realizes that their watch had stopped at tea time and they felt trapped at the party without the opportunity even to wash the plates, but their continued antics eventually frighten her away and force her to consider revising her ideas regarding rigid rules and traditional behavior. Her encounter with the Queen and her playing card court finally pushes Alice to assert her own internal values over what she considers absurd antics and thus finds her way home. The infectious atmosphere of challenging individual and cultural world views is reflected throughout the book. This process begins as Alice realizes that she can change her position in life soon after the story begins. From this realization, she discovers through her adventures that the first step in bringing about real personal change is to open her mind to the ideas of others in direct opposition to the ideas of colonialism. Once she is able to think with a different perspective, the next step in the process of change is to question the reasonableness of her own cultural and personal ideas. Only after she has questioned her own inner compass is she finally able to make a firm stand of her own and find her way back home. The degree to which these ideas were sweeping the nation is captured in Alice’s, and her sister’s, actions once Alice returns. She tells her sister all about her adventure and then runs off to tea while her sister “pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers … would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager” (Carroll 116). The changes don’t stop when Wonderland is but a dream – they are lasting and will continue to affect the younger generations moving into the future. Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. Branden Books, 1969. Greenblatt, Stephen (Ed.). “Introduction: The Victorian Age.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 8. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Kohn, Margaret. “Colonialism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. November 30, 2009 Meadows, Donella H. The Global Citizen. Island Press, 1991. Read More

This is true to such an extent that she begins to question everything she thinks she knows, such as her own identity. “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual … But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘who in the world am I?” (Carroll 22). As a means of coping with the strangeness of the world she finds herself in, Alice decides that she is actually someone else and determines to stay in the hole until she changes into someone she likes better.

This concept reflects changing social standards that suggested it was possible for a man or even a woman to change the course of her life rather than having to simply accept the position one was born to. According to Greenblatt (2005), everything about life was changing in this period on every level as rich became poor, poor became rich, social status began to be assigned to what one had rather than whose family one belonged to and women began finding new opportunities for themselves in an economy shifting from the farm to the factory.

Carroll introduces the idea that it is necessary to open one’s mind to differing perspectives in his introduction of an entire world of unrealistic characters. Even the mostly normal-seeming rabbit is unusual in that from its first appearance it is seen to have adopted human clothing and mannerisms. This aspect of the character only becomes more unusual as it is realized that the world Alice visits gives the rabbit no true reason for having adopted European attitudes as Wonderland operates to an entirely different tune.

Although she doesn’t feel it all that unusual that the creatures all around her can talk and all have their own opinions, Alice becomes quite upset with the way they all argue with her and they all get upset over what to her are quite small issues. Her inability to see the world from another perspective is demonstrated in her conversation with the mouse as they swim in her sea of tears. Although he has already told her how much he hates cats and the obvious reasons why, she immediately launches into a discussion about her neighbors terrier who “kills all the rats and …” (Carroll 21) before she realizes she has offended him but not quite why it is an issue.

This behavior is consistent with the ideas of colonialism that abounded at the time. “Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another” (Kohn, 2006) through the imposition of the dominant culture’s values and beliefs over the interests and the habits of the natives in much the same way Alice behaves toward the mouse. By the time she meets the queen, Alice suddenly realizes that she herself is the superior character because of her greater ability to consider the feelings of others.

The need to question one’s own traditional rules and practices is also addressed in the book as Alice begins to refine her own worldview. She is horrified at the way the Duchess treats her child, but her attempts to correct the behavior get her nowhere. The Duchess shouts at the child, allows it to be struck by flying crockery and shakes it violently, but tells Alice “if everybody would just mind their own business … the world would go around a deal faster than it does” (Carroll 54).

In this statement, it can be presumed that the Duchess means that people would get much more work done in a given day if they are focused on their own business instead of attempting to impose their values on others. Alice interprets her literally, though, and her attempt to save the child prove fruitless as it turns into a pig not far away from the Duchess’s house. This reinforces the idea that Carroll intended to be making a statement against colonialism and was urging instead a return to more childlike sincerity in attempting to get to know other cultures and ways of living.

As she makes her way through Wonderland, Alice begins to figure out how to survive, but remains largely confused at the actions of the figures she meets.

Read More