Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy
Curiouser and Curiouser
By William Irwin Richard Brian Davis
John Wiley & Sons
Copyright © 2010
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-55836-2
Chapter One
UNRULY ALICE: A
FEMINIST VIEW OF
SOME ADVENTURES
IN WONDERLAND
Megan S. Lloyd
"Come to class ready to discuss and defend your favorite fairytale
heroine," I told my students in "Unruly Women through
the Ages." The course began as a survey of feminist archetypes
and issues, but it quickly became a forum for a group
of rather unruly female students aged eighteen to twenty-two
to discuss candidly topics such as date rape, abortion, sexual
harassment, battered women, male and female relationships,
anorexia and bulimia, and what it means to be a woman today.
For one class period, we turned to the realm of fairy tales.
To my initial question, I expected students to write about
Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks, but most students
chose a Disney princess-Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Mulan,
mostly unruly females going against the flow of male rules
imposed upon them. Two students, however, chose Alice as
their favorite unruly fairy tale character. They argued that
Alice, unlike other fairy-tale heroines, requires no fairy godmother,
huntsman, or good fairy-just her own wits and
ingenuity-to navigate through Wonderland successfully,
keeping her head intact. My students know Alice not through
Carroll but through Disney, and this Disney heroine Alice is
a precursor to the strong Belle and Mulan and counter to the
pliable Cinderella and the passive Aurora and Snow White,
who require male aid to bring them to life and reality again.
In Carroll's or Disney's version, Alice's journey through
Wonderland has long been seen as a tale of identity, agency,
and adulthood. The curiosity and confidence that Carroll
instills in Alice connect her with other unruly women we
studied in class, such as Lysistrata, Shakespeare's Kate, Emma
Bovary, Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe, Hillary Clinton,
Sarah Palin, Camille Paglia, Pandora, and Eve. Alice's direct,
candid approach to life is refreshing and something the young
women in my class can relate to. They understand the story of
a young woman who has the world before her, ready to embark
on life, who changes herself, primarily by eating and drinking,
to fit in. She encounters all types, tests herself, tastes life
around her, and once she learns the right combination to fit in
and be comfortable with herself, she's welcomed into a beautiful
world where she possesses wisdom, power, and prestige.
Nice Girls Don't Make History
As if by instinct, Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole
"never once considering how in the world she was to get out
again." Landing, she feels no fear, but rather engages in her
surroundings and wonders how far she has fallen. "At such a
fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs!" This
self-assurance and unquestioning spirit, this Pandora mentality
or, as some would say reckless, wild, impetuous streak,
is also the kind of indomitable spirit today's young women
appreciate.
Alice rejects and frees herself from stereotypical female
traits; she is not trapped by the confines of roles or requirements.
First, she rejects the world her sister occupies; then in
her journey through Wonderland she questions the nurturing
role of mother; and finally she stands up to seemingly powerful
females and males alike, including the Queen of Hearts,
the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat. Alice's
confident attitude leads her safely through Wonderland and
she begins "to think that very few things indeed were really
impossible," a message young women of today need to keep
in mind. Plucky, undaunted, and impervious to the dangers
that may lie in Wonderland, Alice is a curious, empowered
seven-year-old girl eager to delve into a new world she chooses
to enter. What a wonderful model for our young women to
look up to!
Alice's intrepid attitude elicits some criticism, however.
In Carroll's original and Disney's rendition, Alice may seem
abrasive. As my students came to realize in our historical
survey, society all too often ridicules strong women, interpreting
assertive actions as aggressive and transgressive.
The powerful, autonomous woman to some may be the impetuous,
reckless, and unruly woman to others. Indeed, Alice
eats and drinks what she sees, intrudes, barges in, takes her
seat at the tea party uninvited, hears a squeaking pencil from
one juror and takes it from him, uses her intellect to solve
problems, and frequently speaks her mind-everything young
women should do. Nice girls don't make history, after all. Alice
is assertive, and unfortunately, almost 150 years after Carroll's
publication, in Wonderland and today that assertiveness can
still seem pushy, forward, and aggressive.
Alice is not like the other females in Carroll's stories, and this
contrast appeals to my students and makes Alice an important
female advocate. Even before she enters Wonderland, Alice has
begun to reject the female reality her sister has chosen, a passive
compliance, fulfilling a traditional female role. Her sister
presents one vision of women, those well educated with little
to do. Reading a book "without pictures or conversations" is of
no use to Alice, and she seeks other means to occupy herself.
Next she contemplates making a daisy chain but wonders
"whether the pleasure of making a daisy chain would be worth the
trouble of getting up and picking the daises." Significantly,
the White Rabbit appears as Alice questions this busywork that
would garner no productive results. Neither sitting and reading
nor making daisy chains, Alice follows the White Rabbit
down the hole and thus chooses an active function within the
world, even if that world is Wonderland.
Motherhood Is Not a Requirement
Alice's journey in Wonderland begins with a rejection of one
female stereotype, the idle woman, embodied in her sister
reading to while away the time. Continuing her journey in
Wonderland, Alice learns more about the power of women
when she literally opens the door for herself. In chapter VI,
"Pig and Pepper," Alice finds herself at the Duchess's door and
knocks, but to no avail. This exchange between Alice and the
Frog-Footman follows:
"But what am
I to do?" said Alice.
"Anything you like," said the Footman, and began
whistling.
"Oh, there's no use in talking to him," said Alice
desperately: "he's perfectly idiotic!" And she opened the
door and went in.
Her inability to enter the house through conventional
means, acting the proper, demure female, causes Alice to question
her situation: "What am
I to do?" The Frog-Footman's
response, "Anything you like," opens up all possibilities for
her. Here she learns that the norms of society that she may
follow really mean very little. She has the power to do anything
within herself, a theme that recurs throughout Carroll's works.
Alice's message for today-in Wonderland and the world at
large-is that young women can do anything they like.
The world of possibility for women that Wonderland offers
Alice includes an indifferent perspective toward motherhood,
which in Victorian England (and in some places still today) was
the primary function of women. Alice views the pride and pitfalls
of maternity with a great deal of detachment. The Pigeon
presents Alice with her first look at motherhood, a mother
who expresses the suffering that comes with that role. Their
meeting begins with the Pigeon beating a long-necked Alice.
"Serpent!" screamed the Pigeon.
"I'm
not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly. "Let me
alone!"
"Serpent, I say again!" repeated the Pigeon, but in a
more subdued tone, and added, with a kind of sob, "I've
tried every way, but nothing seems to suit them! ...
"I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks,
and I've tried hedges," the Pigeon went on, without
attending to her; "but those serpents! There's no pleasing
them! ...
"As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,"
said the Pigeon; but I must be on the look-out for serpents,
night and day! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep
these three weeks!"
"I'm very sorry you've been annoyed," said Alice,
who was beginning to see its meaning.
"And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,"
continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, "and
just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last,
they must needs come wriggling down from the sky!
Ugh, Serpent!"
"But I'm
not a serpent, I tell you!" said Alice. "I'm
a-I'm a- ...
"I-I'm a little girl," said Alice rather doubtfully,
as she remembered the number of changes she had
gone through that day.
"A likely story indeed!" said the Pigeon in a tone
of the deepest contempt. "I've seen a good many little
girls in my time, but never
one with such a neck as that!
No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it.
I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted
an egg!"
"I
have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who was
a very truthful child; "but little girls eat eggs quite as
much as serpents do, you know....
"I'm not looking for eggs, as it happens; and, if I
was, I shouldn't want
yours."
In this exchange, Alice fails to commiserate with the
Pigeon's state as the maternally inclined might do, but instead
apologizes for annoying her. Alice's line, "little girls eat eggs
quite as much as serpents do," even resonates with today's
pro-life/pro-choice discussion. The Pigeon names long-necked
Alice a serpent; not rejecting this role for the Pigeon's maternal
one, Alice aligns herself with the serpent, predator to pigeons
and eggs; rejects maternity, at least for the time being; and
claims her autonomy.
Alice next encounters the maternal life of the Duchess.
The ugly Duchess nurses a howling baby in a smoky kitchen.
To contemporary readers, Carroll's Duchess figures as a stereotypical
white-trash mother, one who screams at her child,
fails to consider its well-being (in a smoke-filled room with
flying debris just missing it), and accompanies her sadistic
song not with soothing rocks but severe shakes at every line.
Tired of her crying child, the Duchess finally flings the baby
at Alice and departs to do something better, like "play croquet
with the Queen." Today, this Duchess could be arrested for
shaken baby syndrome or be demonized, like Britney Spears
and Casey Anthony, and plastered all over the media. Alice,
herself, sees how unfit for motherhood the Duchess is, remarking,
"If I don't take this child away with me ... they're sure
to kill it in a day or two." Alice's disregard for the Duchess
surfaces again when she learns that the Duchess, a prisoner of
the Queen, is to be executed.
"What for?" said Alice.
"Did you say 'What a pity!'?" the Rabbit asked.
"No, I didn't," said Alice. "I don't think it's at all a
pity."
Alice catches the Duchess's strange child, which ultimately
transforms into a pig, and her indifferent treatment of it offers
another view of motherhood. No cooing, tickling, or speaking
baby talk; she first chastises the child, saying, "Don't grunt, ...
that's not at all a proper way of expressing yourself." Unlike
so many stereotypical women, Alice does not exhibit "cute
baby syndrome," seeing any infant as darling, no matter how
ugly, simply because it's small. Indeed, "Alice did not like the
look of the thing at all."
"If you're going to turn into a pig, my dear," said Alice,
seriously, "I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind
now!" ...
Alice was just beginning to think to herself, "Now,
what am I to do with this creature, when I get it home?"
when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked
down into its face in some alarm. This time there could
be
no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than
a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her
to carry it any further.
So she set the little creature down, and felt quite
relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood.
While I might not hire Alice as a baby-sitter or pet-sitter,
I'm happy to see a young woman honestly show her attitude
toward children. Not sympathetic to the Pigeon's complaints
nor surprised that the Duchess is imprisoned, Alice exhibits a
rational, contemporary view of motherhood, a view my students
share. For them, and perhaps for Carroll, motherhood
is not a requirement for worth.
What Would Alice Do?
Alice's independent spirit takes her to the all-male world of the
Mad Hatter's tea party. "No room," they all cry when they see
her coming. But this doesn't sway her a bit. "There's
plenty of
room!" she declares "indignantly." The Mad Hatter's tea party
presents an assertive female in a male world. She gets stuck at a
very messy table (like frat brothers, March Hare, Dormouse, and
Mad Hatter prefer to move to the next spot rather than do any
washing up), and Alice eventually understands that while she's
free to join them, she's not obliged to be a part of their world.
The exchange between Alice and the guests at the Mad
Hatter's tea party is particularly abrasive and shows us how
Alice has grown (not just physically) in her journey through
Wonderland. Here she speaks more freely, asks questions,
objects to what someone says, challenges rude remarks, and
attempts to engage in the wordplay between the Mad Hatter,
the Dormouse, and March Hare. She wants to keep up with the
boys, and indeed she succeeds in this male world of teacups and
chatter. However, a direct threat to her very intellect forces her
to leave. After the Dormouse's story, this exchange takes place:
"Really, now you ask me," said Alice, very much confused,
"I don't think-"
"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could
bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off.
The Mad Hatter's glib remark sounds all too familiar
as women, even contemporary ones, try to advance in the
workplace. The Mad Hatter requires quick thinking but fails
to see the intellect in a seven-year-old who has used her own
wits to make it this far into Wonderland. The misogynist Mad
Hatter disrespects methodical and contemplative Alice and, like
his cohorts, couldn't care less when she departs: "the Dormouse
fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least
notice of her going." Although Alice, the new young woman
in this old-boy network, doesn't put up with their harassment,
she leaves, "look[ing] back once or twice, half hoping that they
would call after her"; thus she may want to be part of their
world, as she looks back with some remorse. However, her
decision to depart this chauvinistic space gains her the garden
she has sought from her first arrival in Wonderland, and with
it comes respect. Once in the garden, Alice is honored for who
she is; the cards bow low before her.
Another affront to Alice's intellect comes from a female
who wants Alice to display stereotypically passive female traits.
In contrast to the sexist Mad Hatter, who requires women to
think in his presence but doesn't give them a chance, Carroll
presents the other extreme, the Duchess, who wants Alice to
take a "dumb blonde" approach to life. Thanks to Alice, the
Duchess has been summoned out of jail to discuss the Cheshire
Cat. Alice is surprised to find the Duchess in a good mood,
which she attributes to the pepper in her kitchen; however,
the absence of a child and thus the Duchess's child care duties
may be the real reason for a change in her disposition. Even
without a child, the Duchess still irritates Alice, first physically
and then intellectually. A number of times Alice notes
how "
very ugly" she is; she's also the right size to rest her
chin on Alice's shoulder, digging into it uncomfortably. The
Duchess walks with Alice spewing morals for everything, actually
mindless clichés to fill the time, digging her chin into
Alice's shoulder all the while. On two occasions, the Duchess
questions Alice's thought. "You're thinking about something,
my dear, and that makes you forget to talk," says the Duchess,
reinforcing the stereotype of the talkative woman and
encouraging Alice to conform.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy
by William Irwin Richard Brian Davis
Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Excerpted by permission.
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