Literary articles - Lewis Carroll 2024

Perceving explanations from the nonsense: an analysis of attributions in Carroll&Lsquo;S Alice&Lsquo;S Adventures in Wonderland

Annisa Widyawati Fathonah, Fatma Hetami

Abstract

This research was conducted to explore explanation perceiving through attributions in Lewis Carroll's Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland. The objectives are: 1) explaining Alice's perceiving of explanations from the nonsense through attributions; 2) identifying to what extent Alice attributes the nonsense; and 3) explaining how Alice‘s attributions construct relevant explanations. This research employed psychological approach especially social-psychology of literature focusing on Alice‘s attention based on her social and psychological processes. The data was analysed qualitatively and the results were written descriptively in accordance with the research questions. This research resulted in several findings. 1) Alice relates the nonsense in Wonderland with the sense in her original world in order to retrieve an understanding; 2) Alice divides her attributions into two extensions directed to the creatures as personal figure and to the environment as impersonal figure; 3) Alice‘s process of attributing includes frame-working through behavior and attributing under psychological processes.

Keywords: Explanation perceiving, Nonsense, Attribution

Introduction
The phenomena in Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland is seen in modern nonsense literature that becomes a trend these days; escaping to a fantasy world in order to find one self‘s true identity. Therefore, I intend to give a contribution to the modern research regarding the same discussion by analysing Alice‘s attributions in Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland using the attribution theory. Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland tells about Alice, a seven year old girl, who is trapped in Wonderland, then deals with illogical situations. She gets overwhelmed and even questions her own identity. Hence, the attribution theory appears as a device for Alice to perceive the explanations regarding the nonsense she faces in Wonderland. According to Manusov & Spitzberg in Baxter (2008:38), attributions are as the internal (thinking) and external (talking) process of interpreting and understanding what is behind our own and others‘ behaviours. The nature of demanding explanations by attributing is practiced by Alice. She perceives things happening, judges the intentions, then, gives attributions of disposition

Nonsense literature is also commonly called as literary nonsense. This genre was common as a subject of study in the last third of the twentieth century, although eventually it had been first existing in the literature world since 1800s. The most phenomenal work, which is taken as the most relevant work to literary nonsense and so-called as the trigger to the genre, is Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland written by Carroll. The book tells about a total illogical world with imaginational settings and characters, even though it is only Alice‘s dream as narrated in the end of the story.

Attribution theory is also used in revealing the statement of the problem. Attributing is the process of asking and answering ―why‖ questions— trying to figure out what caused something else—that it has been characterized as a basic human activity (Heider, 1958). This activity requires an individual to interpret based on their knowledge about the situation or about the person that causes the situation. It mirrors how they think, then, the result of their thinking determines their respond to the situation. Furthermore, their respond explains their identity and position in the interaction episode, that whether they are involved or uninvolved, major or minor, etc. Attributions that they give are not yet the real explanation, but only interpretation and/or perception. In the other words, by attributing a situation, and individual is guessing what the meanings and the motives behind. They are seeking answer for ―why‖ and ―how‖ questions by confabbing the state of affairs.

After Heider (1958) introduces the attribution theory for the first time with the heading Personal-Impersonal Attribution Theory, conceptualizations seemed to have appeared as a response towards the theory. These conceptualizations counter the theory into three, based on its practiced functions as presented by Manusov & Spitzberg in Baxter (2008:41-42): 1) Attributions as explanations underlying social actions, including communication behaviours. 2) Attributions as categories of meanings given to communication behaviour. 3) Attributions as the actual meanings given to a behaviour, often in talk.

In line with this, the research problems of this study are 1) How is the perceiving of explanations from the nonsense through attributions represented in Alice‘s

Adventures in Wonderland?; 2) To what extent does Alice attribute the nonsense of the environment?; and 3) How do the attributions given by Alice construct the most relevant explanations?

Research Methodology
The type of data in this research is qualitative that focuses on discovering and understanding the experiences, perspectives, and thoughts of participants—that is, qualitative research explores meaning, purpose, or reality (Hiatt in Harwell in Conrad, 2011). Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland was the object of the research, while the approach used socialpsychology of literature under the heading of psychology of literature. The data were in the form of words, phrases, sentences, and dialogues; and collected by reading, interpreting, identifying, inventorying, and data reporting. Moreover, the data were gained through reading some related sources, namely theoretical books, articles, essays, and journals. Some relevant theories were also used to support the analysis and to answer the statements of problem. In this research, the writers concerned with the attributions in Alice‘s utterances. To get a detailed data, the story was categorized according to the intrinsic elements of literature. These intrinsic elements were aimed to answer the first research question. Then, to answer the second and third research questions, personal-impersonal attribution theory by Heider (1958) and the folk-conceptual theory of explanation by Malle (2003) were used to examine the story contents.

Finding and Discussion

1. Perceiving Explanations from the Nonsense as Represented in Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland.

The writers found that the book Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland consists of two character categories that are humans and imaginary creatures. Alice and her sister are the humans, whereas everyone in Wonderland is the imaginary creature who happens to be nonsensical. In the two categories, there are major and minor. Being the humans, the major is Alice and the minor is her sister. Being the imaginary creatures, those who the writers considered major are the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts. The ones that are not mentioned previously are the minor characters. Alice is a seven year old girl who comes from an upper-middle class family in England. She appears as a little girl with an enormous yet suspicious curiosity. Her expectations towards the world are challenged by the fact that regularity is something, in some way, she has to face and reluctantly accept. Wonderland appears as the object where Alice gets challenged with the regularity she complains about.

The White Rabbit, for example, surprises Alice by mistaking her as his servant. Technically she is an upper-middle class family member, hence, being treated as a low-caste person shocks her. Another example is when the Duchess nurses the baby in a way that opposes what Alice has been knowing of. The challenge rises up when the March Hare and the Mad Hatter invites her to do and to discuss about something that crosses her regular activities. Then, she gets upset during her encounter with the slow Mock Turtle who speaks about pointless stuffs most of the time.

2. Alice‘s Attribution Extensions towards the Nonsense as Represented in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland.

a. Accusing the Creatures of Being Responsible for the Mad Occurrences Alice realizes how queer everything that is going on right now. However, it kind of upsets her that nobody understands the fact that it is all too bizarre. Every time she tries to tell somebody in Wonderland about her feelings towards nonsenses, such as the size changes and the talking animals she meets, she gets knocked-down by the statement that it is all actually normal. This kind of conversation happens between Alice and Caterpillar – which not long after it, the little girl gets called out mad by Cheshire Cat (Carroll, 1897:24). Alice is trying to make friends with Caterpillar. She is even expressing her feelings to him. She wants to be understood and also to share her stories. Yet, Caterpillar‘s personality seems not so welcoming. After Alice tells him the things he considers normal, she turns out to be the weird one here. The little girl, then, emphasizes her position that she is an outsider, that it is all too queer for a human like her. She also tries to be polite by understanding Caterpillar‘s point of view. He is from Wonderland, so, he does not acknowledge her humane feeling, and therefore, it is not the situation but the nescience of Caterpillar himself.

b. Charging the Environment in Wonderland as the Cause of the Nonsense Getting to interact with the Wonderland circumstance, which she has never experienced before, requires Alice to explain the situations by herself and according to her knowledge. One thing needed to be marked is that Wonderland is not merely an ordinary place. It is the place where logic is inapplicable. Its people, too, are totally mad. Creatures in Wonderland admits that they are mad, but this is just another form of normality, while Alice addressing herself normal is a madness on the contrary. Alice tries and to have things explained by guessing based on assumptions. The assumptions occur during her falling down in the rabbit hole. It was the very first queer thing Alice gets to experience that, of course, surprises her. However, she is not freaking out, instead, she is elaborating the event with creativity. As seen above, she predicts how long the tunnel may be even though she does not really know what four thousand miles really is like. Other than that, she must have never been to the center of the earth, too. Therefore, it can be concluded that she is just guessing. Her guess, then, appears as an explanation towards the hole. The explanation itself is causally more to the circumstance (Carroll, 1897:4).

3. Attributions given by Alice Construct the Most Relevant Explanations as Reflected in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland.

a. Frame-Working through the Behavior of the Wonderland Creatures

The writers found a cycle of attributing that Alice has accomplished during her adventure. First of all, she receives an action either if it is physically or verbally, then, she observes the behavior of the agent. After observing, she makes an assumption towards the action.

When determin ing the intention of an action, Alice unconsciously also appoints the action into two kinds: causal and reasonable. Specifically, whereas intentional action is explained by reasons, unintentional action is amended by causes. To determine an intention, Alice needs to go back to the five requirements mentioned in the previous paragraph. Scanning an action based on them, Alice is unconsciously also grouping the action either into the cause or the reason. Once again, if skill, awareness, and intention are not fulfilled, the action is unintentional. A conclusion can be made, afterwards, that in the process of observing a behavior, Alice needs to determine whether an action acts as a cause or a reason. After that, finally, she can claim it as intentional or unintentional.

Considering her behavior reasonable is what Alice is doing in the above situation. Alice expresses two points that reflect intention, which are (1) she believes that she should be punished and (2) she desires the punishment as she believes she deserves it. Over all, those points are the result of Alice‘s awareness of the illogical action she has done leading to a punishment, moreover, she has the ability to give and receive the punishment, too. It can be concluded, then, the attribution is based on intentionality considering the existence of awareness, skill, and intention. Those points served behind Alice‘s attribution are called as the nature of reasons, the nature that always appears when a reasonable action is taken. One thing to take a note, her belief towards the punishment is merely literally.

Alice‘s unintentional attribution that is influenced by causal factors. After declaring that she would like to teach the puppy some tricks, she kicks down her own statement by saying that it is impossible as she is not in the right size to do it. Her saying that she wanted to teach the puppy is the causal statement, while saying she is not in the proper size is the causal realization. The causal unintentional attribution is her declaring she forgot to grow up (Carroll, 1897:23).

b. Attributing the Wonderland Circumstance under Alice‘s Psychological Processes

Within the process of receiving an action - observing the agent‘s behavior - giving attributions to the situation as well as to the agent, there is a psychological process undergoing in the explainer‘s mind. The process occurs between observing and attributing. During the psychological processes, there are three factors that Alice considers inside her head, which are behavior evaluation, pragmatic goals measurement, and information demanding.

Behavior evaluation is done by Alice in the effort of understanding the way other creatures‘ doing and talking. She observes the agent‘s background that lead into an action. This quick behavior-checking gives her the knowledge regarding the agent, so that even though they have just met, analyzing the agent‘s current behavior is enough to give her the information to call into a respond. An agent‘s background is considered important regarding its influences towards the agent‘s behavior story. Alice unconsciously understands this whenever she gives attributions. However, her understanding towards background is not merely based on fact as she is only confabbing the possibilities (Carroll, 1897:17). It shows that Alice is attributing everybody in Wonderland, saying they seemingly do not like Dinah, her cat. Watching the Wonderland creatures freak out after listening to a story about Dinah, Alice can tell that they may have a horrible experience with cats. Cats may be dangerous to them and give them bad memories. Therefore, they do not like the name of what dangers them to be mentioned. Alice realizes this fact only after the action of running away is taken by the creatures. She does not know anything about this in advance. If she knew, she would not have mentioned Dinah in the first place and continued having a good company.

Pragmatic goals measurement is Alice‘s process of setting goals by uttering a certain attribution. Interacting with other characters in a communicative context enables Alice to accomplish several things in order to get closer to her objective plans. As an example, the plans are such as to grow larger and to go to the Garden. I found there are at least three goals that Alice reaches out through her attributions, which are to lessen another person‘s confusion, manage her own status in the situation, and fend off blame. Through her attributions, she weighs certain purposes whenever she utters statements (Carroll, 1897:24).

Information demanding is needed to make sure that the attributions Alice gives are correct. It requires a verbally and physically observation regarding the agent‘s further information. Previously in the Behavior Evaluation sub chapter, Alice needs to pay attention to the behavior, whereas in the Information Demanding, common verbal and physical – something that can be listened and seen – are the objects. Excerpt below gives the evidence of information demanding‘s result (Carroll, 1897:31). The situation exemplifies that Alice is sure when she calls out the Footman idiotic. The little girl can come up with this idea after having the conversation in which the Footman shows the evidence that he is not so smart, according to Alice‘s standard. The statements the Footman says are enough to undercover the specific information of his behavior.

Conclusion
According to the analysis of the research findings as discussed in the previous chapter, it can be inferred that in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice perceives explanations from the nonsense through the attributions she gives. Wonderland is a total new world to Alice where she should act according to its nature whereas the young girl has her own nature from the what-so-called normal world. She is faced with a series of situations she has not understood, seen, and experienced before. Therefore, she tries to retrieve explanations from the circumstance going on including the Wonderland creatures with their peculiar behavior. She relates the nonsense in Wonderland with the sense in her original world as showed in her attributions. There are two main reasons for Alice to attribute: to call into a respond and to figure out her identity as well as goals.

Through her attributions, it can be concluded that Alice psychologically goes through processes with an eye to cultivate the most correct explanations. The little girl unconsciously divides every of her attributions into two extensions. They are pointed to the creatures themselves that assumedly have led the Wonderland circumstance into a madness, and on the other hand, to the environment that allegedly forms the nonsense.

Moreover, Alice attributes Wonderland and its creatures in a process that includes the steps of frame-working through behavior and attributing under psychological processes. By frame-working, Alice speculates the creatures‘ intentions in order to receive an understanding and to call into a correct respond. The intentions itself are two: reasons that lead into intentional actions and factors that cause unintentional ones. Meanwhile in the next step, by attributing under psychological processes, Alice completes three sub-steps: behavior evaluation, pragmatics goals identification, and information resources.

References
Malle, Bertam F. 2003. Attributions as Behavior Explanations: Toward a New Theory. University of Oregon.

Heider, F. 1958. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Willey

Carrol, Lewis. 1865. Alice;s Adventure in Wonderland. Basington, UK: Macmillan Publisher.

Baxter. Lislie A. 2008. Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perpectives. California: SAGE Publications

Conrad, Clifton F and Ronald C. Serlin. 2011. The SAGE Handbook for Research in EducATION: Pursuing Ideas as the Keystone of Exemplary Inquiry. California, US: SAGE Publications