Literary articles - Lewis Carroll 2024

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

We are talking about a child associated with inexperienced and innocence.The Victorian Era presents us with a very distinct social decorum which while attributing certain social roles to the two genders in society, attributes non existence to the child. The child is not allowed to speak, have an opinion, the child is ignored, has no voice in society and when we are talking about such strict norms which associated the female figure with domesticity and the male figure with authority, we need to talk about authority as a concept because during the 19th century, a child has no authority what so ever especially when you consider they have no voice in society. To have no voice in society means not to exist. You do not able to exist unless you express yourself and Alice is a child. You see the question she asks as inconsistency yet what do you expect from a child. What’s wrong with being inconsistence? What does she do that is insane?
You repeatedly see Alice advising herself, constantly telling herself to do things. Social norms determines your behavior and your mind. It is I think very scary. If you are reading she is crying and stoping herself and then crying again and your thinking this is insane I think this is very scary. Where is she when she is acting insanely? She is in Wonderland, are there any Victorian norms in Wonderland? Don’t you find that the presence of the queen is a mock? Because think about her authority, what happens, who is beheaded? Nobody. Nobody obeys them. It is very important that you have the queen because at that time you have a queen in England, a queen that is deeply in love with her husband, who was very loyal to the victorian norms. But then when you look at the queen in the text, isn’t she a mocked and manipulated figure of the real thing. Now again I come to the question of insanity. Because you are looking at it from your own perspective as grownups who shaped to think in a certain way, you see it insane. What’s wrong if Alice makes herself stop crying and starts again? She is a child. What is the problem there?
She goes into Wonderland and comes across that are creatures that are pulling a race and you do not know when the race begins and ends and Alice says this is nonsense, there should be a beginning and ending. But of course she is thinking in her own terms, the things that she has been thought in her own world which is the fictive world of this novella. It is the fictive real world because the Victorian era was the real world, in the novella you have that period in-fiction hence Alice’s reality is fictive reality but it is Victorian values and looking at things from her fictive reality, she thinks this is nonsense but who tells you a race should have an ending and beginning? Why don’t you ever question the concept, you question the way Alice’s questioning things. One of the most important words that is related is nonsense or this does not make sense and curious. You said that she is asking questions but she is not questioning the important things. But you know Victorian authority tells you that questioning is a sin. Curiosity kills the cat, which means curiosity is something dangerous. Why? Who told you that? What’s wrong with questioning? Hence at several points you have Alice checking herself. As you say chiding herself in a very controlled way but sometimes not that controlled. What she does is that she checks her behavior, she chides herself because at these points she is thinking in the Victorian way, her perspective is the perspective of the outside of the wonderland and when she thinks in that way, she cannot make sense of things and she keeps trying to make herself behave acceptably, for whom?

Violence: The violent figure is not the duchess or the queen but Alice herself. Doesn’t she scare the birds with her long neck? Birds think that there is a snake. The natural inhabitance of wonderland, the birds, are terrified by Alice and that is not the only example she constantly poses a thread to wonderland. I will come to that. And think about it, in her world, grownups poses a thread to the child.
Caterpillar is perhaps one of the most important characters in the novel because if you think about it: He asks Alice: “Who are you?” (Very important dialogue) Identity: A child in the Victorian Era has no identity. Having no voice is having no identity. The only way to become an individual is to establish your identity. If you are living in a social structure with such strict rules as the Victorian society, you only get to be grownups. That is the peak of showing us how Alice has no identity. She has no identity in both world. And when she challenges the caterpillar, she sees herself the authority and saying “You tell me first who you are, I am human being, Alice and you are the caterpillar.” and he says “Why?” It is a good answer, no anger, no threading. Why, who set the rules? One of the major issues in this text is authority because authority sets the rules and in the Victorian society, the higher class in terms of gender males because of the patriarchal society and on a social basis, grown ups are authority among the grown ups, you have social hierarchy the servant is never an authority and so authority is one of the major issues, with that of course comes the identity and we are gathering this through language because the language is how Alice communicates with everyone but I think they all point “who sets the rules, who is the authority why do we have protestant, patriarch or why are women domesticated?” Will not society exist if women are not domesticated.
The concept of time: What is the first thing when Alice falls asleep? She first dreams of the white rabbit. It has a pocket watch in his hand and he is rushing. The first moment is the dream, she rushes after him, ,it says he is late. But then is he really late? What is that hurry revealed in the text? Is he really late for what?
You do not have wonderland in the beginning. You start the text in the real world and end in the same real world. You have the outside world as a frame. Now the first thing you read about Alice, she is bored. Her sister is reading a book with no dialogues and pictures which Alice finds boring. Why does she find it boring? When you said she is acting like a child, you say the same thing like the queen. Dialogue is open to interpretation, it is not didactic. You think about what you reading and you interpret it. Pictures are conveying messages without words. Pictures communicate information, ideas without words, leaving space for imagination. If a text has no dialogues and pictures this child, she is bored with it because there is no space with imagination, there is no space for creativity and that is what the victorian society wants to accomplish, what victorian society wants is a society that abides by its own norms with no individual interpretation with no creative, imaginative attitude. As the child she is the imaginative individual she is bored by it. Now a book of picture does not necessarily mean it is less worthy whereas the grownup, the other sister reading this picture-less book is now outside of that world of imagination, creativity reading didactic work and didacticism is the enemy of creativity, murders imagination. What is the use if there is no imagination, what is the use of such a book? Which brings us to the discussion of language, because what after all language is? Now according to Saussure(The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary) he claims that language is arbitrary. There is a signifier and signified, symbolized by the sign. The sign being the signifier, the signifier is the concept. When I say a tree, the tree is the concept. But when I write tree, that signifies that concept. There is no tangible reason of calling a tree, tree. That is arbitrary. There is no direct association with the tree and the leaves and the roots…etc.
There is no association and its signifier tree. That is the major issue, language is arbitrary. Think about it, you have a very good example of the tale, remember the dialogue with the mouse.
She is yet a child with creative potential, this is very important. If you compare Alice to her sister, what do you have to say about that? Think about the end. Alice’s sister is the voice of authority for Alice.She is older than her. She has been formed and shaped and she lives according to social norms and so it is five o’clock she is supposed to run for her tea, which is the regular monotonous activity around her.
Inconsistency: If you look at Alice’s real world life, don’t you find that regularity of real world is problematic in itself? Having woken up from this dream, she is reminded of her reality. We’ll come to that.
So the problem with the system of the language, the system of signification finds its at most embodiment in wonderland when the dialogues are carried out between the characters starts to make no sense. Think about it, the dialogue with the cat and Alice. Alice tells the cat not to disappear so suddenly and upon that the cat vanishes slowly, first its tail and lastly its grin. So, arbitrariness of the language.
From this world, she moves on to wonderland through a fall, she falls asleep. Conceptions are relative. It seems a very deep but then the narrative reminds us that it was either the depths of the tunnel or slowness of time that made it feel like it was so deep. It is relative. Why a fall? - She is presented us as she is sinner because of her curiosity. Curiosity şs a sin due to original sin. Why did Eve want to try the forbidden fruit? Because of the curiosity, because Satan was disguised tempting Eve. Temptation hence the fall of Adam and Eve. Alice is tempted by a male rabbit, remember Satan, remember disguise. This is a rabbit disguised, he has a certain role in the queen’s palace. He is not not the rabbit he is meant to be and there he is rushing around and Alice is tempted, rushes after him and that curiosity causes her fall so that curiosity is associated with evil.
We talked about issue of identity, authority and violence, the fact that the child cannot express herself in the Victorian society. So I want to touch upon those themes and how language functions throughout the text, what Lewis Carroll tries to say us through this text.
The reference to the well: Remember this text is written in the Victorian period, what would you associate the well with, what will the Romantic imagination associate the well with? A well is associated with inspiration because wells are considered to be the places where the muses went. If Lewis Carroll making Alice fall in to a well, the idea of inspiration parallels what we were talking about last week doesn’t it? In terms of imagination the potential in the child for creativity for imaginative production as such you find Alice’s falling into a well, inspiration, muses and the well refers to brain. And so therefore knowledge, but of course when you look at the text that sense of knowledge is presented to us with a twist, because think about it 19th century idea about knowledge, Victorian time… Look at the things Alice sees as she falls into the well what does she see? Remember last week we were talking about time, the concept of time, and remember we started discussion with the concept of temporality where she was saying “either this was a very deep well or…” and if you think about it this is associated with knowledge, she is going through a tunnel of knowledge, later you read “I must be getting somewhere….I think…”: What you have is the image of a young girl falling through this tunnel which you associate regarding what we have talked about, the original sin, you see that she is constantly trying to rationalize things…It must be so deep etc. These are associated with what she has learned in the outside world, frame that you have. As such you can see that she is thinking rationally. Do not forget she is still child that she is. But she is trying to think within at the limitations of the outside world. Now interestingly of course you know that later this is the point when she is first introduced to the world and because it started off initially with her curiosity, she chasing after the rabbit, curiosity let to this fall. Isn’t curiosity is one of the major things that this text is dealing with? Curiosity at this point seems to be leading the fall that you associate with the original sin but then you are looking that fall, that fall is into a well, a well is associated with imagination because the muses dwell there and so if this is inspiration perhaps this fall is not necessarily a punishment for Alice. Interestingly this is the part where Alice has no idea of Wonderland yet. If you look at the chapter of The Mad Tea Party: “Once more…”(Last paragraph): By this time she met the caterpillar…etc. she is almost half way through her journey of wonderland, notice how she has that mushroom in her pocket and she eats it accordingly as much as she wants. She eats just enough. She is no longer the child in total ignorance, she now knows how this new world works and she is working along with it. Remember when the caterpillar first gives the mushroom, she eats one side and the other..etc. and you see her in the process of learning. At this point she has already learned so you read “She set to work nibbling at the mushroom”: She does not bubble that up, she nibbles at it. Therefore, she watches her size, she is learned in this wonderland which seems she has fallen into and she is now knowledgeable and notice where does this knowledge lead her? Don’t you associate this garden with Eden? Look at the way it is described and look at the italics. “The beautiful garden” which you have associations to at the very beginning of the text when she falls. So isn’t there a message that Lewis Carroll is trying to point out to us? Perhaps this world is not so bad after all, perhaps knowledge is not something to avoid after all but you have to be careful here, what kind of knowledge does she come across in wonderland? Because remember when she is falling she was thinking with knowledge. The knowledge that allows her to go to the garden of Eden is not the knowledge of Victorian world, it is not the rationality of the Victorian world. Alice is not totally shaped by the Victorian values, yet in touch with her childish innocence, her child’s potential for creativity and imagination, she is able to experience what we read.
Having talked about the Victorian notion of knowledge and rationality we might take a little bit of time to talk the sense of logic and reason that Alice continuously has to deal with throughout the text. Remember the tree of of knowledge, you were associating the original sin with knowledge because it is the fruit of that tree that they ate to full. Now you are seeing curiosity therefore this yearning for knowledge, leads Alice to her fall only to fall into a new kind of world, an alternative world where perhaps knowledge is not so bad. Because the more she becomes accustomed to the way of wonderland, she becomes happier because she stops make sense of things. Nothing makes sense here so she does not pushes and ends up in the garden of Eden.
Through an objective perspective nothing seems to be chaotic except Alice. Alice is the one who brings chaos into that world. She is the one who destructs that world with her own norms, concept of sense, reason. Let’s take a look at the croquet race: At the end of the race everybody wins, there is no convention of beginning or ending and so this is nonsensical for alice, it does not make sense but further what is the price for the winner? A thimble. For Alice it is not a price. But of course notice whatever happening in this point it is only Alice that finds it strange, inappropriate.
Carroll is making a statement, this other, alternative world comprises of elements in terms of its individuals as well, that are not associated with the human being. The person who looks like more human being is playing cards, so notice the irony, sarcasm there, that Carroll is trying to make. In this alternative world, Alice is the only world that walks around as being human, which reminds me of the violence that Alice introduces into this world so perhaps in this alternative world the human being is the only thread to the order of things, with her rationality, with her sense of morality, sense of what is right and wrong.

Similarly, let’s look at the Cheshire Cat part: Remember Alice is a young girl who has a cat in her own world, Dinah. She owns a pet, making a creature into a pet. She comes from a world where she regulates nature. The child has an animal as her possession. Here none of these animals are her possession. “Would you please tell me , please, which way….?”: Look at the reasoning in that dialogue. That’s very blank question, you are in the middle of the place and you are saying which way you should go and the cat very reasonably says that it depends a good deal… The reasoning of the cat does not correspond with the reasoning of Alice. The cat is a very clever creature. You can say clearly at this point, that the sense of reasoning has changed and you can see that it is not wrong, what the cat is saying is right only not necessarily corresponding to Alice’s terms. The cat is introducing Alice into a new set of notion. He says “we are all mad here.” When you think about the wonderland and how different it is to the victorian environment, the chaos that is associated with seems to make it mad. A victorian mother or father would say the croquet race is mad, you cannot have such a race and that would be accepted by the all victorian society. Hence looking at wonderland, victorians will say this is madness but then what is madness, who do you call mad? Someone that strays from the norm. There is according to victorian society something called normal which means according to norm. There is a right and a wrong and so those who stray from the right path, that are different and divergent are mad. And so the cat says we are all mad here. How can the cat say Alice is mad ? Think about it, he is rationalizing everything. So what this issue with madness of Alice? Victorian society will call it mad. Did ever Alice call this world mad? Why does Alice fall into Wonderland? Romanticism at the very beginning of the century upheld the idea of the prominence of the imagination, of how important individuality, creativity was, which of course did not please some people but it brings about the idea of opting out of what is imposed upon society. And opting out is associated with the mature individual the child does not have to do that because the child does not yet lost his bound with nature therefore with inspiration. The madness in this wonderland is after all Alice’s dream, a child who is able to dream. Remember one of the most important points that this text is trying to make is the concept of arbitrariness. Remember Alice says “I calling purring not growling.” So the cat says “Call it what you like” Remember last week we were talking about arbitrariness in language: It doesn’t matter what you name it because naming it itself is arbitrary. Remember the dialogue at one point. The beginning of chapter 3: “William the Conquerer….” This is one of the most blatant part in the text that refers to arbitrariness of the language. “It”: You see how things vary so there needs to be some kind of space for new notions which the rigid Victorian society does not allow for. Hence we would have in the cat words:”Call it what you like”: and again you see the rationality: the cat like the caterpillar has one of the most curricula characters in the text that make it very clear to the audience that in this world there are digressions from the established norms of Victorian society but they create no madness. Think about the cat, his grin. Is the cat mad? Everything goes the grin stays. Isn’t he perhaps the most clever character, the most important which takes the discussion of identity to its high: “who are you?” Because within the Victorian hierarchy Alice is superior to caterpillar, she is the human being. In her world she has no authority because she is child and whatsoever… But she has authority over Dinah, she owns it. Here she among all of the creatures there animals starting from the chain of being her society thought her that human being is superior to all the other creatures for some reason and so she thinks she is superior to all the creatures and so when the caterpillar says “Who are you?” At the end of that discussion, Alice says “You tell me first who you are.” and the caterpillar says “Why?” Alice has no authority. Who sets the rules, so that she knows to be right continuously question. Why this specific creature and hookah that Carroll creates to ask the “Who you are” question? Remember the western ideology, colonialism, who does the English colonize? Isn’t the hookah smoking caterpillar a very oriental image? And within that ideology the western child finds the authority questions hookah smoking figure who seems to be doing nothing, remember Victorian Society and Protestant Work Ethics.
This caterpillar who seems to be lazying about, is the opposite of what victorian society stands for but you can see the caterpillar is one of the wisest character in the text so the notion of hierarchy, authority, superiority changes. The creature that seems to be lazing about is perhaps is not lazy as one think. Perhaps his mind is working better than a person working away according to Protestant work ethic's .
In the chapter 5, the pigeon accuses Alice for being a serpent. I want to talk about this because not only does this dialogue present us with the question of identity with the discussion of who Alice is, remember earlier, in previous session we talked about how the caterpillar was very important in the theme of identity. But this is as well as very important because for one thing remember what we said about the fall last week, here the bird is calling Alice a serpent now within in the context we have, Alice falling into the well echoing or perhaps reminding us of another fall, this I think seems to keep quite significance. Now obviously within such a text the minute you read the spent you are reminded of the evil because serpent is associated with Satan. Here the bird is complaining because she is having difficulty protecting her eggs from the snakes and she is saying that she is done with everything she could and finally found this highest tree of all but still she cannot get rid of them. Notice where Alice says “I am a…” It is repeated over and over again throughout the text where you find Alice is repeatedly finding herself at a point where she has to explain who she is to herself or to somebody else. Also we repeatedly hear her saying “I am not a…” but we see her here saying “I am a…” So she is more aware of not she is in this new world than being aware of what she is which is of course understandable because if you think about it in her fictive real world outside before the dream, she knew what she was she was a child she had no voice she had to be obedient…etc. But now she is oppressive in the new world, she is dominating, she has a voice now. Not only the voice she uses to talk to the creatures but also the voice that she repeatedly uses to talk to herself she constantly talks to herself. That is a very representation of the need to express herself. She has this urge, the inevitable urge to express herself, of course expressing yourself is presenting your identity to the outside world and remember that in her own world she is not allowed to do that she is repressed. The pigeon says “I see you trying to invent something”: That relates to the ambiguity that Alice faces in the dream world because she is continuously growing and shrinking therefore she has lost her sense of identity in herself. Because obviously, symbolically when she eats the mushroom and she grows up that is a symbolic version of the actual growing up isn’t it? She on a symbolic level becomes a grown up but then when she shrinks again, she is the “small” but also the young child again. And so she does not know where she stands. Is she an adult or a child she used to be a outside? Alice says “I am a little girl” in a doubtful way. In her fictive real world she would not have that doubt. But here she does not know because here she had that chance to grow up. You notice how what seems to Alice rather reasonable has no substance for the pigeon who would have been inferior in the outside world and so the pigeon continues her argument. “You have to be a serpent…etc.” And so there is no use denying it, denying what she actually is and of course within the context of Alice do not know what she is, that moment becomes ironic. This is the point where the concern about identity merges with the context of violence because in this dialogue when Alice is talking about her cat, Dinah, she says Dinah will eat…etc. which is offensive because she is bringing about violence into that world by mentioning Dinah who catches and eats mice. Similarly here, the pigeon says “You’ll be telling me next that you have never taste an egg..” The argument goes over the top of Alice’s head because the pigeon is presenting a rather reasonable argument, even though it seems unreasonable in the effective real world, it doesn’t matter whether she calls her a little child or a serpent, Alice still eats eggs, she is a thread for the pigeon, she will take away the pigeon’s future. Because taking the eggs for Alice is only natural for feeding herself but with the pigeon, they are child so the arbitrariness reappears. You see how Alice innocent is, she is not tactful.

Remember the time when she is talking to the caterpillar. She tells to caterpillar that “three inch height is such a wretched height to be”: Now you can see she is speaking her mind out in no way tactful but truthful. She is not so educated yet as to behave accordingly but then on the other hand they are also incidence of the violence where she is being offensive. We more talk about blatant violence but she is being rather offensive within this world that is not offensive to her.
Talking about this idea of arbitrariness, “I mean what I say…”(Chapter 7): Do you see what the point is here, making sense. Remember this whole text is about making sense, what make sense, what seems nonsense. She has yet to learn that they are not the same thing and she has to choose one of them. This argument at this point is at a level where the March Hare and the Hatter are equal to Alice. You notice that through the text despite the fact Alice seems to be dominating the other creatures because she doesn’t know any better, she is equal to the other characters which creates a great difference from the other world where she is inferior to just about anyone other that the servants and she is superior to the servants because of her social status that comes through her family and nothing that is attached to her own identity. In “Through the Looking Glass”, Alice says to her nurse: “Let's pretend that I'm a hungry hyaena, and you're a bone.” Now a child saying that implies the violent potential in her but more importantly what she is aware of in her relation to the servants when she says that, so that is the extent that this education she receives in her real world is going to take her to. What I would like to talk about at this point is perhaps question of power, that is associated with authority, authority that in social order. In wonderland, she seems to hold a certain power, but then you have the trials scene. You have the king and queen, looking at the queen Alice sees her with her social status, she is a play card but still Alice cannot neglect the idea that she is talking to the queen and so she tries to act accordingly she tries to talk appropriately until when? Does not she get mad with the queen as well? (Last Chapter) “Off with their head” Alice says “Who care for you? You are nothing but a pack of cards.” In a case of the trail you first have the verdict and then the sentence, what she is going to be punished with and as the head of wonderland, in a world which seems not to make sense to Alice, which is very curious and nonsensical, the queen is saying “Sentence first- verdict afterwards” What you have is an Alice who speaks for herself, not only is she expressing herself not only is she uttering her mind she is defying the queen’s authority, she is going gains the will of the queen now in her fictive real world this is unacceptable, she could not do that, she would have the soldiers rushing up to her with the queen’s order but here looking at the world around her, she finds the authority to defy the queen saying “Nonsense”, remember we are hearing saying this ever since she started her dream. The idea of having the sentence first, she should be used to it now this is all too real for her and so within that reality she is defying authority, she has her own voice, own autonomy against the queen saying the queen that she will not hold her tongue. In her real world she would not have been able to utter her mind, she is an Alice with authority, that defies the authority of the queen but of course ironically, when the soldiers attack, march on to Alice, she wakes up. Lewis Carroll wakes her up. Remember this is a text, Lewis Carroll, at this moment of defiance makes her wake up and there she is back in her real world, we are outside of the wonderland, we are back in the frame, where Alice is a child without an authority, autonomy, laying her sister’s lap. Why should I be saying “without an autonomy” in terms of the text? Talk to me in terms of the text, do not tell me the reason is because Victorian Era does not give any voice to children. Her sister comments on her curious dream saying “run to your tea, you are getting late”. Remember this dream starts with somebody getting late to somewhere, somebody saying “I am late.” Now that word is uttered by the sister, the voice of authority saying it is getting late. This concept of time is a matter that is directly associated with authority.
There, the rabbit was afraid of the queen and he was rushing so that the queen would not say “off with his head” which of course is nonsensical because nobody is beheaded but here the sister’s authority is far worse for Alice because this is her reality. More importantly, “It was a curious dream certainly BUT..” the “BUT” there is very important because Alice’s sister is a grown up, she speaks with the voice of her parents, her society and therefore she is with her “but”, telling Alice that “ that’s all very good but that was a dream now run into your tea, rush” The rush is back again. Just as the rabbit is rushing, this time Alice is to rush to obey the authority whereas remember in wonderland who rushed? Nobody. The concept of time has changed in the wonderland apart from the rabbit because he was under the immediate order of the queen like the immediate order of the outside world and so you got a sister contemplating and I think when you look at that paragraph starts with “So she sat on with closed eyes….” Her younger sister is able to dream about wonderland when her elder is thinking about it she is closing her eyes she is trying to imagine. Remember we were saying wonderland is all about imagination, it is all about the child’s potential to image, to create. And so here Lewis Carroll presents us with a clear proof: The elder sister sitting, closing her eyes, trying to imagine herself into what Alice told her was in her dream but then we read “She knew…all changed into dull reality…” So the fictive world is a world of dull reality which means the imagine world is not dull it’s imaginary, creative and the sister not being able to cut herself loose from the the real world, with the obligation to remember that when she opens her eyes, it would be dull reality, reveals to us she is already lost, she has lost her creativity and imagination she is reminded all the time of the reality, she cannot break that connection with reality even if for a short time to dream the dreamworld sheeted of. It’s ringing at the back of her head, you open your eyes and the reality is different, this is just a dream but then that brings us to the question of what is a dream? What does Freud say? It is the expression of out repressed desires. Not only is not able to utter her mind to her society, she is mistreated by the society and this mistreatment finds its representation in dream world where she is trying to dominate all the other creatures, violate all creatures as she violated and dominated. Remember the part when Alice reprimands herself, she is at that point speaking two voices, that of the child first and then that of the authority chiding her what’s appropriate.
Condensation and Displacement: Condensation is bringing lots of material together on a symbolic level where the objects you see in the dream are symbolic for what they represent. Displacement refers to what is repressed will not be revealed in the dream for what it is but represented through something else.
Going back to the very end of the text, the sister, the last paragraph which is a statement by Carroll, “Lastly she pictured to herself….” This is the future that her sister predicts for Alice, she is going to grow up into a woman.. “ The simple and loving heart of her childhood”: Remember the queen said she is only a child, simple. Notice the terms of time in this part. “Simple sorrows”: Not tempted with the world of adults. What do you think about all this last paragraph? If her sister is saying this is a time that she will be a grown woman, she will bather younger children and will tell them tales perhaps of a long-ago tale of wonderland, of the happy summer days etc. Does not that imply that this happy days in her childhood? That it is long gone. The reality of the grown up, adult is different. If the elder sister is saying what she remembers, what she tells them is going to be the memory of happy childhood days, that means perhaps the days of the grownups is not so happy, because the sister is associating childhood with happy summer days and not the adulthood. We have stepped of the dream, this is the reality of the Victorian society, this is a comparatively grown figure talking about the reality of her society. That is the future for Alice, a grown woman who talks people tales of her part of days that gone by. Carroll is checking his work by giving wonderland in a frame.
So that he can have it published and express to numerous crowds that is very important because through the dream he creates, he is making a very important statement, if we are talking about realities if we are saying that Alice’s reality for the future is this and that then Alice is presented with another reality. Having not yet lost her touch with imagination, creativity, she has seen an alternative reality. An alternative reality which is made up necessarily to be something bad, once you frown to figure out the norms there, you end up in the garden of Eden and mind you there is no chaos or evil in that world, it is just different, the only evil and chaos brought about is by Alice. What Carroll draws from a hundred years earlier is something that Derida told us much later, that you cannot talk about a single truth and there is no a single meaning for a signifier. Now w talked about signifiers and signified and we talked about what or how arbitrary the sign was. As such a hundred years earlier Carroll is doing the same thing you cannot talk about a single meaning for a single sign because meanings are arbitrary. And if in a world where the signifiers are so arbitrary, you have to take into consideration alternative truth. Carroll does thins in 1865, of course you have to bare in mind the political and social circumstances, against the oppression that he might find in society he is presenting us with an alternative reality.