When one reads a tale, he or she hardly takes it seriously. No surprise! First of all, everyone expects a fairy tale to entertain describing an unreal world with where happens an unreal story. Secondly, nobody seeks for a deep sense in a fair tale, especially if it is a pure nonsense like in case with “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Caroll.
However, there’s definitely a certain sense in this nonsense. It won't be the exaggeration to say that this tale is full of sense, symbols, allusions or metaphors. The world described in “Alice in Wonderland” tale reflects English society with its social structure and social classes.
Before going into details about social issues presented in Caroll's tale, it is worth paying attention to the history of the creation of this masterpiece that still attracts both adults and children.
“Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, or as it is widely known “Alice in Wonderland”, is a novel written in 1865 by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, commonly known as Lewis Carroll. This novel blow’s out anyone's logic telling about a fantasy world full of amazing, 'anthropomorphic creatures' where Alice, the main character, gets through a rabbit hole. (“Alice in Wonderland”, n.d.).
The novel was written during the times when England experienced the industrial revolution that brought new ideas, discoveries, developments, and inventions, which in their turn caused significant economic and social changes (“A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, 2014). Manufacturing led to urbanization that resulted in densely-populated cities and very cheap labor. It goes without saying, that these changes split the society into social classes: upper, middle and lower classes. D. Cody (2002) gives the following definition of the term ‘class': class is the term that was first introduced in the eighteenth century. It means quite a distinct social groupings that 'constituted the British Society' at a given period of history. Classes can be identified by certain inequalities like political power, authority, wealth-being, pace of life; educational, cultural and religious backgrounds; living and working conditions, etc (Cody, 2002). Thus, if to analyze the above-mentioned inequalities existed in the 1800s, it could be said that at those times the upper class enjoyed the expensive lifestyle, had a good education and political power and was wealthy (“A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, 2014). As for the middle class, they enjoyed the golden age in terms of opportunities to enjoy a good standard of living (Picard, n.d.). Moreover, with the Reform Act of 1832 and further repeal of Corn Laws, the middle class gained a new political power (Cody, 2002). As the lower class representatives are concerned, they were poor, hard-working, without a proper education and excluded from political life (“A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, 2014).
It important to focus on a term 'class' in the context of such a notion as 'social structure'. Numerous research and studies try to explain such issues as integration and inequalities. Obviously, different concepts can be applied to the notion social structure. For instance, some sociologists and theorist like Robert K. Merton believe that social structure consists of both 'normative patterns', power inequalities, certain privileges that transformed into different opportunities for members of the society. These inequalities form different classes that comprise society. One of the most influential theories supporting this argument belongs to Karl Marx. Of course, it was criticized by others. However, it has a strong impact among those who didn't support marxism (Form, 2015).
What is more interesting, it is the fact that all above mentioned notions were wonderfully portrayed by Lewis Caroll in his novel. No wonder, that one of the interpretations of the world known masterpiece is based on the Marxist's view. The book is full of reflections of marxism's aspects, especially classism. All characters represent to a certain class.
Alice, according to Pumphrey's view, belongs to the high class and enjoys some privileges. She has good manners: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a great girl like you” (Caroll, ch. 2). Alice also seems to be proud of all knowledge she acquired in school, which coincides with one of the marxisms aspects – a good education. Alice can allow herself to buy a new pair of shoes and she is deeply convinced that she deserves it: “Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas” (Caroll, ch. 2). It seems that Caroll makes our opinion on a person from the higher class of the times when he wrote the novel. (Pumphrey, n.d.).
The White Rabbit, one of the characters that we encounter at the beginning seems to represent a middle class. A reader can easily notice, that Mr. White Rabbit is always saying
"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" or something like “Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” (Caroll, ch. 2) and he or she won't meet Mr. White Rabbit very often on the pages of the novel, as he is always in a hurry. He definitely belongs to another class than Alice. Short dialogues of Alice and Mr. Rabbit only highlight the fact that Alice represents the higher class, as she assumes that Mr. Rabbit is always in a hurry because he may be late and hence punished for this. Someone from the higher class would hardly be in a hurry.
The middle class is also represented by the Mad Hatter and the March Hare with the Dormouse (Bruns, 2013). Their status is understood from the following situation: “There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it” (Caroll, ch.7). Obviously, they enjoy their time without being in a hurry and definitely they don't do any dirty work. Besides, they are well-mannered, which is reflected in the following words of the March Hare: “It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited” (Caroll, ch.7). The Mad Hatter fits the middle class perfectly, as he makes hats for the upper class - the Queen of Hearts (Bruns, 2013).
The Queen of Hearts belongs to the upper class and illustrates sort of dehumanization of the underclass (“A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, 2014). She is bossy and can boast of authority and great power: “Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other”. All her servants and it seems that everyone around do everything she wants. The cards, or servants, seems to do their utmost to meet the Queens expectations and satisfy her requests (“A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, 2014): “YOU'D better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!” (Caroll, ch.8). It showcases that the lower class mean nothing to the upper class, although they work hard and sometimes do meaningless jobs to satisfy the higher society. This demonstrates that the lower class was like game pieces to the upper, doing hard meaningless work just to satisfy the upper class. Interesting, that almost everyone in the story wants's to end up at the Queens' place and be in her company.
Such characters as footmen, royal gardeners painting white roses red, the Duchess’ cook and the caterpillar belong smoking a water pipe to the lower class in the social structure of Wonderland (Bruns, 2013). Bruns thinks, that the Cheshire may be also referred to the lower class as it knows everything about all dwellers of Wonderland, walks here and there, appears now and then and doesn't belong to a particular social group (Bruns, 2013). The reaction of the King to the Cheshire cat also confirms his belonging to the underclass: “I don't like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand if it likes”.
Other characters met by Alice possibly represent the lower class. They sing songs to Alice, tell her stories or dance for entertainment. These songs or stories don't possess deep sense and demonstrate the absence of good education. However, those characters seem to see themselves as intelligent and use this advantage to maximum (Pumphrey, n.d.).
Reading a novel, one can also admit that representatives of different classes do not interact with each other very well. This fact is seen during their croquet game, where the Queen of Hearts can kill anyone who is from the underclass (Pumphrey, n.d.).
It's interesting that during the whole story Alice ends up at the Queens place, having gone through all classes, starting from the lower one, but in her real life, she is wealthy and belongs to the highest class (Bruns, 2013).
Summing everything up, it should be said that Marxism's aspects can be easily found in the world known the tale, that indicates the importance of a class during the Victorian times, when the book was written (Bruns, 2013). Moreover, there's always a sense in a tale, even if there seem to be only nonsense.
References:
A Marxist view on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (2014, June 2). Retrieved January 25, 2016, from https://prezi.com/tgxu2ynuef4g/a-marxist-view-on-alices-adventures-in-wonderland/
Alice in Wonderland. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland
Bruns, P. (2013, October 1). Alice in Wonderland Viewed Through Marxist Criticism. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://pascalebruns.blogspot.com.by/2013/10/alice-in-wonderland-viewed-through.html
Cody, D. (2002, June 22). Social Class. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.victorianweb.org/history/Class.html
Form, W. (2015, August 6). Social structure. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-structure
Caroll, L. (n.d.). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/alices-adventures-in-wonderland/index.html
Picard, L. (n.d.). The Victorian middle classes. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/the-victorian-middle-classes
Pumphrey, S. (n.d.). Marxist Criticism. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://alicethirdperiod.weebly.com/literary-criticism.html
