Hidden Propaganda in the 'Alice' Books?

Beneath the seemingly innocent surface of the children's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, there are many indirect literary and political allusions, as well as numerous puns and oblique jokes. Lewis Carroll lived during the Victorian era in the 1800's where any political objection was against the law, so Lewis slyly incorporated political propaganda, along with cultural allusions into his wildly popular children's books.

One of the more obvious references to Victorian era conflicts in Through the Looking Glass is during a scene where Alice is discovering the many insects of Wonderland. Coming across the Bread-and-butter-fly, she asks her friend, the Gnat, what this creature lives off of. The Gnat replies, “Weak tea with cream in it.” Alice then questions, "Supposing it couldn't find any?" To which prompts the Gnat to frankly reply, "Then it would die, of course." The Gnat then goes on to comment how the Bread-and-butter-flies often die because of their lack of weak tea with cream. Alice realizes that hunger is universal and inevitable, apparent even in Wonderland. This mirrors the hunger and malnutrition in young children during the Victorian era, which Carroll ingeniously incorporated through a child's curious questioning.

Another example of Carroll's incorporation of Victorian culture and politics is exemplified through the well known "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" labels Alice encounters throughout the books. Upon Alice's encounter of the infamous "Drink Me" bottle, Carroll remarks, "It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not'." Many children living during the Victorian era, would have most likely been subject to consuming toxic substances in their food and a reformer of this time period comments on how the ingredients of this era's food are similar to "the stock list of some mad and malevolent chemist." Alice represents many of the Victorian children who had it ingrained in themselves to be wary of what they ate, to make sure that there were no noxious substances in the item.

A rather humorous political reference to capitalism, Carroll uses in Through the Looking Glass, takes place when Alice is on a boat with the sheep shop owner, and spies some beautiful rushes across the river. But when she snatches them from the boat, the "dream-rushes melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet – but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious things to think about." This reflects capitalist ways of thinking because like Alice, a capitalist will become quickly distracted from beautiful riches by "many other curious things to think about." However, an interview with Ms. Amy Evans resulted in the opinion that Lewis did not, in fact, use Alice's character to portray such a fact, but rather as "a simple metaphor for children's constant search for the next interesting subject." Alice also reflects these characteristics, but in a much more innocent manner to draw the attention away from the true message of this passage. Using Alice, Carroll has incorporated an amusing, if not true, depiction of capitalist behavior.

A highly debatable subject, is the matter of the caterpillar and his hookah in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Some argue that Carroll was under the influence of drugs, such as opium. Kate Connel puts it best saying,"the widespread use of opium during the Victorian period may have influenced or been reflected in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," which she then goes on to explain how the strange situations in the books possibly resulting from narcotics, "relate nicely to some of the detailed descriptions in the Alice books, such as growing and shrinking and [most importantly] the image of the caterpillar smoking the hookah," as well as the intense dream feeling that is portrayed throughout the books, also associated with mind altering drugs (a.k.a "eating a mushroom or drinking from a bottle"). But it is quite unlikely that Carroll himself, a homely reverend and mathematician, would have ever used such substances to aid in the writing of his children's books. Many ignorant readers of the Alice books, or individuals familiar with the popular, yet inaccurate Disney movie version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, conclude that yes, the nightmarish atmosphere of Alices' dreams are indeed the result of narcotic use. However, those intuitive enough to refrain from pointing to drugs for inspiration, know that Carroll is not suspected of having been under the influence of opium while writing the Alice books. A fairly recent discovery of a drawing and letter both created by Carroll himself, supports "the thesis that at least some of Alice's adventures were based on Carroll's personal migraine aura perceptions." Not by hallucinogenic drugs. Thus Carroll was representing the cultural norms of the Victorian era, rather than his own recreational use.

Lewis Carroll, a genius writer of the 18th century, has created some of the most wildly popular and memorable books in history, yet underneath the surface lie hidden references to normal everyday culture and politics in Victorian life, cleverly woven into the dreamlike state of the 'Alice' books. Two wholly different concepts put in an entirely contrasted setting, resulted in a two both intriguing, and entertaining novels.
Sources

Charles L. Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Food, Drink, and Public Health in the Alice Books.
Opium as a Possible Influence upon the Alice Books

- Carroll, Lewis, and Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice. Cleveland and New York: The World Company, 1960.

- Evans, Amy. "Capitalist influence in Through the Looking Glass." Telephone interview. 6 Oct. 2009.