Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland remains one of the most famous pieces of literature created in Victorian England, which is saying something considering how much famous literature was written in the Victorian Age. It has imprinted itself on the cultural consciousness of the Western world, and has done so with its preposterous balance of whimsy, imagination, silliness, and menace.
A young girl, Alice, falls down a rabbit hole after following a talking white rabbit. When she lands at the bottom of the hole she finds herself in a magical world, called Wonderland, where she must survive and try to escape a bizarre world where rules don’t seem to matter (until they suddenly do) and certainly don’t make much sense to a girl from the “normal” world. This is made all the more complicated by the fact that characters of Wonderland seem utterly disinterested in helping the young girl, all except for one - a mysterious Cheshire Cat, who will not solve Alice’s problems for her, but will, indirectly, find ways to help her.
Wonderland is a dream - the dream of a young child. Alice doesn’t fall into a literal (or magical) rabbit hole - she falls asleep. The chaotic, kaleidoscopic world of Wonderland (with its ever-shifting characters, landscapes, rules, and realities) is a powerful and potent metaphor for the ways in which children struggle to make sense of the chaotic and confusing world of the adults around them.
The most incredible thing about this story is its accessibility - it has captivated young audiences' imaginations for almost 150 years; imprinting its characters into the minds of children for generations. However, I don't believe that this powerful connection between story and audience is due to the wackiness of the world.
Our actress playing Alice in this production astutely pointed out in one rehearsal that Alice is always being silenced in this story - and she's exactly right. What's most upsetting about that observation though, is that in the world of the play (where she is dreaming) Alice the character is processing feeling silenced even in her own subconscious.
Alice in Wonderland isn't about the strange characters or the bizarre world - it's about a child trying to find her way through to safety in a world that is almost completely hostile to her - and there isn't a child on Earth that cannot relate to that on a simple and profound level.
As a society, the Victorian Era England wasn't known for its love and care of children - with rampancy of child labor, the "children should be seen and not heard," mentality, boarding school culture among the classes that could afford it, and so on. Whether it was his goal or not, Carroll managed to write a sly and biting indictment of how the adults of Victorian England treated their children.
Yet before we judge the Victorians too harshly, we should reflect: How many of us can remember when an adult made us feel badly for asking a question when we were small? Can remember when an adult made us feel stupid for trying to make a connection because we didn't understand their vocabulary? Or when an adult wouldn't let us tell our side of the story before they jumped to the conclusion that we, the child, had done something we should not have?
Alice in Wonderland isn't remarkable for its strange characters, but for the tremendous courage of its protagonist. The child who decides to speak up for herself, to try as best she can to assert the validity of her own existence against the seemingly overwhelming forces of adulthood that are arrayed against her. And by speaking up, by refusing to be silenced, so she begins the process of growing up, and that, as the Cat points out, cannot be undone.
For us grown-ups, it's an important reminder: we can't go back to childhood; but if we're lucky, if we're attentive, and if we remember what it was like to be our childhood selves, then maybe we can make the dreamy Wonderlands of the children in our lives safer and more kind than Alice's Wonderland.
