Victorian Era and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

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Victorian Era and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Known for its utilitarianist ideals, the education system of the Victorian Era limited the thoughts, speech, and actions of the individual; People were the product of the Victorian society in which they were raised. Many Victorian novelists highlight this mechanization of human beings, as it contributed to the identity crisis epidemic of the Victorian Era in which children were especially affected. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll uses the emphasis of facts in the Victorian education system, the likeliness of Victorian Society to discourage the use of the imagination, and the importance of ideal male and female roles of the Victorian citizen, imposed on children at a young age, to create Alice’s confused character analogous to the identity crisis of children during the Victorian era. The Utilitarian theory of education became the standard of elite schooling, beginning with Victorian pre-elementary education. It was believed that however incapable the child was to begin with, every child, should they be drilled enough, could be molded into the ideal citizen. An illogical connection between memorization and regurgitation of information and the success of the individual in adulthood, created a schooling system of young robots, incapable of thinking and feeling for themselves. Victorian society’s emphasis of facts in its education system and the resulting identity crisis of children is seen in Lewis Carroll’s character, Alice, because of her constant repetition of facts and lessons in the place of the nonsense-like thought process of the average child. In the falling scene titled, Down the Rabbit-Hole, Alice first illustrates her eag... ... middle of paper ... ...ng. Alice continues the passage by expressing that she doesn’t desire to be a particular size, but that she simply didn’t wish to be changing so often. Alice’s desire to be herself is important to note as it clearly defines the identity crisis Lewis Carroll reveals about children in the Victorian Era as a result of the societal influences forced upon them. Children are fed facts, forced to conform to the elite societal standard, suppress their inner-child as a result, and are left, according to Lewis Carroll, to squander between a split personality. Thus the identity crisis of children during the Victorian Era are a result of these societal influences, and, like Alice, they are left wondering, “ Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” (19). Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985.

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