PART ONE
âWAKE UP, ALICE DEARâ
Chapter 1
UNRULY ALICE: A FEMINIST VIEW OF SOME ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
Megan S. Lloyd
âCome to class ready to discuss and defend your favorite fairy-tale heroine,â I told my students in âUnruly Women through the Ages.â The course began as a survey of feminist archetypes and issues, but it quickly became a forum for a group of rather unruly female students aged eighteen to twenty-two to discuss candidly topics such as date rape, abortion, sexual harassment, battered women, male and female relationships, anorexia and bulimia, and what it means to be a woman today. For one class period, we turned to the realm of fairy tales. To my initial question, I expected students to write about Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks, but most students chose a Disney princessâCinderella, Ariel, Belle, Mulan, mostly unruly females going against the flow of male rules imposed upon them. Two students, however, chose Alice as their favorite unruly fairy tale character. They argued that Alice, unlike other fairy-tale heroines, requires no fairy god-mother, huntsman, or good fairyâjust her own wits and ingenuityâto navigate through Wonderland successfully, keeping her head intact. My students know Alice not through Carroll but through Disney, and this Disney heroine Alice is a precursor to the strong Belle and Mulan and counter to the pliable Cinderella and the passive Aurora and Snow White, who require male aid to bring them to life and reality again.
In Carrollâs or Disneyâs version, Aliceâs journey through Wonderland has long been seen as a tale of identity, agency, and adulthood. The curiosity and confidence that Carroll instills in Alice connect her with other unruly women we studied in class, such as Lysistrata, Shakespeareâs Kate, Emma Bovary, Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Camille Paglia, Pandora, and Eve. Aliceâs direct, candid approach to life is refreshing and something the young women in my class can relate to. They understand the story of a young woman who has the world before her, ready to embark on life, who changes herself, primarily by eating and drinking, to fit in. She encounters all types, tests herself, tastes life around her, and once she learns the right combination to fit in and be comfortable with herself, sheâs welcomed into a beautiful world where she possesses wisdom, power, and prestige.1
Nice Girls Donât Make History
As if by instinct, Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole ânever once considering how in the world she was to get out again.â2 Landing, she feels no fear, but rather engages in her surroundings and wonders how far she has fallen. âAt such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs!â3 This self-assurance and unquestioning spirit, this Pandora mentality or, as some would say reckless, wild, impetuous streak, is also the kind of indomitable spirit todayâs young women appreciate.
Alice rejects and frees herself from stereotypical female traits; she is not trapped by the confines of roles or requirements. First, she rejects the world her sister occupies; then in her journey through Wonderland she questions the nurturing role of mother; and finally she stands up to seemingly powerful females and males alike, including the Queen of Hearts, the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat. Aliceâs confident attitude leads her safely through Wonderland and she begins âto think that very few things indeed were really impossible,â a message young women of today need to keep in mind.4 Plucky, undaunted, and impervious to the dangers that may lie in Wonderland, Alice is a curious, empowered seven-year-old girl eager to delve into a new world she chooses to enter. What a wonderful model for our young women to look up to!
Aliceâs intrepid attitude elicits some criticism, however. In Carrollâs original and Disneyâs rendition, Alice may seem abrasive. As my students came to realize in our historical survey, society all too often ridicules strong women, interpreting assertive actions as aggressive and transgressive. The powerful, autonomous woman to some may be the impetuous, reckless, and unruly woman to others. Indeed, Alice eats and drinks what she sees, intrudes, barges in, takes her seat at the tea party uninvited, hears a squeaking pencil from one juror and takes it from him,5 uses her intellect to solve problems, and frequently speaks her mindâeverything young women should do. Nice girls donât make history, after all. Alice is assertive, and unfortunately, almost 150 years after Carrollâs publication, in Wonderland and today that assertiveness can still seem pushy, forward, and aggressive.
Alice is not like the other females in Carrollâs stories, and this contrast appeals to my students and makes Alice an important female advocate. Even before she enters Wonderland, Alice has begun to reject the female reality her sister has chosen, a passive compliance, fulfilling a traditional female role. Her sister presents one vision of women, those well educated with little to do. Reading a book âwithout pictures or conversationsâ is of no use to Alice, and she seeks other means to occupy herself. 6 Next she contemplates making a daisy chain but wonders âwhether the pleasure of making a daisy chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daises.â7 Significantly, the White Rabbit appears as Alice questions this busywork that would garner no productive results. Neither sitting and reading nor making daisy chains, Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole and thus chooses an active function within the world, even if that world is Wonderland.
Motherhood Is Not a Requirement
Aliceâs journey in Wonderland begins with a rejection of one female stereotype, the idle woman, embodied in her sister reading to while away the time. Continuing her journey in Wonderland, Alice learns more about the power of women when she literally opens the door for herself. In chapter VI, âPig and Pepper,â Alice finds herself at the Duchess âs door and knocks, but to no avail. This exchange between Alice and the Frog-Footman follows:
âBut what am I to do?â said Alice.
âAnything you like,â said the Footman, and began whistling.
âOh, thereâs no use in talking to him,â said Alice desperately: âheâs perfectly idiotic! â And she opened the door and went in.8
Her inability to enter the house through conventional means, acting the proper, demure female, causes Alice to question her situation: âWhat am I to do?â The Frog-Footmanâs response, âAnything you like,â opens up all possibilities for her. Here she learns that the norms of society that she may follow really mean very little. She has the power to do anything within herself, a theme that recurs throughout Carrollâs works. Aliceâs message for todayâin Wonderland and the world at largeâis that young women can do anything they like.
The world of possibility for women that Wonderland offers Alice includes an indifferent perspective toward motherhood, which in Victorian England (and in some places still today) was the primary function of women. Alice views the pride and pitfalls of maternity with a great deal of detachment. The Pigeon presents Alice with her first look at motherhood, a mother who expresses the suffering that comes with that role. Their meeting begins with the Pigeon beating a long-necked Alice.
âSerpent!â screamed the Pigeon.
âIâm not a serpent!â said Alice indignantly. âLet me alone!â
âSerpent, I say again! â repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added, with a kind of sob, âIâve tried every way, but nothing seems to suit them! . . .
âIâve tried the roots of trees, and Iâve tried banks, and Iâve tried hedges,â the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; âbut those serpents! Thereâs no pleasing them! . . .
âAs if it wasnât trouble enough hatching the eggs,â said the Pigeon; but I must be on the look-out for serpents, night and day! Why, I havenât had a wink of sleep these three weeks!â
âIâm very sorry youâve been annoyed,â said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning.
âAnd just as Iâd taken the highest tree in the wood,â continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, âand just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!â
âBut Iâm not a serpent, I tell you!â said Alice. âIâm aâIâm aâ. . .
âIâIâm a little girl,â said Alice rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.
âA likely story indeed!â said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. âIâve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! Youâre a serpent; and thereâs no use denying it. I suppose youâll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!â
âI have tasted eggs, certainly,â said Alice, who was a very truthful child; âbut little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know. . . .
âIâm not looking for eggs, as it happens; and, if I was, I shouldnât want yours.â9
In this exchange, Alice fails to commiserate with the Pigeonâs state as the maternally inclined might do, but instead apologizes for annoying her. Aliceâs line, âlittle girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do,â even resonates with today âs pro-life/pro-choice discussion. The Pigeon names long-necked Alice a serpent; not rejecting this role for the Pigeonâs maternal one, Alice aligns herself with the serpent, predator to pigeons and eggs; rejects maternity, at least for the time being; and claims her autonomy.
Alice next encounters the maternal life of the Duchess. The ugly Duchess nurses a howling baby in a smoky kitchen. To contemporary readers, Carrollâs Duchess figures as a stereotypical white-trash mother, one who screams at her child, fails to consider its well-being (in a smoke -filled room with flying debris just missing it), and accompanies her sadistic song not with soothing rocks but severe shakes at every line. Tired of her crying child, the Duchess finally flings the baby at Alice and departs to do something better, like âplay croquet with the Queen.â10 Today, this Duchess could be arrested for shaken baby syndrome or be demonized, like Britney Spears and Casey Anthony, and plastered all over the media.11 Alice, herself, sees how unfit for motherhood the Duchess is, remarking, âIf I donât take this child away with me . . . theyâre sure to kill it in a day or two.â12 Aliceâs disregard for the Duchess surfaces again when she learns that the Duchess, a prisoner of the Queen, is to be executed.
âWhat for?â said Alice.
âDid you say âWhat a pity!â?â the Rabbit asked.
âNo, I didnât,â said Alice. âI donât think itâs at all a pity.â13
Alice catches the Duchessâs strange child, which ultimately transforms into a pig, and her indifferent treatment of it offers another view of motherhood. No cooing,...