I did initially wonder why the font was so large if the book was intended to be read by adults but then I recalled how important the illustrations were to me as a child and therefore by using a large font the adult completes the page more quickly thus turning over to reveal a new illustration more frequently; an idea which again links in with the child’s attention span.
A feature which further substantiates my theory is the narrative viewpoint. Although "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is written in the third person the reader still sees “Wonderland” through Alice’s eyes because of the careful attention paid, by the narrator, to Alice’s thoughts and feelings; this allows the child to relate to the protagonist. The narrator is never given an identity thus allowing the adult to fill this role consequently recreating the original set up with Carroll narrating to the Liddell sisters. Furthermore the child is likely to be familiar with any adult who is reading to them and when a story is being told from the viewpoint of a trusted elder it assumes a new dimension of credibility. It also allows the narrator to talk to the child in asides such as “you see” which not only ensure that the child is listening but the use of the personal pronoun “you” includes the child in the story.
The pronoun choice tells the reader a lot about Alice’s character. For example she refers to Dinah as “you” and if the reader was not informed by the narrator’s parenthesised commentary that Dinah was a cat they would probably be puzzled because, by the end of the paragraph, Alice is dreaming about walking hand in hand with Dinah and asking her questions.
I am unsure whether it is because children can actually empathise with animals or just because their imaginations are not conditioned by an awareness of the perimeters of reality but they have a tendency to regard animals as friends as opposed to companions or failing that they see them as equals hence the fact that “Alice (did not) think it so very much out of the way to hear the rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear!…’”. Animals are therefore often present in children’s literature because children regard, for example the White Rabbit with his kid gloves and fan, as enchanting and whilst not being in the least bit absurd.
Even within the small section I have chosen to look at there are references to cats, bats, mice and rabbits. Common nouns such as these occur regularly throughout the text because it is essential that the child can understand the story and, generally, one of the first word classes a child learns is that of common nouns. Proper nouns are also present in the form of the characters’ names however, there is only one abstract noun in the passage I am analysing and that is “delight”. Abstract nouns tend to include words for quite complicated concepts and specific emotions; things that children are unlikely to have come across, I think that the reason for the presence of “delight” is that it was quite a “fashionable” word in the Victorian era when "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was published and therefore a majority of children of the time would be likely to understand it.
In general "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has stood the test of time extremely well however, its age does tell in lexical choices such as the aforementioned “delight” and Alice’s archaic, childish, hyperbole evident in exclamatory syntax such as “Dinah, my dear, I wish you were down here with me!”. Such exclamations lend themselves to a prim, histrionic tone of voice which contrasts with the calm, steady narrative voice and the frenetic exclamations of the over-worked rabbit. These alterations in intonation make the story more interesting for the listener as do the numerous other phonetic effects present in the story. For instance the onomatopoeic “thump! thump!” upon Alice’s landing. Although this is simple it is extremely effective because the repetition of the common, monosyllabic, nouns “cat” and “bat” have had a soporific effect on the reader, similar to that of a nursery rhyme the sudden landing therefore comes as quite a shock thus startling the child into an attentive state which puts them in the same situation as Alice who has also just been roused from a dream and because they can identify with her feelings of slight bewilderment their mental adventure into “Wonderland” becomes that bit more realistic.
Carroll also uses alliteration and sibilance when he writes about the “long, low hall” and how the White Rabbit was “still in sight”, it could also be argued that “White Rabbit” is also an example of alliteration when read aloud by children who have a tendency to pronounce R’s as W’s. The repetition of sounds is a very effective way of focusing children’s attention which, as I mentioned earlier, is extremely important, as is the child’s understanding of the story.
In the sample I looked at there was only one word that my sister did no know; “earnestly”. In most children’s books there are usually one or two examples of polysyllabic lexis because it helps build the child’s vocabulary however, if the usage is too frequent the child gets frustrated with having to continually ask the adult what the words mean and abandons the book.
My sister also struggled with the words “answer”, “dozing, “saucer”, and “fountain” however, she would recognise them if she heard them again indicating that "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a book that should be read to the child. However, in general the lexis is quite simple with none of the words in my sample having more than three syllables. The use of adjectives and adverbs is also limited with no more than one used to describe each noun or verb respectively, for example the leaves are “dry” and Alice walked “sadly”, if more than one adjective or adverb were used the child would become confused. Even when Alice views the garden for the first time its beauty isn’t depicted through a long description, instead the superlative “loveliest” and the verb “longed”, which isn’t common in children’s literature and therefore has a greater impact on the reader are used and the psychological phenomenon that humans want something more if they can’t have it is put into practice to make the garden tantalising for the child thus increasing their willingness to hear the story to the end in order to see if Alice gets there.
The passage in which the garden is described is, of course, hugely symbolic and although it is expressed simply the ideas present are, by no means, light. Carroll appears to strive after an imagination unbounded by the socially constructed regulations of this world and the garden becomes a metaphor for the fulfilment of this ambition thus making Alice’s attempts to reach it symbolic. For instance Alice “could not even get her head”, the physical location of the mind, “through the doorway” consequently the adult consciousness becomes comparable to the “rat hole”, the “dark hall”, separating Carroll from his dream.
Carroll seems to regard the indoctrination of our minds with lessons in social etiquette and the confines of possibility as distancing us from the Garden of Eden like pleasures of the unbounded imagination and therefore he evidently considers that children, who are yet to be exposed to such “rules”, as capable of reaching this “Wonderland”. However, through Alice’s recitals of her lessons the reader is made aware that she has already begun on the journey which will narrow her imagination. Alice does despair that she can’t remember her lessons on several occasions however, the nonsensical poems she recites still retain the essence of the original. Additionally in the course of the story Alice is put in numerous situations which cause her to choose whether to grow up, be it physically or mentally, or stay as a child, initially she appears unsure however, by the end of the story she dismisses the “mad tea-party” as “the stupidest tea-party (there) ever was” and thus she rejects the childish world of nonsense favouring the sanity of the adult world where strict rules of social etiquette exist. The combination of her inability to completely forget her lessons and this rejection alter her perception of “Wonderland” and thus when she gains entry she finds that it no longer conforms to the vision of beauty she glimpsed through the door; it is tainted by reality symbolised by the gardeners painting the red-rose tree white.
Although Carroll despairs at this narrowing of the imagination he is a victim of it himself, a detail which he is well aware of, and this is evident in the fact that his “Wonderland” is really only a distorted version of reality. Because Carroll is so painfully awake to the confines of his “dreamland” "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" often assumes an element of horror. For instance, in the section I am analysing Carroll alludes to Alice’s decapitation when Alice speculates that even if she could fit her head through the doorway it “would be of very little use without (her) shoulders”, this is also a little foreshadowing due to the demands of the Queen of Hearts to have her head cut off later in the book. The ambiguity created by these dark undertones, as mentioned in the introduction, is made all the more disturbing because "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" conforms to the stereotypically innocent archetype of the fairytale. Although it brings the genre slightly more up to date it still includes the standard characteristics; the situation of Alice falling down the rabbit hole to “Wonderland” is set up, the complication of Alice’s inability to reach the garden is introduced and multiple crises in the form of the Alice’s numerous exasperating encounters with weird, wonderful and generally foul tempered and nonsensical creatures arise as she attempts to find a way in to the garden however, the crises are resolved when she haps across a small door which leads to the garden.
However, because Carroll’s implications are so subtle the story, also as mentioned in the introduction, works brilliantly just as a modern fairytale and because he is, predominantly, writing for the child he includes a far simpler layer of symbolism for their benefit. For example the similes “away went Alice like the wind” and Alice’s wish that she “could shut up like a telescope”; the first example has become a cliché and the child is therefore likely to understand it to mean that she ran very fast and the second also leaves very little room for confusion by using an inanimate object that the child is probably aware of. No metaphors are used because children do not understand pragmatics and, especially in a fantasy story where anything is possible, children tend take language very literally. However, in saying this Carroll does delight in puns and often uses pragmatics, for instance in the trial at the end of the story the following dialogue occurs:
“Take off your hat”, the King said to the hatter.
“It isn’t mine.”, said the Hatter.
“Stolen!” the King exclaimed…
“I keep them to sell.”, the Hatter added as an explanation…
The humour stems from the misunderstanding of the deictic “your” and although the child would not realise this and would, therefore, probably be unable to follow the dialogue they would still find the large amount of confusion and the change in the intonation of the adult’s voice hilarious. The word play can therefore be enjoyed on both a child and an adult level which I think is very important because if an adult enjoys the book they are likely to be more enthusiastic when reading, children pick up on this and it often plays a central role in their attitude to literature when they are older.
However, there is a fine line between amusing and confusing the child and as I keep emphasising it is important not to do the latter because if the child does not understand the story they will no enjoy it. I was therefore slightly surprised to see how frequently Carroll uses quite complex syntax, for example the sentence “Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it.” contains six clauses. Children, unlike adults, do not tend to absorb information as they read it instead using the full stop as a natural rest in which they take in what they have been told in the previous sentence, therefore I would have suspected that with so many details to bear in mind within this one sentence the child would have become confused by the time they reached the end of it. Even when an adult reads such a complex sentence to them they often lose track of what they are being told however, all of the clauses are independent meaning that the child does not need to bear in mind the information (save the fact that the pronoun “she” refers to Alice) that has come before in order to make sense of what they are being told and, additionally, many of the details are related to Alice’s movement and therefore are insignificant to the plot. When Carroll is describing places and objects, something which requires the child to form a visual impression of the information, the syntax becomes far simpler; “Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass, there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key.”
In order to minimise confusion Carroll also uses a simple narrative discourse structure so although the story is told in the past tense the events between Alice’s fall and her waking up are detailed in chronological order. This is well suited to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" because it clearly and logically shows Alice’s journey from childhood into the adult world as her adventure progresses.
Although Carroll is rebelling against the moralistic stories abundant in the Victorian era Alice’s “adventure” is beneficial for the child because it deals with the issue of growing up; something the child will have to do. However, I do not believe that Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" for the purpose of helping children through the transitional stage of their lives; I think he wrote it to make children happy. If this was Carroll’s objective, he has been successful due to his clever use of numerous linguistic features. Firstly he realises that children need to be able to understand the story and simplifies his structure, lexis, syntax and imagery accordingly, secondly that an adult is likely to read the book to the child and therefore they also need to be interested and thirdly, and possibly most importantly, that children read with all of their senses and in order to keep interest them and hold their attention a story must appeal to their sense of hearing through the use of phonetic effects, sight through illustrations and scent, smell and touch through the descriptions present in the text.
