I charted my first post-retirement plan twelve years ago after I read Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. His book helped me design a plan to reinvent myself. I travelled the world, studied literature, took piano lessons, and signed up for volunteer projects. I have enjoyed these activities, but I know now that I will soon need to slow down as my body and mind age. So, I am wondering what to do with my life next. Though I have travelled to many of the world’s most interesting places, I don’t have as many lasting memories of those places as I do of some of the great books I have read. My latest inspiration is Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. I first read this as a child, then as a flower child of the late 1960s, and now again as I prepare to teach some Alice classes this July at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond (Virginia). I have been so engrossed by Alice’s experiences that I feel like I have been travelling with her in Wonderland. Let me take you there now.
Alice is based on the life of a real-life seven-year-old girl, Alice Liddell, who inspired the author to write two notable books modelled on her. Carroll wanted Liddell to learn and treasure this book to help guide her through the uncertain paths of her life. Evidence suggests that she valued and treasured it throughout her entire life. The book starts with the real-life adventures of young Alice, her sisters, and the author enjoying a rowboat ride and a picnic along the Thames River in England in July. Carroll introduces the book with his short poem: “All in golden afternoon, full leisurely we glide for both our oars, with little skill, by little arms are plied, with little hands made vain pretense our wanderings to guide.”
The real and the fantasy Alice were educated in traditional upper-class 19th-century schools and taught to think using Victorian values and logic. Fantasy Alice is bored with the everyday sameness of this life and wants to experience something different. Though I am at a far later stage, I understand the necessity of wanting a change as I go through a new and uncharted life stage. Alice in Wonderland sees a rabbit running with a stopwatch, shouting that he is late for a tea party. Like me, the rabbit is overly concerned with keeping time. “With a burning curiosity,” she runs after him as he descends into a rabbit hole. We now consider that “falling into the rabbit hole” symbolizes that a project is a complete waste of time. As Alice falls, she floats freely and has time to examine many classic history, science, and literature books. Lewis Carroll, the pen name for Charles Dodgson, was a clergyman, Like Rohr. But Carroll was also a mathematician, scientist, photographer, and poet. The books she sees on her fall demonstrate that he has much wisdom to teach Alice. She has all the time she needs to consider what to do with her life. These stories remind me that I have been running the rabbit’s race and must now carefully consider what I have learned in the past before considering my next steps.
Alice’s escape takes her through a new portal from the world she previously knew to one with unfamiliar characters and challenging situations. She starts by estimating how many miles she has already fallen, and if people will be standing on their heads when she reaches the other side of the Earth. In Alice’s time, the question of what people would see as in the center of the Earth was popular in literature and science.
When Alice lands in Wonderland, she is shocked by many things. Her body starts to “telescope” back and forth from being too small to too big. She can barely recognize herself at this stage. Carroll writes, “This curious child was very fond of being two people.” She finds herself locked out of a room that leads to a garden she yearns to visit. But she is too small to reach the keyhole to open it. She finds a bottle that says, “Drink me,” and this makes her small enough to get in. Then she gets stuck in the room because she becomes too big to get out. Drinking a liquid or taking measured bites from a mushroom helps her grow or shrink enough to solve either problem. I want to ask Carroll here if these were meant to work like hallucinogenic drugs, but he never comments on this topic. Everything moves so fast in this world. Alice fails to remember lessons from school. Her numbers don’t add up. She answers that Paris is the capital of London. She tries to recite the familiar poem, “Father William,” to the caterpillar. But he tells her dismissively, “You got it all wrong.” Alice cries because of all the anxiety she feels in Wonderland.
She doesn’t know where to go or what to do next when she meets a Cheshire Cat sitting in a tree with big claws and teeth. With great fear and respect, she asks the Cheshire Puss, “Which way should I go from here?” He replies, “That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.” Alice says, “I don’t much care where, as long as I get somewhere.” He retorts, “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go as long as you walk long enough.” This is undoubtedly an instance where I can identify with Alice’s dilemma. Though it is as profound a piece of wisdom as I can find in any teaching, it doesn’t help Alice or me to decide what to do next.
The many challenges in Wonderland become too many for Alice to handle. She cries so much that she almost drowns in a pool of her own tears. Eventually, she and the creatures who have joined her get out of the pool. A dodo bird suggests they must run a caucus race without any rules to dry out. Racers may start anytime, and there is no defined racecourse or marked finish line. I think that Carroll is using this race to comment on the pointless pursuits that many of us experience. Besides being a child’s fantasy, these stories are satires of the 19th-century British society. After a brief time, the dodo arbitrarily declares the race finished, then asks Alice to give a prize to each of the other participants who have completed the race. She finds some small items in her pockets and gladly distributes them to everyone. Then the dodo bird rewards Alice with a thimble she had initially given him as his prize. From this story, Alice and I have learned that the answer to our uncertain ways forward is often within us. Finding solutions to our problems that help others also gives us a clearer direction. I note this and plan to keep travelling, learning, and hopefully writing about Alice as we move through Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Please write me here at www.Litchatte or ellisonms2@alumni.vcu.edu if you would like to respond to the column.
Alice in Wonderland was first published by Lewis Carroll in 1865 with original illustrations by John Tenniel
My Primary Reference for this work is The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas Fairhurst, Harvard University Press, 2015
Another reference I used for text and illustration is www.guttenberg.org
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