On a shelf in my room I’d have a clay mushroom I have painted multicolored, an empty bottle with a “drink me” label attached to the neck, and an unused journal with the Disney version of Alice on it. For some time now Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll has pulled to me. Through my early childhood to now I have looked more and more deeply into the symbolism of this beloved story. What often appears to be simply nonsense can often stand for something much more.
At the beginning Alice finds herself at the bottom of a very long hole, in a very strange and unpleasant room looking out through a very small door that leads to a beautiful garden that she wishes to go to. She struggles through the book to get to this garden, and when she finally does it does not satisfy her.
For a child—at least when referring to a child—the garden could represent the innocence of children. The garden is bright and sunny, free of corruption or any imperfections from the safe distance in the hallway. Just like children, they are innocent and perfect from a safe distance.
Though, for those in-between childhood and adulthood it’s more of the room, not the garden that is important. In this case the entire scenario is changed. The fall down the hole represents childhood, a quick journey that you cannot control presenting a plethora of strange and almost useless things.
Now the hall in which Alice finds herself represents the stage of adolescence. To those going through it they often find the time a dark, lonely and empty place. And as Alice rapidly changes sizes she represents teenagers herself and the struggles they face in growing up and getting to adulthood, which in this case is the garden.
To a teenager the garden could represent adulthood. The garden would represent what it would be like to be an adult. In comparison to the lonely dank hallway the open garden seems like a much better place to be. Alice’s struggle to get in represents the trouble teenagers face in fully developing into adult hood.
And last to the adults, the garden simply represents paradise. It is a place of serenity and a peace. In comparison to the hallway in which Alice finds herself the garden seems infinitely better. Adults are hardly ever content with what they have—more so than children—they are always striving for something, a promotion, a better job, a vacation, or something better than what they have. The garden represents everything that they wish to have and have to fight to gain.
The White Rabbit that leads Alice down the hole can as well represent various things. It all just depends on how you look at it.
To a child Alice following the rabbit out of curiosity is less of an actual symbol, but more of the moral of the story. A simple moral preaching against curiosity.
What does the White Rabbit mean to a teenager though? The Rabbit runs by, worried about being late for something. Teenagers are often under pressure to always be on time. Sometimes it’s about school, going to see a movie, or in how fast or slow you grow up. Everyone always has expectations for how much time you spend on everything.
For adults though, the White Rabbit does not represent time as strongly as it would for a teenager. It would more symbolize the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The Rabbit rushes by without the time to stop and enjoy the simple things in life that Victorian Romantics were always so fond of preaching. Adults should stop and enjoy the simple silly things in life, much like children do.
In chapter five Alice finds herself at just three inches tall and comes across a caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a hookah. He is very rude to her and questions her about her identity and purpose.
To children the caterpillar possibly represents a teacher. He asks her to recite poems that many Victorian children were made to memorize, and gets very angry when she insults him. Or possibly he could just represent a personified caterpillar. Nonsense like that is always easily accepted by children.
What about to a teenager though? Well to a teenager the questions the caterpillar asks implicate that he represents society as a whole. He asks her questions about who she is and what she is, none of these questions she could answer. The frustration between the two parties grows steadily as Alice cannot answer the questions as the caterpillar would like. Teenagers are faced with questions like Alice was faced with, and it is not unusual that the ones who ask the questions are answered unhappily for them. In this way the caterpillar represents society and its harsh demands for teenagers.
The caterpillar is found smoking a hookah, undoubtedly the hookah is filled with opium—a very popular drug at the time—so it would logically follow that to an adult the caterpillar would represent nothing more than the drug use of the time. Adults do not have to deal with the harsh demands about identity that teenagers are forced to every single day. If the adults are confronted with these questions, it is not as often as teenagers.
One of the more famous images of this book is that of the Cheshire Cat, a mischievous little cat with the ability to appear and disappear at will. He is the first creature to be kind to Alice while she was there as well.
To a child the Cheshire Cat might represent friendship. No one else in Wonderland had been kind to Alice, and it is the closest thing she has come to as a friend. Alice’s need of help and a friend push that image into ones mind.
Teenagers are often faced with the bitterness and harsh realities about people. The other people in the book illustrate the selfish and unkind aspects of human nature, but the Cheshire Cat is kind and helpful to Alice. So I’d imagine that the Cheshire Cat is symbolic of the clinging hope that teenagers hold on to that there is some good in the hearts of all people, or that there are good people in the world.
To an adult I would imagine that the Cheshire Cat would represent the true madness of Wonderland, and in a way that of us all. He is the only one who understands that there is something not real about Wonderland. It is all a creation of Alice’s imagination, and is crazy enough to not care.
Another signature part is the card army. A deck of cards—ruled by the king and queen of hearts—used as an army in the Queen’s croquet ground.
To children the deck of cards working as the army would quite easily be dismissed as just more of the nonsense of Wonderland.
But to teenagers the deck of cards represents the need for individuality. Every card is of the same deck, so there is only one card of every number and suit. Each is individual enough, but essentially the same. Teenagers are often lost while they try to find a stronger sense of individuality. Knowing that each card is almost a clone of any other stresses this.
To adults the cards may represent the corrupted social system that was taking place at the time—still in effect today, but not quite as impressive. The fact that it is objects ordering and moving around humans and other animals puts the idea that the social system is ridiculous into our heads, and the numbers on the cards suggests various levels in the higher achy.
Now what about the looking-glass in the beginning of the second book?
Children are fascinated with mirrors, a reverse image of the world around them and a way to see themselves more than just looking around. For them Alice managing to go through the looking glass is a symbol for the power of imagination, she imagined that she went through and she did. What is more powerful to children than that?
To teenagers it symbolizes entering into adolescence. Throughout the book Alice shows more control over her path than she did while she was in Wonderland, which shows the freedom that teenagers are given, but with the restrictions of the nonsensical world. The looking-glass world has everything turned backwards, which is common to the theme that when entering into the adult world everything you thought you knew is wrong.
Perhaps to adults the looking-glass world symbolizes the same as it does to children, imagination. The book makes notes and comments about Alice’s imagination. She imagines things with the kitten, and Lewis Carroll goes into an explanation of everything Alice likes to pretend.
The looking-glass world is composed entirely of a giant chess board. Each block is a different move and separated by a brook. What does the chessboard mean though?
A child might think of it as just pure nonsense. Not everything must have a symbolic meaning to everyone—after all are we finding what Lewis Carroll wanted us to find? Or are we finding things Lewis Carroll didn’t even think about?
Chess is a very structured game with specific rules. This could lead to the theory that it represents school—they had schools even in Victorian times, not everyone was taught by a governess. Schools are very structured with many rules and codes of behavior, just like a game of chess.
Much like the card army found in Wonderland the chess board could represent the social order; Alice begins as a pawn and slowly works her way up to being a queen. It stands for the actual social order and possibly climbing through the ranks in a job, starting at an intern and eventually rising to manager or CEO.
Later in the story Alice is told the poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter”. The poem features a business like walrus and an every day entrepreneur carpenter who convince oysters to go for a walk, and in the end they eat the oysters.
Children may see the poem as less of a symbol and more as a moral. The poem is most certainly not nonsense—though it has some nonsensical bits to it—it expresses the distrust that is often pressed upon children when it comes to adults. But it does not involve the deeper parts for the children; they are too innocent to be exposed to the harsher points of life.
One of those harsher points is the understanding that life requires the taking of other lives to continue. This is more for the teenagers; it is a harsh truth that they are ready to fully understand. A lion must eat other animals in order to survive, and people eat other types of animals to keep us alive.
And the final point about “The Walrus and the Carpenter” is mostly reserved for adults. It shows the struggling conflict between humanity, business, and nature. The walrus would represent the business part—judging from the very persuasive way he speaks to the oysters and the illustrations the show him in a suit—and the carpenter would be the bit of humanity—him being human. Now what do the two do? They dupe all the oysters into following them, and then proceed to eat the helpless little creatures. It very strongly represents the endless battle between humanity as a whole and nature.
Shortly after the poem is told to Alice Tweedleedee and Tweedledum show her the Red King, who is sleeping peacefully under a tree. He only holds one symbolic meaning that I can tell—well more of a question than actual symbol of a thing. The two tell Alice that the Red King is dreaming of her, and if he were to wake she would vanish in a puff of smoke, but to Alice she is dreaming of the Red King. Who is dreaming of the other? The Red King never wakes, so we never know. But the whole situation brings up the question of what is real, for Alice and everyone. If the Red King is dreaming of Alice and she is not real, then the book is not real, and we could go even further to say that we are not real either.
Is the Red King the one who dreamed it all up? Or did Alice? Did Lewis Carroll put all the symbolism in there intentionally, or was it all our own invention because we looked for it?
