What Is The Meaning?

It seems that the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has no true meaning to it.

Alice goes through many adventures that collectively mean nothing. There is no flow and it seems there is no true objective or underlying theme in the book. There are many hidden meanings behind the characters and the situations in which the characters are put through. An example would be the book’s main character Alice. It is widely known that Carroll based the Alice in the book with a girl he met named Alice Liddell. Even though there are many hidden meanings, they don’t come together to form a hidden theme.

There is no common theme behind the hidden meanings, which is kind of strange considering books usually have a common theme or meaning and if they have a hidden meaning it usually comes together. For example Animal Farm, a book about animals that overthrow their farmer and rule the farm, the whole book has a story that flows and has a common hidden theme and meaning about Stalin and the era in which he ruled.

Alice doesn’t have a common hidden meaning throughout the book; it’s a jumble of hidden meanings that don’t come together. For example, the Duchess talking about morals, this has nothing to do with the mock turtles story, both have hidden meanings, and are in no relation with each other in hidden meaning or the story in general, the only thing they have in common is that there Alice is in the scene and the scenes are in the same book.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is not a satirical attack or a thoughtful analysis of something. It is a book about a girl and her random journeys that collectively seem to mean nothing and the hidden meanings behind the story seem to mean nothing together.

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3 Comments

  1. I disagree, I think that Lewis Carroll used things from his life and put them into the story. I know that some of the things that happen to Alice are very random to us, but actually some of the annotations make sense and I think that all of these characters symbolize something, we just have no idea what Carroll is trying to portray with these weird characters and events.

  2. Perhaps the meaning IS there is no meaning…

    Nah I’m just messing with you. DO you want to know why “Alice in Wonderland” is unconnected? Because the story was designed for a little girl. Because the point was never to become famous or to teach the masses with some grandiose idea. Lewis didn’t care if people enjoyed his work. Lewis probably didn’t even care if even he enjoyed his own work. All that truly mattered to him was if Alice liked it. If she did then why in the world would he care if others enjoyed it too?

    Also its lack of internal structure may actually have been one of its selling points. By breaking all the rules of writing I think he better allowed himself to focus on the metaphors and hidden meanings in the story.

    I totally agree that Alice had no internal structure. The thing is though I think this is a good thing.

  3. Very nice analysis about the story. I have also noticed the book had no definite point or moral it tried to tell us. But then again, you have to remember who Carroll wrote the book for. He wrote the book for a child, which means most of the hidden messages and morals we not supposed to be understood. To a child, the book is just fine the way it is. It has everything a child would want. It has ecstatic characters, funny happenings, and a plot that would keep the kids listening.

    If you were to look at it as an adult, you wouldn’t totally understand.


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  • Welcome to the “Alice Project”

    What happens when a group of insightful 10th grade students explore Alice's journey into Wonderland?