“’I know something interesting is sure to happen,’ she said to herself, ‘whenever I eat or drink anything: so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again’” (Carroll 27). As Alice enters wonderland, she immediately faces the ideology of uncanniness and the ideological state apparatus of wonderland: food. Food is a driving force that controls those living in this world, as well as Alice. Food ultimately takes away Alice’s agency and seeks to lead her in a new direction that best suits the needs of the state – which in this case is the world of Wonderland and the hierarchy set in place in this new world. Food is an ideological state apparatus in Alice in Wonderland because it controls the inhabitants and Alice’s self-narrative and identity through manipulation and physical …show more content…
When Alice faces another size related issue, “she noticed, with some surprise, that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes … and a bright idea came into her head. ‘If I eat one of these cakes,’ she thought, ‘it’s sure to make some change in my size’” (Carroll 31). Alice no longer has to be told to eat the cakes but instinctually thinks it is in her best interest to eat them. At no point does she consider whether or not the cakes are safe to eat; she is also only slightly surprised by this strange transformation of pebbles to cakes. Alice only has to eat one of the many cakes and “was delighted to find she began shrinking directly” (Carroll 31). Now small, Alice enters the garden and determines a new goal: turn back to her original size. The food’s manipulation of Alice’s size has lead to her constant focus on her size and the need for her size to change. This encounter with the pebbles that turned into cakes works to condition Alice to use food to solve her problems and work in her favor, despite it functioning in the opposite