Power Struggle In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

In Aihong Ren’s article Power Struggle Between the Adult and Child in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Ren showcases how “Carroll exposes and challenges the power relationships of adult and child” (Ren 1659) throughout Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland in an exaggerated, satirical manner in order to highlight the unreasonable suppression of children during that time. Ren goes on to state how “the relationship between adults and children in never equal in real life, more so in the underground” (Ren 1660). Each character Alice encounters in Wonderland is represented as an adult that Alice struggles to gain power from throughout her adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s interaction with the Lory during the Pool of Tears is just one example of the

Alice’s interaction with the Duchess and Mad Hatter also show the absurd nature of the power struggle between adult and child when “Alice is attacked as being a fool for asking questions” (Ren 1661) by the Duchess and is even called “stupid” (Carroll 71) by the Hatter during A Mad Tea-Party. It 's not until the climax of the novel when Alice realizes her “power comes from her unusual ability to change her appearance into different sizes” (Ren 1662) when she challenges the Queen of Hearts during the court scene and truly understands she had power to begin with. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll “portrays the struggle of power between the adult and Child” (Ren 1659) while displaying “a strong sympathy for the child Alice” (Ren 1660) in order to highlight the faults of the treatment of children during that

Stephanie Schatz reflects on the “link between childhood flights of fancy and ‘mental derangement in mature life’” (Schats 93) shown through Alice’s interactions within the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll’s Alice had “difficulty in differentiating fiction from reality” (Schatz 103) due to her imagination which was an argued issue among Victorian medical communities. Many believed that “childhood imagination was very quickly morphing into evidence of a weakened constitution and a possible indication of a nervous disorder-both precursors of madness” (Schatz 97) that Carroll wished to challenge. Carroll fought the Victorian educational system that “trivialized imaginative pursuits” (Schatz 105) with his novels that turned away from didactic literature that focused solely on teachings to novels that welcome the “value of childhood imagination” (Schatz