Wonderland Satire

“If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice, “I’ll give him sixpence. I don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.” In the book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, a little girl named Alice follows a White Rabbit through a hole into a topsy turvy chaotic world where she has many absurd adventures. From the March Hare, Dormouse, and Mad Hatter’s tea party to the game of crochet with the Queen of Hearts, Alice meets many strange characters. Finally, at the end of the story Alice wakes to find all her adventures was a dream. Many people throughout the years have tried to determine whether Carroll meant for Alice in Wonderland to be satirical. I believe he did not intend for his book to be satirical for three

Alice’s goal in the story was to get to her normal size and then get to the beautiful flowers. There is no theme in trying to get to the flowers. Alice only wanders through wonderland with no purpose except for Carroll to introduce odd characters to entertain the reader. His characters make enough sense to form complete sentences, but don’t make enough sense to form logical sentences. At the end, Alice wakes and is entertained by her dream. The second reason is Lewis’ personal view. Lewis Carroll intended his book to be a break from the strict rules of the Victorian society, not to ridicule, just to entertain children in a formal culture. In response to Carroll’s book many people wanted to know the answer to the Mad Hatter’s riddle. The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was “Why is a raven like a

Lastly, the third reason is a break from formality. Lewis Carroll’s book was meant to amuse, which he has done excellently for many years. During the Victorian age, society was covered with rules and regulations, Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a break from the overbearing rules placed on society. Lewis Carroll said, “One of the secrets of life is, that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.” Since Carroll believed this, we can conclude he was writing his book for others, others entertainment.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' Lewis Carroll. Many scholars believed to have discovered an underlying message in Carroll’s Alice in wonderland, but just like humpty Dumpty can choose what a word means, people can choose to find some other message in Carroll’s work than what originally was intended. Carroll did not intend for his book to be satirical for three reasons: there’s no theme, Lewis’ personal view, and break from formality. His book offers a delicate balance of nonsense and sense, which frustrates Alice, but delights us (most of the