The Roles of Language in Alice in Wonderland

Language plays many roles in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Wielding his words like an artist's brush, Carroll illustrates Alice's powers of reason, gives her identity, explores rules of conversation, and finally shows the absurdity of reading too much into written words. Carroll uses language masterfully, yet he seems to indicate the fallacy of taking language too seriously. From the beginning of the book, Carroll portrays Alice as a remarkably intelligent little girl, demonstrating this through her verbal reasoning. After drinking the bottle of cordial and shrinking down to the proper size for entering the garden, she finds she has left the key to the garden on the table, now far above her head. Finding a current cake that will likely produce another change in her size, she decides to eat it: "if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens" (Carroll 6). Although the automatic response would be to mistrust effects the cake might have on her, Alice wisely recognizes that any change in size, whether it be smaller or larger, can suit her purpose. Alice's powers of reasoning are in fact so pronounced as to seem incongruous to a little girl's character. In his book Poetics, Aristotle insists that "character must be appropriate" (52). As an example, he claims that any display of intelligence in a woman would be inappropriate (52). Although he does not mention the appropriate characterization for children, it follows that if intelligence in a female character would be unbelievable, then such reasoning in a little girl should be even more so. Horace supports the notion of appropriateness as well, mentioning in The Art of Poetry, "Make careful note of the way each age group behaves, /And apply the right tone to their changeable natures and years" (71). One could certainly argue that Alice's fearless reasoning as to the advantages of eating the cake is uncharacteristic of a child. However, even while Carroll uses Alice's reasoning to draw attention to her, he skillfully weaves Alice's childish nature into her words, as when she announces, "and I don't care which happens!" (Carroll 6). Despite her intuitive reasoning, her speech is still a child's. This would perhaps restore her value as a character for Aristotle, who said, "too brilliant a diction conceals character and thought" (Aristotle 61). Indeed, Alice's reasoning is always stated plainly, as a child might conceivably speak. At the mad tea party, when the Dormouse is telling his story, Alice keeps interrupting. Noting discrepancies in the story that the others seem to overlook, she says, "But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?" (Carroll 49). Alice has observed that it is difficult to draw something out of a well if you are already in the well, yet the rest of the characters treat Alice's questions with impatience. Despite the sense of her questions, they are phrased as a child asking, "why?" repeatedly, which keeps her in character for a little girl even as she displays her intelligence. In this manner her reasoning stands out from the complexities of the nonsensical Wonderland. Another function of language in Alice in Wonderland is to explore Alice's identity. According to Martin Heidegger, human identity is dependent on language: "The being of men is founded in language. But this only becomes actual in conversation" (566). Alice shows evidence of this identity through language. Having found her size so abruptly altered with eating the current cake, she questions if she is still herself: "Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. (Carroll 8) Later, during her conversation with the caterpillar, Alice's introspection continues: "Who are you?" said the Caterpillar. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I - I hardly know, Sir, just at present - at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." "What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar, sternly. "Explain yourself!" "I ca'n't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see." (Carroll 27-28) What Alice does not seem to realize - although it is conceivable that the caterpillar does - is that by reasoning her way through her identity crisis, and explaining her problem in conversation with the caterpillar, she is demonstrating that she is, in fact, herself. Carroll also explores the rules or social conventions of language. Early in the story, Alice strikes up a conversation with a mouse. She only succeeds in offending it, however, by talking about cats:

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats." "Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would you like cats, if you were me?" (Carroll 11) Throughout her time in Wonderland, Alice learns to adjust her conversation topics to her size, and not offend creatures with reminders of where they rank on the food chain. She demonstrates her new understanding of Wonderland's rules of etiquette during her visit with the Mock Turtle: "Oh, as to the whiting," said the Mock Turtle, "they - you've seen them, or course?" "Yes," said Alice, "I've often seen them at dinn - " she checked herself hastily. (Carroll 68) Alice's adaptation to Wonderland's rules of conversation echoes Ferdinand de Saussure's principles of language, in which the rules of language, the langue, are learned through parole, conversation with individuals (Richter 810). Alice has learned from her previous encounters with Wonderland creatures what is considered offensive by the rules of language, and stops herself just in time from mentioning that in her world, whiting are food, not friends. Ironically, Carroll's final exploration of language shows the absurdity of analyzing a piece of literature for meaning - what we've been doing with his piece all along. In her essay "Against Interpretation," Susan Sontag reminisces about the lost "innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself", and discourages against any attempt to find profound meaning (691). As if to support her position, in the end of Alice in Wonderland the King reads a poem taken as evidence that the Knave is guilty of having stolen the tarts. "That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet," said the King, rubbing his hands; "so now let the jury -" "If any one of them can explain it," said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit afraid of interrupting him,) "I'll give him sixpence. I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it." "If there's no meaning in it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know," he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; "I seem to see some meaning in them, after all." (Carroll 82) The King then proceeds to dissect the poem in order to find its meaning. He is, in fact, analyzing the poem with the interpretation already decided upon - a fallacy that is all too easy for an overzealous scholar to commit. Alice, on the other hand, is willing to take the poem at face value - as a poem, and nothing more - thereby displaying the innocence that Sontag so wistfully describes. Using the conflict between the King and Alice, Carroll makes a statement about the danger of trying to read too much into a work of art. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is a marvelous exploration of language. Carroll uses language to set Alice apart as intelligent, even while he uses simplicity of diction to show that she is still a little girl. Using a mixture of introspection and conversation, Carroll explores the issue of identity, successfully demonstrating that Alice's identity through her reasoning abilities, even though she herself doubts who she is. Carroll also plays with the rules of language and how they are learned, by putting Alice in unheard of situations and demonstrating how she learns the new laws of conversation etiquette. Finally, by showing the absurdity of using a poem as criminal evidence, Carroll berates his readers for trying to read too much into his own story. The many roles of language in Alice in Wonderland show Carroll's skill at manipulating words to make his points.

Works Cited
Aristotle. "Poetics." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 42-64. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993. Heidegger, Martin. "Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 563-570. Horace. "The Art of Poetry." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 68- 78. Richter, David H., ed. "Structuralism, Semiotics, and Deconstruction." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 809-834. Sontag, Susan. "Against Interpretation." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 691-696.