#32 Alice in Wonderland Special: What Does it Mean? (And: How to Be Happy)

Braced with a cup of tea and a pen

It is time once again

To enter Wonderland.

Today I ask, what is Alice in Wonderland really about? Can it even show us how to be happy?

After some deep insights, have fun with some fresh rounds of Exquisite Corpse word play for some seriously weird story ideas!

 
So what does it mean?
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I can’t help but think that this is part of what makes Alice in Wonderland so enduring: no-one can be quite sure, but because of that, we keep trying. It lingers in our minds because it’s a puzzle we can never completely solve.

Some people believe that Lewis Carroll took drugs, but there’s no evidence for this. They may point to the Caterpillar smoking its hookah on a mushroom, but don’t forget, you can smoke ordinary tobacco in a hookah (that would have been very well known at the time). Carroll’s writing is so jam-packed with riddles, puns and philosophy. Who could write something so masterful, clever and intricately detailed when they were under the influence of a psychedelic drug?

Alice growing and shrinking probably refers to the weirdness of growing up as a child and trying to get used to being taller, an experience the real Alice would have been going through. Lewis Carroll was a maths tutor at Oxford University, and there are whole books written on ‘decoding’ the maths puzzles he’s embedded in the story, which are in abundance for those who want to look for them. (Not me!)

He also made jokes about real people he knew by parodying them as creatures in the tale. The real Alice’s father was constantly late although he always carried a pocket watch. Sound familiar?

But what about the overarching story, of a child who falls down a hole underground? Bear in mind that the original story was called Alice’s Adventures Underground.

A Greek myth begins with Persephone in a field full of flowers with her sister, and she falls down a hole into the underworld. Well, she is kidnapped by Hades and trapped there: this myth symbolises the changing of the seasons, and the Persephone story echoes in myths across Europe where the goddess of spring disappears under the ground during winter to come up again when spring emerges. The goddess of spring is also associated with a rabbit who is a guide to the underworld. (I guess, bunnies do know their way underground so that does kind of make sense.) The British version is Estre, the original Easter and celebration of spring.

But to me, these all feel like individual references, pieces of meaning you might discover in the story. I’m more interested in the bigger picture than in the details. What is the overarching meaning of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? What is Carroll trying to say?

The book is permeated by the strangeness of a dream. If it’s true that Carroll first made up the story during a boat trip down the river, without pen and paper, it sounds like he was a discovery writer. So then we can ask, not just “What was he trying to say?” but “What was he trying to discover?” or “What was his subconscious mind showing him through these spontaneous characters and ideas,” before he reshaped and edited them afterwards.

Some people say it’s about growing up and moving on from the nonsensical thinking you have a child. Alice goes from a whimsical child at the beginning, dreaming of another world, to someone who, frustrated by these characters who just don’t make sense, eventually calls them out when she says to the queen’s guards, “But you’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

This idea is quite popular, that she’s ‘got over’ nonsense; she’s had her adventure and at the end she’s ready to return to the real world, and to a life of common sense.

But I find this a slightly depressing interpretation. I feel that it reduces Wonderland, it almost belittles Alice’s adventure, suggesting we should forget about it afterwards. The problem with this interpretation is very practical: even as adults, we want to return to it and revisit Wonderland. Also, a certain amount of escapism is important, possibly even vital for our mental health, otherwise, stories probably wouldn’t exist. We need an escape from the real world from time to time, to be able to cope with stress. And often – more often, lately – I find myself looking at the world and thinking, that doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Also, don’t forget that Alice returns to Wonderland in Through the Looking Glass, so if you think her adventures are over, they’re not.

What would life be like if we were never curious, never questioned anything, never dreamed? Carroll clearly valued these qualities: Don’t just accept everything without questioning, without exploring; wondering and wandering.

Carroll invented the story spontaneously, on a river, following the whims of his imagination. The idea that he thought we should set aside our childlike curiosity seems opposite to that, anathema to Wonderland itself.
No, I prefer the interpretation John Truby gives in his book “The Anatomy of Genres”, which is an amazing book that describes the philosophical purpose of each genre, and what it says about the world. Truby says that Wonderland signifies the mind as monster, the monster of illogic. For there are parts of us that definitely don’t make real-world sense, and it’s these that Alice encounters.

But this monstrous illogic isn’t confined to the depths of one person’s own mind: the fantasy of Alice also comments on the world of the real and says, “This isn’t quite right. This world is full of contradictions”. In Truby’s philosophical exploration of genres, he says the underlying ‘goal’ of fantasy is how to find happiness. And he says that nonsense is extremely valuable when it comes to finding happiness.

I agree, that when faced with the frustrations and limitations of reality, if cannot think beyond it, we have no hope of happiness. Much of our sense of wellbeing comes from the ability to see beyond what we have and know and do at this point in time, and to imagine better for ourselves and our loved ones, and even the world at large.

Happiness is not a destination, a state of mind that you arrive at once you’ve finally ‘got’ something or achieved something. We’re always going to want more. That doesn’t mean we have to be greedy or let these desires consume us. Having goals, having a sense of purpose and curiosity, is part of what makes us happy. We just need to balance gratefulness for what we have already with a measured approach to goal-setting. If we don’t have something to work towards, then we’re miserable.

Reality isn’t enough. Stories teach us that.

So let’s be whimsical and playful in our approach to stories, so we can make up adventures where there were none a moment before; so we can escape, find some fun and a little bit of much-needed nonsense.

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So before we share a few rounds of Exquisite Corpse, here’s a publishing opportunity I stumbled across on the world wide web. Hearth and Coffin Literary Journal is looking for microfiction from 15th July to 31st August 2023. (If you’re listening in the future, they may be looking for something else.) At the time of recording they have no genre restrictions and accept prose and poetry with just 1 rule: no longer than 500 words (not including the title).

For information go to hearthandcoffin.com and that’s with the ‘and’ spelled out.

As always, check the terms and conditions before you decide where you’d like to submit your creative work.
Now, as the river of time flows on let’s plunge down the hole of the unknown and enter the underworld of imagination.

What story suggestions will we find in the socks of destiny?
 
Listen to the story brainstorms in the link at the top of the page. (Magic is not transposable!)