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HOW DID VICTORIAN IDEALS AFFECT CHILDREN IN THE 19TH CENTURY?

LITERARY MONOGRAPH

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

LEWIS CARROLL

MARÍA GABRIELA CASTRO

11TH GRADE

JUNE 2022

LICEO BENALCAZAR

SANTIAGO DE CALI, COLOMBIA

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“Alice! A childish story take,

And with a gentle hand,

Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined

In Memory's mystic band,

Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers

Plucked in far-off land” (Carroll, 1865)

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Acknowledgments

Without doubt, the kind of person I am today, able to have given my best to write this

monograph, is thanks to the people around me whose support I have never lacked.

To my mom, I would like to show you my most fond greetings for building a strong

woman out of myself, capable of accomplishing any goal set on my way, and being a

consistent reminder of the value of self-love.

To my dad, I couldn't be more grateful to have a person like you to protect me and

love me for who I am, in spite of the uncertainty you have about my decisions. And above all,

thank you for making me feel your presence and support no matter how far you are.

To my brother, my one and only everlasting friend, any of the things I've done

couldn’t have been possible if I hadn't learnt from the responsibility and genuine uprightness

you apply in your life day to day.

To my grandmother, Rosa, the flower that has made my life sweeter and has filled it

with the most tender love since the beginning. Thank you for supporting me and praying for

me to reach the end of this wonderful journey in the most delightful way.

Furthermore, as ironic as it can be, I'm thankful to myself for pushing limits I didn't

even imagine I could be close to touch.

Lastly, I estimate the efforts of admirers, philanthropists, psychologists and historians,

to keep alive the flame of imagination that Charles L. Dodgson once lit in thousands of

children who desperately needed to step out of their square reality and discover themselves

and, through it, the world that surrounded them.

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ABSTRACT

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a literary fantasy work written by Charles

Lutwidge Dodgson, under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, and published during the Victorian

Age in 1865. It tells the story of a girl bored of the monotony of the world she lives in, who

after falling down through a rabbithole, ends up in Wonderland, a place where people and

habits turn out to go way beyond the limits of ordinary. The novel's significance rests on the

implicit criticism it contains about the extremely moralising education that mid-class children

got at the time; in addition, it represents the value of a child’s basic need to recreate. The

recognition of the psychological consequences on childhood due to this context, was set as

the main objective of this monograph, supporting on how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

turns out to be a literary resemblance of it.

In order to accomplish the production of this monograph, extensive research was

carried out using resources such as online historical articles and essays on 19th century

United Kingdom’s context, literary reviews and study guides about the novel, biographies of

Charles L. Dodgson and scientific studies on recreation effects on human development.

Based on it, adequate data was collected to identify the relevance of infants' freedoms in the

parenting process as a method of nurturing imagination and creativity through the significant

physical and cognitive stimulation that the respect for the children’s need provides them, a

fact for which the novel is considered to advocate.

Keywords: children, Victorian Age, United Kingdom, children’s needs, behaviour,

middle class, moralising, freedom.

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Index

Problematic question………………………………………………………………………….7

Rationale………………………………………………………………………………………8

Objectives……………………………………………………………………………………..9

Biography of Lewis Carroll…………………………………………………………………..10

Early Years…………………………………………………………………………………….10

Oxford and Liddles…………………………………………………………………………..10

Late Years……………………………………………………………………………….……..13

Literary Analysis……………………………………………………………………………..14

Textual Macrostructure………………………………………………………………………14

Narrator………………………………………………………………………………………..19

Time…………………………………………………………………………………………….20

Characters……………………………………………………………………………………..21

Places…………………………………………………………………………………………..23

Reviewer Commentary.………………………………………………………………………24

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..24

Context……………………………………………………………………………………….26

How Did Victorian Ideals Affect Children In The 19th Century?...........................................30

Victorian Ideals………………………………………………………………………………..32

Consequences Of Excessive Behavioural Limits………………………………………….42

The Needs of Children………………………………………………………………………..45

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..47

Sources……………………………………………………………………………………….49
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Problematic Question

How Did Victorian Ideals Affect Children In The 19th Century?

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Rationale

Widely considered one of the most emblematic books of fantasy children's literature,

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was published in 1865 by the author Charles L. Dodgson,

under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. This novel tells the story of a little British girl named

Alice who, after chasing a white rabbit, falls into a burrow leading to the entrance of

Wonderland. There, she lives many adventures accompanied by the crazy people who inhabit

the place which will serve to help or hinder her journey until the moment she decides to

return home.

While everything was delightful inside Dodgson's writings, the reality that surrounded

him was not similar at all. Victorian years were passing in the 19th century and British

society was in the centre of an abrupt transformation caused by the growth of cities and

middle classes. As this happened, a collective feeling of fear spread among the working class’

families, simultaneous to the arrival of new more demanding pedagogical paradigms that

implied parenting methods which would overstep the cognitive needs of children as a way to

not return to the situation they just managed to escape from.

Thereupon, Charles L. Dodgson, inspired in this unfortunate context, used his writing

as a means to critic and escape from the ridiculous authority Victorian ideals had on every

single aspect of children's lives, depriving them of the opportunity to develop their barely

developed senses. In like manner, the elements and events that compose the story of Alice’s

Adventures in Wonderland are a satirical reflection of the standards with which the behaviour

of infants had to comply.

The value of the research carried out on this matter lies in the acknowledgment of the

psychological necessities of children as an imperative which must be covered as a result of

the respect for their liberties to live a happy and worthy life.
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Objectives

I. Identify the main characteristics and aspects that make Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland a distinguished literary work in children's fantasy literature.

II. Recognize the circumstances that conditioned Lewis Carroll’s ideas and perceptions,

and its resemblance in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

III. Acknowledge the value of children’s psychological welfare by understanding the

effects of England’s context in the 19th century on infants.

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Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as

Lewis Carroll, was a noted writer, mathematician,

photographer and an English church official

predominantly recognized by being the author of two of

the most iconic books in English fiction: Alice’s

Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the

Looking-Glass and what Alice found there (1871).

Early Years:

Charles Dodgson was born on January 27th in 1832 in a small village and civil parish

called Daresbury in Cheshire, England, in which his father served as a reverend. Charles was

the eldest son and the third in a family of eleven children. He was always surrounded by his

eight younger brothers and sisters, who enjoyed being entertained with the magic tricks,

marionette shows, poetry and stories that Charles made up with great ease, some of which

were written in a homemade newspaper that would inspire him to write his later published

works as an adult. Thereby, living in an isolated country village without many friends wasn’t

an excuse for the Dodgson children to not be creative and have fun thanks to whatever came

out of Charles’ imagination.

During Charles' youngest years, he and his siblings were tutored by his father at

home. However, when he turned 14 years old, he started attending the Rugby Public School.

A place where he was unhappy, principally because of his shyness and other kids' mockery of

his partial deafness, but despite it, he still stood out as an excellent student.

Oxford and Liddles:

Understandably, by judging on his academic abilities, Charles entered in 1850 into

the prestigious Christ Church College in Oxford to study classics and mathematics. He
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graduated four years later and, in 1855, he became an honoured mathematical lecturer at this

same institution until 1881. After agreeing on taking holy orders and remaining unmarried,

Charles turned into a deacon in 1861, what not only meant he started earning a decent amount

of money and spending most of his days at Christ Church, but he also got closer and closer to

the college employee community, more significantly to the college headmaster, Henry G.

Liddell, and his family who treated him as a part of it.

Throughout Charles' life, he had demonstrated a special bond with children, which

explains why his relationship with headmaster family only became more intimate due to the

connection that grew between him and the Liddell girls, who held a high place in Charles’

affections. He used to visit them every weekend at their home, where they would have dinner

and share a lovely time. Meanwhile, with his enormous charisma and creativity, he told

stories that fascinated and made the children laugh. As Alice Lidell remembered (1932), they

used to sit on the big sofa on each side of him, while he told us stories, illustrating

them by pencil or ink drawings as he went along… He seemed to have an endless

store of these fantastical tales, which he made up as he told them... Sometimes they

were new versions of old stories, but grew into new tales owing to the frequent

interruptions which opened up fresh and undreamed-of possibilities. (p. 8)

Charles used to invite the Liddell sisters to take a walk with him around the city, so he

could photograph them and tell them ingenious tales he improvised. One of those days,

during a boat trip on the river, a story named Alice’s Adventures Underground was born,

whose main character was clearly inspired on Alice Liddle, his favourite companion among

the three sisters. Nevertheless, his relationship with the family broke up suddenly, due to the

rumours that were spread about Charles and Alice's friendship.

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In 1865, (ten years after meeting the Liddell family), Charles Dodgson decided to

publish Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a compilation of illustrated manuscripts under

the pseudonym Lewis Carroll; a word puzzle made out from his own real name by translating

his first two names into latin ("Carolus Ludovicus"), then anglicising them and changing their

order. Then, in 1871, this book’s sequel was published by the name of Through the

Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

By this time, Charles' identity was divided into two different personalities:

The first one was Reverend Charles L. Dodgson, an awkward and boring mathematics

teacher, as his students said, but principally an author of outstanding mathematical writings

such as An Elementary Treatise on Determinants (1867), Euclid and His Modern Rivals

(1879), and Curiosa Mathematica (1888), among others. On the other side, there was the poet

and children’s literature writer, Lewis Carroll; distinguished by the use of nonsense as a

narrative strategy in his works, as it is presented in The Hunting of the Snark (1876), A

Tangled Tale (1885) and in the previously mentioned Alice's storybooks.

Even so, the truth was that Charles Dodgson's reserved behaviour around adults was

the surface of a brilliant artist’s fascination on childhood topics which shined throughout his

writings and photographs of little kids. Inevitably, both identities collided as his interests in

mathematical logic came from his pure love from the playful nature of its principle rather

than its uses as a tool (Green. R, Lancelyn, 2021), which at the same time inspired the

linguistic humour and witty wordplay in his stories. Along with it, his great ability to catch

the children's way of thinking gave him an enormous advantage to create fiction attractive

enough to get young people's attention.

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Countless authors have tried to figure out Charles Dodgson's two sided enigmatic

personality. However, many agree on the fact that this last argument seems to be the most

accurate.

Late Years:

By January 14th in 1898, Charles Lutwidg Dodgson died of pneumonia at the age of

sixty six, soon after the publishing of the Sylvie and Bruno books, in his family’s home at

Guildford, England.

Children's literature during the 19th century in England only had a moral purpose.

Due to his success, the legacy Lewis Carroll left gave permission to many other authors from

that time to go beyond what was established and start offering imaginative stories for kids to

have fun while reading.

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Literary Analysis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Textual Macrostructure

As a consequence of the successful development of cities due to the Second Industrial

Revolution in England during the first half of the 19th century, it is considered that most of

the people who belonged to the growing middle classes started being under a great pressure

to keep up with the severely strict social rules on behaviour and etiquette, which they had to

hold to in order to be promoted and earn higher salaries. The price of failure meant public

humiliation since those who couldn’t accomplish performing a perfect and accepted

behaviour were condemned to suffer the hurt of prejudices and criticism.

Over time, the uptight need of middle class families of fitting in, being more decent

and demonstrating proper manners, had severe repercussions on the way children were being

educated. Harsh psychological and physical punishments were part of many parents' routines

to make their kids obey, so that they respected the values that their parents themselves were

pressured under. This not only made the children grow with many complex emotional

traumas to relate with others, but it also caused the limitation of their curiosity and creative

thinking.

Now, placed inside this context of strict social rules, high work competitiveness and

negative effects on the middle class childhood, culture and arts, but more specifically what

referred to children literature, was saturated of moralising narratives that tried to reform the

kids' thinking in order to avoid making mistakes in front of the educated society.

However, in the middle of the storm, Charles Ludwig Dodgson, under the pseudonym

of Lewis Carroll, published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A fantasy novel that includes

satire and elements from nonsense, which turned him into one of the most important authors

who made children literature take a 180 degree turn by writing an incredibly entertaining

novel that, even though it doesn’t include a lesson for kids to learn, it encourages them to use
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their imagination beyond the limits, stimulating their desire to develop their own interests at

the same time they can be having fun; mental processes which are vital for the children

matureness development according to institutions, such as The Institute for

Neuro-Physiological Psychology and the University of California.

Literary Style

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is mostly known for being a fantasy novel that

makes an evident appropriation of various characteristics from different kinds of literature

such as nonsense, lyrical texts and satire, by using a diverse combination of resources such as

absurd metaphors, jokes, word puzzles and poetry.

Nonsense. Even though it may seem like this genre can be full of meaningless

narratives, it is important to clarify that to understand this concept the common nonsense

definition has to be pulled away. This literary style is characterised by the manipulation of

language and words to create attractive stories where sense is defied. According to the

language instructor Becky Dotzer (2021)

Often it constructs then deconstructs the very meaning of words and, through this

process, reveals how arbitrary the semantics (or meaning) of language can be. There

is an inherent complexity woven within the simplistic appearance of literary

nonsense. The story or poem must continually balance between sense and nonsense;

it must remain logical, even though it may at first appear completely illogical. (p.3)

Nonsense is the most important factor that defines Alice’s arrival to Wonderland, so

that the reader can identify the changes the main character has to go through while she

advances on her journey.

Poetry. This literary genre, popular in the Victorian ages during which the book was

written, is characterised by the intense feelings expressed through ideas delivered with

rhythm. By the time Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published, children had the
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obligation of learning different poems by heart. They had to read them over and over again,

which seemed to be really funny to Lewis Carroll, explaining why every single poem in his

book is a parody of real poems of the time.

One of the most representative poems that inspired the poem parodies on the novel is

the highly moral Isaac Watts Against Idleness and Mischief, which starts with the strophe:

"How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower." (Watts, 1864, p. 65)

When Alice starts shrinking for first time in Chapter 2, she can only get to recite it in

the wrong way by saying first:

“How doth the little crocodile

improve his shining tail,” (Carroll, 1865, p. 20)

Another example where poetry is used as a resource to confuse and entertain, appears

when in the Chapter 6, the Duchess sings a lullaby to her baby pig that goes by the verses:

“Speak roughly to your little boy

And beat him when he sneezes,” (Carroll, 1865, p. 85)

Inspired by the iconic victorian poem, Speak Gently by David Bates that starts with:

"Speak gently; it is better far

To rule by love than fear;" (Bates, 1860, p. 5)

Lewis Carroll parody versions of these poems weren’t perfectly written. Nevertheless,

it is sure that they will live long after the originals are forgotten due to the great ability that

the author had to transform something ordinary into a completely different piece that is not

only funny, but also imitates perfectly the informality and mockery of a child.
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Satire. The genre itself is defined as an artistic way where a literary composition

commonly written in verses for dramatic purposes, censures human falences like vices,

abuses and wildness by covering it with irony, parody, jokes and absurd or ridicule. Many

times it has been used to make sharp criticisms about behaviours imposed as an intent to

inspire social reform, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland there is no exception.

In the book, the author uses satire as a resource to question the expectations and

specific roles of civilians that Victorian society demanded. Carroll ironized the British

conventions of the time implicitly satirising and drawing specific attention to many of the

values that were truly ridiculous for him in essence.

This can be found in fragments of the story like the tea party scene with the Mad

Hatter and the March Hare in the seventh chapter, where there’s an evident mockery when

Alice arrives and sees the characters sitting closely in a corner of a large table. There, she

appears in the scene where both characters are dining and sits at the opposite edge and

quickly begins to speak, but she is interrupted by the Hare who explains that it wasn't very

civil of her to sit down without being invited, making an ironic reference to the strange

Victorian Etiquette that included specific ways to approach a table and begin a conversation,

in addition of the expectations commonly older people had around the insignificant role of

children during talks, as being silent was the most preferable way for them to be. This is an

ideal that happens to be reiterated again in the same chapter, when Alice interrupts repeatedly

the dormouse's story about the “three little sisters”. It is considered that, in this part of the

story Lewis Carroll tried to describe the Mad Hatter as someone who would look like an

educated gentleman in front of the most conservative Victorian people, but does not act like a

sane person, with the intention of making fun of people considered decent even more.
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Main Topic

As Alice's Adventures in Wonderland author's context was mainly influenced by the

ideals of the middle classes, it is inferred that the principal thematic that the book covers

implicitly is the difficulty that children had to go through in the 19th century due to the

extremely disciplined conceptions of adults about appropriate behaviour, which restricted

them from developing their curiosity and imagination along with the path of early maturity

during childhood.

Only when Alice goes out from the world she lives in, it is possible for her to live new

interesting and curious adventures that take her into a journey of maturity and comprehension

of the world she is exploring, Wonderland. This is produced by her main desire to know

about where the white rabbit is going that takes the meaning of a first glance of curiosity,

which makes her take on a journey through a whole different world that will not only make

her change and grow emotionally, but also show her how her body is not the same as before

(as a reference to puberty) causing discomfort, frustration, and sadness, which tends to come

with maturity. The traumatic experience of going through so much absurd physical and

emotional changes (like never being the right size or creating a sea out of tears) acts as an

appropriate metaphoric symbol of it.

Subject

Alice dreams about living in a world where normality turns upside down and thanks

to her curiosity for following the path that Wonderland traces for her, she faces great

individual changes.

Main Idea. After wishing for a more fun life in a different world, Alice chases a

human-like acting white rabbit who is arriving late to somewhere unknown. The girl, full of

interest about knowing where he is going, ends up travelling accidently to Wonderland. A

magical place where she tries to keep following the bunny but meets with insane characters in
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different situations that are difficult for her to understand or adapt, along with the constant

annoying body size changes Wonderland puts Alice through. After that, she finds a way into

the Queen of Hearts garden and disrespects her unintentionally, ending up being forced to

participate in the trial of the Knave of Hearts to decide if the girl should be executed or not.

Alice realises that she can control herself and all that happens in Wonderland is a delusion

from which she doesn't know how to escape.

Secondary Ideas. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a novel that not only frames

the odyssey of a girl who gets lost in a world of fantasies where anything can happen, but it

also alludes to the different features that condition Alice’s journey, such as: identity, coming

of age ideals, absurdity, imagination and curiosity.

Narrator

The narrator throughout the story is omniscient, and expresses a third-person point of

view in past tense in a straightforward and gentle or pleasant way. He remains anonymous

while he also voices the feelings, thoughts and opinions the protagonist, Alice, has during her

whole journey, not paying too much attention to describing the events in essence, so it rather

feels like the narrator is mentally accompanying the protagonist while she is travelling across

Wonderland, and also limits the reader’s knowledge about this place, giving the story the

proper context in terms of its madness, confusion and bizarreness. A good example to

illustrate the above can be found in Chapter 1, when Alice is falling down the rabbit hole and

the narrator expresses

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end ? “I wonder how many

miles I ’ve fallen by this time ?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near

the centre of the earth. Let me see : that would be four thousand miles down, I

think—”. (Carroll. 1865. p4)

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Time

Based on the author’s context and on the limited information the novel features about

the ideas that are set during the story, before Alice falls down the rabbit hole, it is inferred

that the historical time that is framed belongs to the second middle of the Victorian age

during the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution, around the 1860’s (same decade

during which the book was written). However this is not literally mentioned by the narrator.

By contrast, when Alice arrives in Wonderland, it cannot be said that the same

historical time passes there as in the world from which Alice comes. Anyway, what the girl

finds in this new place is a parody of Victorian society from her reality, which could mean

that in Wonderland facts and history remain but distorted.

In the case of chronological time, the story progresses linearly through the entire

narrative, without time jumps nor anything of this sort.

As for the environmental time that passes during the novel, based on the first chapter

when Alice is picking daisies to make daisy-chains, it can be said that the story develops in a

day during the period between the spring and the early summer, which refers to the moment

when usually this kind of flower blooms (Macintosh, 2021).

Characters

Alice

She is a seven-year-old English girl from an upper-middle class family who stars in

the novel. She perceives her world as an organised and uninspiring place, which makes her

have an insatiable curiosity for her surroundings and look for the fun side of life. She likes to

explore and has a very particular way of thinking and acting in the environments where she

develops.
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The White Rabbit

He is an anthropomorphic creature from Wonderland who introduces Alice to this

place. The animal is always presented as tremendously hurried. His personality flaws are

represented by his shyness and nervousness.

The Queen of Hearts

She is the powerful leader of Wonderland and the antagonist of the story. Her

personality is despotic, evil, cruel, bad tempered and impatient. The Queen is difficult to

please and her authority demands unquestioned obedience from her subjects, and even the

King. She constantly orders the execution of her inferiors. She enforces the illogical and

nonsense nature of Wonderland with her hypocrisy and chaotic regime.

The King of Hearts

He is not very authoritative and ineffective. He is always looking for the Queen to be

satisfied, which can make him lose his sense of justice, truth and criteria, in order to

accomplish the Queen's desires.

The Cheshire Cat

He is a talking and grinning cat who can appear or disappear wherever and whenever

he wants to. He likes riddles, jokes and games, is very sarcastic and has a peculiar laugh. The

cat’s wisdom and composure helps Alice comprehend how the madness in Wonderland

works.

The Duchess

She is the Queen’s cousin. She is described as a very ugly and rude woman.

Nevertheless, as the story goes on, her behaviour changes to a more affectionate one towards

Alice.
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The Caterpillar

He is an unfriendly talking creature that is found sitting on a mushroom while

smoking hookah. He is the one who tells Alice to eat various parts of the mushroom, which

causes her to change her size.

The Mad Hatter

He is a short and impolite human who is obsessed with tea time to the point that he

remains in an endless tea party along with the March Hare. He enjoys riddles without

solutions and also nonsense games and dynamics. Incoherently, he thinks he knows a lot

about good manners, and reprimands Alice constantly.

The March Hare

He is an anthropomorphic hare that accompanies the Mad Hatter during the Tea Party

and takes great pleasure at it.

The Gryphon

He is one of the Queen’s servants. He establishes a good relationship with Alice and

takes her to the Mock Turtle so she can listen to his stories. He is friendly, kind and self

centred.

The Mock Turtle

He is an anthropomorphic calf turtle with a great ability to tell stories. He likes to

entertain others, he is friendly and very passionate, but often gets exceedingly sentimental

and self-absorbed by what he is narrating.

Alice’s Sister

She is the only other character from Alice’s world that is described. She takes good

care of her sister Alice, likes reading and is mature. At the beginning, she usually tells Alice

to stop thinking of nonsense things but, as the story closes, she daydreams about Alice’s

Adventures.
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The story counts with the appearances of other characters such as:

● The Dormouse

● Bill

● The Knave of Hearts

● The Mouse

● The Pigeon

● The Dodo

● The Duck

● The Pigeon

● The Cook

● The Lory

● The Eaglet

● The Frog-Footman

● Two, Five and Seven

Places

England

As it happens with the historical time of the novel, the place of it is not exposed

explicitly. However, if the author's place of origin (Cheshire, UK) is taken into account, in

addition to the location where the book was written (Oxford, UK) and the seasonal conditions

mentioned before, it is understood that the story takes place somewhere between West and

South England.

The place where Alice lives is surrounded by floral vegetation during the spring and

early summer and is presented as an harmonious place, which calm is preserved through the

compliance with rules and good manners. By understanding that Alice is a girl from the

middle-upper class, it can be said that she probably lives in comfortable conditions for a child
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like her to grow up. Anyway, it can also be that the place where she is during the first part of

the story is a residence where she only stays while the spring and early summer passes.

Wonderland

On other hand, when referring to what Wonderland is, somehow it is located

underneath the earth and the description of it defines it as a place like no other where

anything can happen, unlike Alice’s world. Wonderland is ruled by the Queen of Hearts

monarchy and its population consists of humans and different talking animals, many of which

are anthropomorphic. It is unknown how the economy and many other substantial systems

work there. Also, directions work backwards and so do distances. By inferring that this place

consists of a parody of the real world, most likely every concept in Wonderland is a satirical

and distorted representation of something similar in Alice’s world.

Reviewer Commentary:

From a personal perspective, the masterful composition of the story through the

riddles, jokes and word puzzles that were put together by Lewis Carrol tangled and satiric,

but still logic way of thinking, makes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland shine brighter than

other literary works due to the sense that can be found in its nonsense, and how this can be

the best way to explain how a curious child like Alice would see the world that surrounds her

and learn from it.

Conclusion

The Victorian moralising context within which Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was

written, provoked the creation of this fantasy novel. The combination of nonsense, poetry and

satire is used as a resource to mock or parody the extreme pressure that English society of the

mid 1800’s was under to meet the standards of etiquette, many of which were ridiculous in

essence.
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By focusing the story on the travel of a young curious and imaginative girl named

Alice who travels to a land of madness called Wonderland, Lewis Carrol also reflects the

development of a Victorian childhood and the features to which it tended to be conditioned.

The omniscient narrator who relates Alice 's thoughts, feelings and opinions along with the

events that happen around her, gets the reader to know about the many different other people

and speaking animals that meet Alice on her journey through the fantastic and magical places

she discovers.
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Context

In the mid-nineteenth century, while the Victorian years were passing by, the Second

Industrial Revolution had barely begun in Europe. During this period, England was going

through abysmal changes that would transform the nation forever, which led to a very

significant growth in the cities and to the settlement of a new version of the capitalist system,

based on the manufacture and trade of goods.

It was around that time that the mathematician, writer and photographer, Charles

Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), narrated for the first time, in the middle of a ride with the

Liddle sisters in Oxford, the fantastic story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; which

would become a brand new milestone in universal children's literature and would awaken the

ingenuity of children and adults.

Anyway, the reality within which Dodgson lived couldn’t be described as wonderful

as the world of his tales. Firstly, the divided social scenario of nineteenth century England

presented an evident inequality of privileges, which gave rise to different issues. One of the

consequences of this was, for example, the popularity of illegal sexual work among woman in

vulnerability status, shooting up the cases of transmission of sexual diseases and rapes against

adolescents and adults. Furthermore, crime rates were unbelievably high due to the multiple

robberies and assaults committed to the newly imposed police system, which caused panic in

the upper classes.

Apart from this, the problems for which Charles Dodgson felt most sorry, were

mainly related to those which, as a result of social divisions, perpetrated on the purely

academic environment in which he lived and worked for most of his life as a mathematical

logic professor at Oxford University since 1827. As well as that, he deeply lamented the

difficulties that a large part of the child population was going through, for which he felt great

affection and empathy.

 27

As a middle-class man, Charles enjoyed certain benefits such as being able to aspire

to a job position and a high salary. Such privileges ensured that the aristocracy no longer had

an unfair advantage, achieved thanks to the expansion of the middle class after its members

demanded the creation of laws that were in favour of healthy competition through electoral

and free trade reform, holding that any man could succeed through his own efforts, no matter

how humble were his origins (Hughes, 2014).

Then, a new idea began to grow among these socio-economic classes, suggesting that

an individual's job or charge defined their level of education more than the lineage to which

they belonged, which was the most popular belief previous to it. Subsequently, an immense

pressure influenced the middle class society to perform and try to occupy increasingly better

jobs as a way of complying with the social norms imposed (including the rules of etiquette)

by the people with greater power (such as the royalty, other nobles, lords and businessmen or

landowners). The price of failure was very high, so that those who did not rise were

condemned to be considered guilty or responsible for their poverty and, therefore, lazy or

proud. Indeed, men who had risen from humble homes feared that they might not fit in when

they rose, which is why, for example, manuals with titles like Tips from a Gentleman and

How to Behave were popular, explaining manners in detail, from how to shake hands to how

to break up a conversation politely. Thus, middle-class gentlemen would avoid making

mistakes in polite society.

As a result of the foregoing, and parallelly, the middle class child population also

began to be strongly affected by their parents, already subjected to the ideals and constructs

of what was believed to be an adequate behaviour, forcing them to follow this trend, often

manifested in inhumane ‘techniques’ of punishments, that involved both serious physical and

psychological abuse.
 28

In a way, an outcome that originated from this kind of education was the censorship of

the reality that lower classes were going through, otherwise the supposed corruption of the

infantile essence could have been caused; which not only meant a more intense divergence

among the citizens, but also the intentional disregard to acknowledge the situation of labour

exploitation suffered by the less fortunate children who had to financially support their

unstable families (Griffin, 2014).

Within this context, children's literature revolved solely around long, sophisticated

moralising stories with carefully crafted narratives, in which the characters could learn from

their mistakes or else be punished by some authority. Basically, it represented an implicit

preparation for kids of what was expected for them in their futures as business middle class

men and women who would have to take charge of their own lives to take increasingly higher

job positions, unless they wanted to be socially sentenced to public humiliation.

At that time, it is observed that Charles Dodgson, living in an entirely academic

environment in which he had to abide by etiquette and strict protocols, he had aroused a

feeling of wanting to write stories that were totally outside the established social structures,

such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, mixing nonsense, irony and fantasy. Instead of

conforming to obey, it is very likely that he decided to use it as an escape from the reality in

which he was immersed, and as an opportunity to be a different kind of person than the world

expected him to be. Alice can't find the fun in her own world so she has to create her own,

similar to what happened to Charles when writing the tale.

And in spite of everything, in the middle of all the chaos that surrounded Charles

Dodgson context, under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll, he managed to devise a story that

would give a 360-degree turn to the perspective that was held on children's literature of the

nineteenth century and also on the treatment of childhood. The impact of Alice's Adventures

in Wonderland in the English community of the time not only generated a boom in the idea of
 29

​including recreation in books for the youngest, but also sparked imagination, interest and

curiosity of millions of children whose lives were affected directly or indirectly by the

problems that subjected them, such as labour exploitation and the pressure to maintain a

perfect behaviour. The fantastic story promoted the fact that fun in children is necessary

because it allows them to get out of the accepted limits and give rise to creativity, thus

stimulating their minds to contribute to being part of a society with a more open and free way

of thinking.
 30

How Did Victorian Ideals Affect Children In The 19th Century?

Once upon a time, when children still wore velvet coats and lace collars, there was a

nation led by a powerful Queen, whose ideals and standards were as sky-scraping and

unreasonable as the numbers reached by the amount of subjects that were being suppressed

under misery.

This would be a precise description of the United Kingdom’s narrative during the

Victorian monarchy's splendorous growth in the 19th century, at the same time that a horrible

impoverishment was taking place in most part of the country.

The truth was that, meanwhile, aristocratic indifference was pretending that the

United Kingdom had a privileged position, in fact more than 25% of the English population

lived in extreme poverty (Lambert, 2021), causing almost every child included to be

exploited in highly physically demanding labours. A vile consequence that evidenced the

monarchy’s immorality and presumption in the face of the vulnerable conditions that most

English people of any age were living in.

As this happened, a wave produced by a new conduct code based on professional

upgrading was knocking on the door of every middle class citizen, as this social group was

expanding rapidly. It not only represented a way to improve their relationships with the

businessmen that could give them access to better paid jobs, but also an opportunity to

achieve closeness to higher noble classes' habits. Yet, most importantly, the new formalities

or manners would signify a mean to evade the responsibility of assuming the critical

socio-economic crisis resulting from the low wages, the fast population growth and the lack

of stable employment; and, to cover a collective feeling of fear of imagining going back to

the kind of squalor life these people had just managed to emerge from.

In such a way, the social phenomenon that was increasingly affecting thousands of

middle-income families, placed parents in a social game position awfully hard to play, which
 31

required them to take serious the duty of keeping their offspring away from the precarious

reality of the rest of the nation, as a way to protect them of never having to take part of it

again, now that, after crawling out of penury, their genitors could garantize them a better

future.

Thus, considering the latter, it was expected that the parenting practices or methods of

discipline began to adjust the education biases established by elites, which exclusively

required childs to accomplish certain idealised behaviours, placing them in a position where

they were expected to act just like an adult, even if that meant to follow ridiculous

stipulations on the labelled “good manners” of the epoque; these were characterised for being

published in the moralising children literature that was already getting popular since the 18th

century, which subliminally tell tales that implied to sugar-coat ethic lessons with

entertainment in order to make education more effective (Grenby, 2014). And although it was

a great success that brought many benefits, it left aside many rights and freedoms a children's

development wasn’t allowed to enjoy.

So, if a Victorian mid-class parent needed to instruct his children on fashionable

etiquette, most likely, he would have been confident to look in their nearest bookstore for

titles, such as The Governess, The Purple Jar or The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes,

which taught about the values of commercial qualities (hard work), social virtues (politeness,

obedience to parents) and rationality (rejecting of over-sentimentality and fears), spreading

goodness only within the amount it was convenient. Surely, these kinds of books would have

been the most accurate ones to base the youngest's education on, according to the

shortsighted mindset of their parents, because it was obvious that a well behaved child would

help them way more during a dinner with some rich landowner than a free minded one.

Along with this situation, the perception that British society had on childhood wasn’t

anywhere related to the one we have nowadays. Instead, the way most people saw it was “as
 32

a state to be hurried through in order to achieve adulthood” (Reynolds, 2014). So, despite the

country’s effort to institute a variety of laws aimed at protecting the wellbeing of children,

this activism did not promptly cause the effects it was looking for, as most people were

closed to comprehending why children should enjoy certain freedoms (including play and

recreation). It directly implied consequences such as a negative response to the rights of

children, which defend their developmental and age-appropriate needs, not giving them a

complete chance to enter within the parameters at the time. As even the most representative

English educators opposed with pride the ideas that would start to roam all over Europe about

the rights of man since the French Revolution, that was already a clear suggestion that the

occurrence of considering children should be able to benefit from fundamental liberties

would have seemed absurd to the core academic society of Great Britain.

It is at that point, when the artists of the time ignited the fire of a new kind of thought,

particularly influenced by Romantic ideals, with which they would push the boundaries of

English literature, and culture in general, in contemplation of forming a space for the fantasy

novel tied with the Cult of Childhood, as a forceful response to Victorian paradigms and the

contemptuous perspective on childhood.

In view of it, this scenario would be unimaginable without the arrival of the work of

the author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, with the writing of the

masterpiece: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One of the first children's fantasy books to be

published that took this great step with its amusing and easy going non-sense that criticised

and mocked unapologetically the sermonising British atmosphere.

Victorian Ideals

Firstly, from a factual perspective, It is necessary to be aware that humankind history

in general has been transparent when it comes to adapting methods, socialising strategies

being the most relevant means to feel validated and, through it, get chances of survival. In
 33

this way, taking into account the 19th century England context, the circumstances would be

no different. Outsetting from an analytical point of view, it is possible to attempt to decipher

the reasons why families, in order to acquire the respect of their collectivity, seemed to make

even the smallest and cheapest efforts to correct their conducts, starting with a high concern

at the youngest comportments at a variety of intimate and public spaces.

Secondly, it is worth mentioning that two main elements are noticed to compose

roughly the tacit judgments made by the author on Victorian ideals, in the portraying of the

novel. The suggestion divides the disciplining method of this subject in: first, the concept of

authority that existed in the imaginary of people at the time (especially children) and, second,

the habits and customs that were learnt by young people in accordance with getting the

accurate knowledge to handle future expectations on pleasing or imitating others considered

to have an equal or a higher socio-economic power.

Authority Figures

Firstly, the crystal clear satire on authority figures Alice witness in the course of her

adventure throughout Wonderland, couldn’t be a more distinguishable analogy to the high

class society and adults who were in charge of the indoctrination young children were obliged

to obey.

Particularly, the leadership image the Queen of Hearts portrays is contemplated as the

most discernible illustration of it that can be found in the book. This character stands out for

having a thunderous presence, an easily disturbed temper and a usage to give death sentences

at the slightest offence, described by Carroll himself as a ‘blind fury’. Through this

personality, the allegory that the Queen’s actions make on the sometimes nonsensical

commands and reprimands of adults, is noticed in the Chapter VIII, named The Queen’s

Croquet-Ground. Here, the segment starts with the three Playing Cards who, after planting a
 34

white rosebush, are trying to save their skin from the Queen’s reprimand by painting them

red.

What can be interpreted from this part of the book, is that, just like children following

the orders of their superiors, these cards were capable of doing anything as long as the Queen

wasn’t condemning them because of what they had done; a situation which, one way or

another, would end up in an exaggerated execution sentence (an aggrandized metaphor of the

reprimands infants received). This allows to have a better understanding of the power that the

Queen wielded over her soldier cards, referring in a tacit tone to the fact that otherwise kids

didn’t manage to camouflage their own mistakes, they must have felt deeply afraid of how

their parents would scold them, maybe harming them verbally and physically. A good reason

to not even hesitate in following or not what their parents had taught them as a validated and

correct conduct.

Apart from it, another reference from the novel that alludes to Victorian adult’s traits

to the youngest, is perceived in Chapter III, named A Caucus-Race And A Long Tale, where

the story is placed after Alice had already passed through the tiny door that gives entrance to

Wonderland and crossed a large puddle product of her own tears. The chapter begins by

narrating her arrival to the shore of a small island, in company of different animal species

that, while standing completely soaked, decide to make an assembly. At this moment, Lewis

Carroll (1865) focus the storytelling on a brief discussion that Alice have with the character

of the Lory, giving rise to the following:

Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and

would only say, “ I am older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would

not allow, without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to tell

its age, there was no more to be said. (p. 30).

 35

By inferring on the previous paragraph, it is possible to relate the Lory’s response to

the statement that qualities like age represented, when the bird insinuates his opinion as

absolutely right and unquestionable. The justification that this character makes on his

argument being irrevocable by Alice, centred on the mere assumption he makes on being

older than her, reflects a parallelism with real life significance of social constructs that the

matter of age holded at the time, as having reached an advanced age was seen as a faculty

enough to assume complete wisdom on any matter against whatever argument the youngest

expressed; even more if opposing opinions were borned from children, situation in which

older people would act with indifference or obstinacy. This fact puts into contrast the

instantaneous invalidation of children because of their lack of self control, in front of the

adult expectation on children adapting to circumstances as grown up people at the same time,

resulting in a great incoherence on the parenting methods of the epoque.

In such manner, throughout the story, the characters mentioned, as well as many

others, make part of different situations that are identified by the relatedness they keep with

each other, due to the recognition of an authoritarian leader as a repressive and incongruous

subject who naturally inflicts fear on others who are located at a inferior level of power. In

this way, the acceptance of any statement coming from a superior must have been considered

as mandatory. This would be an idea designed by the meticulously controlled pedagogy in

charge of sketching the draft of the way kids were supposed to reason, in the benefit of a

society united by a system of powers, which order was forbidden for them to intervene.

Notably, this conception on authority figures matched the core of Victorian ideals, as the

persistence of an environment of disapproval and reprehension gave close to a horizon of

probabilities for the youngest to explore and from which they could take advantage to learn

and strengthen their barely developed senses, in order to build critical and reflective

individuals out of themselves.

 36

In view of these circumstances, the intention of the preceding outlook isn't anywhere

at all to delegitimize or dishonour the responsibility of Victorian tutors on the safeguarding of

their kids or promoting the idea of an unbridled debauchery. Opposite to it, the purpose of it

consists of acknowledging the defective upbringing methodologies that helped to bring about

an abuse of power over the integrity of the infant personage.

Habits And Acts Of Etiquette

The first element that conceived the raising of the Victorian Ideals which envisioned

the presence of superior figures, was complemented by its factual manifestation. For every

theory there is a practice and, in this case, the last one corresponds to the execution of actions

that protected the image of authority formulated in society’s minds, creating patterns that are

classified in general practices or more casual routines. The application of these actions in

people’s daily basis would rule the presence of many validated behaviours and habits, that

would put in the spotlight the appealing personality and customs one could learn to perform

since youth to, at least, be liked by their peers or superiors.

Pastimes.

The lecturer Gertrude Himmelfarb, said once in 1995 that “ some things we can surely

learn from the Victorians are not only the importance of such virtues as work, temperance,

self-discipline, self-reliance, but the importance of the idea of virtue as governing both public

and private affairs”. Beyond question, this is a fact that manifested in parenting as the

responsibility of forcing children to have pastimes that generated interest and agreeability or

diversion to satisfy their interpersonal relationships, looking up to getting close with whom it

was advantageous to associate with in their future. Consequently, kids would spend most of

their spare time accomplishing with pastimes oriented by social purposes inspired in the

virtues civilization used to stand up for, activities among which it is common to find

examples like dancing, theatre and Pantomimes, but essentially practices such as:
 37

Music.

Approaching social gatherings from dinner parties sessions to marvellous spectacles

for hall entertainment, music was a tool that any child would have to learn how to play

through self-discipline; having someone at home who knew to delight and tease the

appearance of any guest’s interest in the family, was a favourable aspect that any family

would have been proud of having. Also, thanks to the effects of technological advancements,

instruments were made available and cheap so it had never been so easy to acquire one,

particularly a piano or a violin.

Reading.

Since knowledge was one of the main symbols that illustrated wealth in the British

environment, a kid who was aware of the literary scene back in the day was thought to be the

result of a pair of intellectual and wise parents, even if that wasn’t the case. Besides that, like

musical instruments, books became more available due to the drop in their prices, an

occurrence that many households used in their favour to improve their reputation.

Commercial Sports.

In the pursuit of virtues corresponding to the well-being of health and encouraging of

fair play, games that required decent physical capabilities became popular in almost all the

English colonies, which gave way to the organisation of matches that drew large crowds, like

football, cricket and boxing encounters.

Board games.

Owning sufficiently good abilities at Backgammon, chess and darts, plus others, was

supposed to suggest the management of a person's mental skills such as eloquence and

cleverness. The importance of it is inferable as parents aimed to get their mid-class boys to

become into respected businessmen who would make use of these to develop strategies at

work later in time.

 38

However, it is also plausible to think of the existence of a reduced group of hobbies

apart from those described above, generally based on the exclusive participation of boys and

men. Aside from it, the reality turned out to be very different for mid-class girls, insomuch as

the paradigms were tighter for them, due to the social pressure that chiefly demanded the

waste of a disgustingly sexist amount of their time in running the house, managing the

servants and raising the children. All of this, in an attempt to catch the attention of a man with

the pockets full of money to marry, whenever it presented any chance to do so at a dinner

party to stand out as the most gracious host they could prove to be.

Thereupon, girls' dedication to hobbies had to be decided considering only a few of

them, including gardening, singing, poetry reciting, playing piano or violin, sewing and

practising not more than croquet or lawn tennis, for the reason that there were scarcely any

sport thought to be adequate to their weakness characterised conceptions around femininity.

Concretely, fixing on the peculiar pastime of reading poetry aloud, it could be said

that it went way beyond a solely activity to do at free time, an affirmation attributable to the

use public schools made of it more like an adoctrinizing tool than a recreational one, so

children had to learn by heart and repeat whether they understood it or not. For a simpler

interpretation of it, view can be placed on the ironic reflection of this fact that is contrasted in

eleven delightful parts of Lewis Carroll acclaimed work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

An accurate exemplification of the latter is found in the tenth chapter of the novel, named The

Lobster Quadrille. Here, after the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon chant a poem titled the same

as the chapter, they wonder why, according to Alice, every piece she recites sounds wholly

non-sense. Though Alice is embarrassed of this happening, the girl continues telling poetry as

she is ordered to do so. Lewis Carroll (1865) wrote the following:

Stand up and repeat Tis the voice of the sluggard,” said the Gryphon. “How the

creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” thought Alice, “I might just
 39

as well be at school at once.” However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her

head was so full of the Lobster-Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying.

(p. 156).

A conduct of resignation is visible when Alice follows the Gryphon command, even

when she is completely aware of the absurdity of the situation. This fragment allows to

deduce Alice’s decision to keep on talking as an act related to the attitude children, and

distinctively girls, had to display under the directions they had to obey and the tension it

meant to deal with, despite how much adults tried to sugar-coat their imperative requests as

entertaining hobbies.

Moral Customs.

In 1865, the same year when Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came out, an

anonymous author published a book named How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Etiquette

& Guide To Correct Personal Habits, which contained in its epigraph the quote: The air and

manner which we neglect, as little things, are frequently what the world judges us by, and

makes them decide for or against us (La Bruyere, 1688). This phrase hints the tip of the

iceberg of the apprenticeship derived from an ambitious desire to progress, turning the social

expectatives on manners to be inescapable. This reasoning suggests the scrupulous

examination of microscopic routines that invaded people's lifestyles, refining with the even

more frequent appearance of guidebooks about etiquette, like the one mentioned anteriorly.

Correspondingly, the quoted document is weighed as a model to interpret the

standards that framed the small formalities traditional families set as a goal for their children

to pursue. Some of the most interesting demeanors it promised to correct included charism,

position of feet and arms, movements when climbing stairs and pulling out one’s watch, on

street behaviours, teeth brushing and prohibiting lunches. Yet, noticed to be incoherent, the

author continually reminds the reader to teach the youngest that these habits arise from
 40

authenticness and not only from interest in pleasing another; turning this method to be more

destructive to what it defended than the dishonest standards it was intended to dissolve.

By having analysed this manual, the conclusion extracted from it gives a clue on the

effort that was being made to make small manipulated conducts seem natural and born from

the purity of the children's heart, which exposes a strong inconsistency since the real function

of this book was to help shape the involuntary traits kids haven’t even realised they were used

to perform and, even less, would have imagined needed to be modified. Moreover, there

couldn’t be a more mistaken theory than the assimilation that is made on the idealised natural

attitudes of children with the belief of ethics and politeness like a product of true genuinity;

due to the fact that nature, just like infant comportment, isn’t always graceful and much less

perfect. In the same way, the argument of the guidebook’s author is noted to be fundamented

on the exquisite childhood proper manners that were properly an effect of the severe

reprenhensing formative processes to correct natural conducts.

The outcome of these ideas can be speculated as the aggravation of heavy

expectations and pressure put on children’s shoulders, as the minimum displays of manners

had to be ubiquitous in their lives, turning up according to certain etiquette contingencies :

Personal.

Intimate aspects were ruled by tidiness. Children who were clean and well-groomed at

all times, with combed hair and immaculate nails, were a sign of a neat family.

Home.

Actions such as running, contradicting, interrupting or talking in high volume was

considered straight out rude, which implied the child coming from a vulgar home.

School.
 41

This space confined the hardest rules of all, like never fidgeting, talking or using their

left hand when writing. In case of violating the dictations, kids would be humiliated by

physical, verbal and psychological punishments, which included beating and caning.

Civic.

While children were reformed at school with toughest methods, morals on the street

were intended as the most important since it plainly showed the quality of the family to which

a child belonged. Many of these ethics addressed being silent, writing thank-you letters and

making introductions, for example.

Overviewing these facts, it is right to point out the situation that surrounded parenting

conditions, forasmuch as the adults at home didn't have enough money to indulge their

children in luxuries, they could at least try to make them look like they did by complying to

square ordinances; notwithstanding if that meant to bring down the children integrity to

execute orders like automatons, stepping over their freedoms. Thus, the doubt is given room

for one to wonder on the fact that it seemed to be that very few people really asked

themselves whether or not what they were doing was senseless.

This absurd reality would be something that Lewis Carroll would manage to play with

through the narrative of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with the help of his typical use of

irony to parody the irrational limits that people would reach for the sake of the epoque’s

ideals. As an illustration of it, in the seventh chapter of the tale, titled A Mad Tea-Party, it is

possible to find a reunion of Alice with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, where the

ancient English tradition of gatherings to drink tea turns to be satirised into an occasion that

breaks out of the ordinary and expected settings. On that point, Alice is required to accustom

to the ridiculous ways established by the Hatter and the Hare for the ongoing of their

meeting, counting manners like not interrupting or not sitting if one wasn’t invited to do it;

along with others lacking of sense, like sitting very near though there were many vacant
 42

seats, offering drinks that aren’t available and rotating one seat if a clean cup was needed. As

well as in the chapter mentioned, many other scenes reference the ridiculization of etiquette

like the brief monologues Alice sustains with herself at times, in which she hesitates on the

so-called logical purposes of some amenities she is told to fulfil, like bowing in a parade,

doing chores for an stranger or agree with the Dodo’s directions in a race with no specified

end.

These and many more figurative and objective representations exist as an incidental

testimony to suffice the resolution on the British ethical principles boosting in the 19th

century until having a remarkable presence in every little facet of Victorian childhood, which

wouldn’t necessarily be contributing to a mentally healthy education for infants, as these had

to bare with the persistent persuasion and intimidation to obey to whoever was charged with

authority over them, sometimes a power abusive adult. The only matter of parents pretending

that the abandoning of a child's freedom was appropriate for occasions where interest was in

the way, was solidly oppressive. And the overall circumstances that did not permit kids to

enjoy the short leisure time they had, makes the overall context even worse to think of.

Consequences Of Excessive Behavioural Limits

None could have imagined that a new conceptualization of recreation and the needs of

children would arrive to the country, starting with the spread of works such as Alice's

Adventures in Wonderland, and would be so great that British historians asserted the

beginning of a new phase in the history of Victorian society:

In 1838 William Howitt observed that "a mighty revolution" was occuring "in the

sports and pastimes of the common people." For Howitt, that "revolution primarily

entailed the loss of traditional recreations at the hands of reformers and urban

necessity. Little could he foresee that a growth in the quantity of time free from work,

and new modes of recreation as well as new patterns of spending on recreational

 43

diversions, would prompt future historians ''to take the view that there was in

Victorian England a virtual 'leisure revolution '. (Baker, 1979)

That being so, the desperate scream for the ceasing of deprivation coming from the

need for satisfaction of British children that would rise after mid 19th century, would

manifest as the product of the entire reform the exploiting labourer adult’s world would have

to go through, as grown ups couldn’t be more sick of having to carry with their own daily

burden at their jobs, which they would end up echoing in the pressure put in their offspring.

So, meanwhile the exigency to work a healthy amount of hours in exchange for further rest

and free self-enjoyment was taking place in the parents lives, at school, children were

suffering the psychological repercussions of the harsh disciplininating received in their early

years of childhood.

Starting from the indoctrinating pedagogy reinforced by its determinant disciplining

factors, it is consistent to consider the psychological consequences that this would produce in

English middle-class boys and girls, significantly damaging their mental health and the

interpersonal relationships that they would build in the course of their development from

maturation to adulthood; in a contradictory effect to which the moral system was intended to

advocate.

At first glance, these issues were pictured by the development of an increasingly

complex variety of disruptive conducts on infants, with which they were qualified as naughty

or perverse. At this point, kids misbehaviour and low academic performance became more

and more frequent within their respective academic environment, harming relationships with

their teachers and classmates. Additionally, the atmosphere at home didn’t help at all, since

parents were absent most of the time, spending an insane amount of hours at work; or, on the

contrary, would be the first figures children would relate to as a slave to an oppressive

authority.
 44

Apparently, while the patronising education in schools was trying to scale towards a

fictional perfection, it reached a breaking point where the rigorousity was such that the only

course of action children psychologically view to get rid of the emotional and physical charge

accumulated within the squared moulds built by education, was through the liberation of

aggressivity and anxiety through sentimental demonstrations of extreme rage or sadness

episodes, by holding affection lacking relationships with the people that surrounded them or

inability to study actively.

As for the parent-child relationships, the damage made was hardly reversible. A

punctual observation can be landed on the distant verbal and physical contact adults had with

their infants, as well as the dull attention given to their presence at home. Most probably, this

specific inconsistent trait in their communication was the cause of children growing with

poor social skills based on a deficient learning on creating responsibly affective bonds. Also,

low self esteem, long-lasting resentment against parents and fears of abandonment, failure

and being criticised were the sequels of the self-preservation of opinions and the prohibition

of excessive displays of emotions. These unhealthy behaviours may have resulted in the

origin of obstacles in the children's lives, such as the uncertainty and scarce abilities to solve

problems as they avoided seeking parental wisdom. More seriously, it is possible to suggest

that these conditions facilitated an increase in cases of infant echolalia (unconscious

repetition of words heard from nearby people); hysteria (tantrums, uncontrolled outbursts of

frustration) and fits (anxiety tics) (Dyer, 2016).

The Needs of Children

But, just like after every storm comes fair weather, to children’s luck, the social

rearranges commenced the involvement of a radical transformation where the gaze was

placed on the necessity of leisure not only on society in general, but specifically on those that

belong to the processes of childhood, as the understanding of its innocence, helplessness and
 45

dependency on caregivers role gained importance. These circumstances can be deduced to be

caused by the social and institutional1 contemplation of the needs of children, that no longer

made room for their duties and obligations alone, but included a whole spectrum of affective

and discovery-opened conditions to which the focus had never been placed before.

By researching on this topic, it is suitable to divide the necessities that were divulged

into an speculated classification of four biopsychological prospects:

New Experiences

This implied imaginative play and fresh contact with different environments and

objects as tools to motivate their sense of curiosity. It is important for children to have the

freedom to decide on what to be interested in, at the same time that it can be entertaining to

discover their own gifts, talents, likes and dislikes by introspection, contributing to the

enrichment of their critical thinking and ‘inner world’.

Praise and Recognition

The place children occupy at home and in society is ultimately valuable, the reason

why it is relevant to constantly remind them of it by means of acts of felicitation in front of

their small steps. Just as crucial, children need to be deserving of happiness, love and

enjoying their innocence during childhood.

Responsibility

Children need to feel like they have a role in the family that is important to fulfil and,

accordingly, they have to learn to be responsible for their actions; the relevance of this must

be understood without trespassing their other needs.

Love and Safety

Because kids are predisposed to seeking proximity to a care-giver for their comfort

and nutrition, they need to feel loved as a by-product of creating mutually pleasant bonds

1
e.g. The creation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1891 is a proof of the
institutional validation the needs of children gained with the time.
 46

with their parents; another way of saying that, it is essential for their mental health to

experience a warm intimate and continuous relationship with their parents in which both find

satisfaction and enjoyment. (Bowlby, 1953). Regarding the safety they should receive, it has

to consist of the protection from aggressive influences to their integrity, from a sense of

genuine love for the interest in the children’s welfare.

The recognition of children's needs couldn’t have been possible without the thousands

of advancements made on human studies from now and then, thanks to the perseverance of

psychologists, philanthropists and writers, counting Lewis Carroll himself. Thanks to the

latter, a clearer insight on the value of childhood can be noticed in Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland, as her whole travel is a resemblance to the benefits of infant’s growth outside

the obsolete frameworks Victorian age proposed. Alice turns up to be no more than the hero

of her own story, in pursuance of an adventure that would lead her to becoming more aware

and experienced in matters that go beyond situations than even she herself would have

believed possible, like escaping from a trial organised by a Queen of Hearts backed by an

army of talking cards, for example.

There, Lewis Carroll enjoys fooling around with the idea of representing Alice’s

journey throughout Wonderland into his perspective of childhood as the track that drives the

first glows of curiosity in the mind of any person, encouraging self-knowledge and creativity

to gain prominence. Thereby, “Carroll’s depiction of Wonderland emphasises “both the

creative and intellectual potential of childhood abstraction, fancy, and daydreams” (Schatz,

2015), which is an element that remains uninterrupted from the beginning to the end of the

novel.

Also, remarks are valid to make on the fact that Alice’s body size alterations are a

readable allusion to a child’s proper maturation process, physical as well as psychological.

But, despite how annoying it can be for herself or other characters to witness it, a peak is
 47

reached where, after all the crazy people Alice had to deal with, she is emotionally stronger

than when she first set foot in Wonderland and manages to handle this effectively. Finally,

Alice’s departure from this place embodies an initial realisation of her freedom of having to

decide on her own, a privilege which Victorian children weren’t allowed to dream of. Finally,

this last assertion in the book is what substantially holds the significance of children's

psychological welfare at the heart of this novel.

Conclusion

The inadequacy of making simplistic inferences about children's psychological needs

has to be unacceptable, in sight of the acknowledgment of these being indispensable. It was

concluded that, in order to avoid the consequences of an excessively moralising lifestyle as

the one portrayed in the Victorian age, productivity and unapologetically self-enjoyment

necessities have to be pleased in the benefit of infants having a notion on the real meaning of

freedom, leading them to let them be their own person, and not the person idealistic doctrines

want them to be. On the contrary, their opportunity to live could be denied to them, as it was

for Victorian children.

Looking back, from the current position in time, it would be inexcusable not to

mention that the kind of consuming indoctrination that took place in 19th century British

society, is something we have to compromise to never go back ever again, by means of

addressing the protection and promoting of children psychological welfare, as the

contemporary public concern on this topic keeps advancing. As this happens, humanity must

not permit that the hedonistic and superficial pursues of modernity cover its eyes, by stating

that the child freedoms have to be considered unaccompanied. Children own rights and duties

that need to be equally respected, never overstepping their natural liberty to participate in a

worthy life.
 48

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