Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, first published in 1865

Résumé du document

In 1843, the Reverend Charles Dodgson was asked to minister the parish of Croft on Tees in North Yorkshire. The family of Reverend Charles relocated along with him to North Yorkshire. The relocation proved fruitful and happiness swelled their way when a new entrant to the family was announced. Indeed, Mrs. Dodgson gave birth to another son (the eleventh child). Reverend Dodgson and his wife propagated unity in the family and therefore, it was expected that the children were to be a close-knit family throughout their destined lives. One of their odd shared characteristic was a chronic stammer. Reverend Charles himself had to battle with a stammer all his life. In 1844, the eldest son of the Dodsgon family, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson resumed his school education. His initial schooling was at Richmond School which was ten miles from home. Two years hence, he joined an archetypal nineteenth century public school named Rugby. This school was further away from "home and happiness". The environment at the school was uncongenial as it was dominated by the all male sport culture. Inspite of this hostile atmosphere, Charles secured good marks in almost every subject. He finally took up residency in 1851 at Christ Church, Oxford. This was his father's college, and soon he found himself under the patronage of his father's mentor Dr Pusey. The mentor Dr Pusey wrote to Charles's father commending his son's uniform, steady and good conduct. Thereafter, young Charles went on to follow his father's steps. Like his father, Charles read classics and mathematics and stood first in mathematics. And once again history repeated, when Charles ended his studentship with the expectation of going into church ministry. Although Charles was ordained in 1861, he did not proceed into church ministry. Nevertheless, Christ Church, Oxford, was going to be his home for the rest of his life.

Extraits

[...] It was a very conventional and conservative Victorian life. But there was another part: the part of his life as a children's book writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson as Lewis Carroll: the child entertainer His relations with children were very different from those he had with adults. For instance, here is a letter he sent to one of his sisters Mary about her son's christening, written in his role of clergyman and brother: dearest Mary, I must write one line to yourself, if only to say God bless you and the little one now entrusted to and may you be to him what our own dear mother was to her eldest son! [...]

[...] To conclude on this part, we could say that Dodgson's life and habits seem to be very important to understand the Book of Wonderland as they are very particular and seem to have close links with the story. By the light of these details, we are now going to study the story more precisely. Alice Liddell Part II. The World of Wonderland Alice Liddell, posing as a beggar child The World of Wonderland appears to be a very world to Alice (she uses this word several times). [...]

[...] Alice and the Dodo The world of Wonderland is full of the author's world, and this latter gives in his book critics, parodies or simply evokes some social points of his time such as monarchy, social status, social habits, education, scientific debates And Alice is part of it as we are going to see. The story cannot be separated from this context Who is Alice? Despite all the queer things that happen to her, Alice is, and keeps being all through her adventures a typical middle-class Victorian Child. In the context described before, it is not surprising that the heroin was a very well mannered and educated child. She uses a good language, she is very polite, she knows her lessons, etc The heroin corresponds to Dodgson's world and education. [...]

[...] Norton & Company, Second edition, 1992. [...]

[...] girls were in the garden most of the time, and we became excellent friends”, he wrote in his diary in 1856. During the next few years, Dodgson, despite his political differences with the Dean on many College issues, became a regular intimate of the dean's family, taking pictures, playing cards and croquet, telling jokes and stories, and taking the children on day trips on the river. Edith, Lorina and Alice During these years, his intimacy with Alice grew, as the photographs of her and her sisters show. [...]