Lewis Carroll's 'Alice': A quest for humanity in the cultural underground of social politics in Victorian England

Lewis Carroll cleverly and skillfully provides a cultural commentary concerning social politics in Victorian England by using the Nonsense vernacular he invented and contrasting Alice against the plight of a factory worker-child in order to underscore the disparity faced by the impoverished working class in comparison to the upper-middle-class. As a member of the upper-middle-class, the character Alice is led on a quest that reveals the truth of her above-ground Victorian society. Each time she moves about Wonderland and interacts with the inhabitants, Alice is faced with the inequity and discrimination that causes the lower classes intense suffering. Carroll arms Alice with the knowledge of the truth about Victorian society so that she can make an informed decision about who she decides to be. On the surface Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an amusing fairy tale, but underneath serious social politics are revealed in the Victorian culture via a ruthless comic exaggeration where nonsense is used to illustrate the truth.Newspapers, legislative proceedings, and other writing by Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, and others in Carroll's time bespeak of commonplace barbaric actions against the lower classes and a growing pervasive insensitivity. If children only understand one message from Carroll's literary masterpiece it is this: sharing and caring are vital components of living, and without these two components society loses its humanity, and all members suffer. Carroll attempts to convey hope for humanity through the hearts of society's children. With a mastery of nonsense born of his knowledge as a scientist and his genius as a mathematical logistician, Carroll uses child's play to make a public statement about the inhumanity of the Victorian society's self-serving actions.