Alice in Wonderland - A universal plot

Published 4th July 1865, Alice in Wonderland can simply be considered a British children's novel, full of the British values and customs of Victorian times. However, to pay atention only to this facet of the novel would be to forget the most essential element. Alice in Wonderland is a children's novel, a fairy story and a work of art.

Lewis Carroll, whose real name is Charles Ludwig Dogson, writes a novel for the real Alice, a little girl friend. He makes up the story one summer afternoon in 1862 during a boat ride with Alice and her two sisters, and the novel is full of references to their family and thousands of details only the girls could recognise and understand. Even with this specific origin, Carroll manages to write a novel that is used as a reference for innumerable stories, a universal plot in itself.

Many of the stories that qualify as universal plots are the fruit of classical mythology, from thousands of years ago. This is not the case of, for example, the much-used developement of the fight-for-power plot William Shakespeare created only four hundred years ago. Much closer to us but still belonging to a different age, although it was Shakespeare and his contemporaries who started shaping the modern way of thinking. But one who did live in a society really close to our own was Charles Ludwig Dogson, known to the whole world as Lewis Carroll. And Lewis Carroll was capable of writing a novel for children, and more specifically for the favourite of his friends (all of them little girls), Alice Lidell, which would become a universal reference for innumerable later stories.

There are many factors which allow us to consider the novel as a universal plot in itself. This does not exclude the fact that its origin is linked to many other precursory plots. It only means that through a series of many other plots a narrative is constructed with a plot structure which is new to a certain extent. Alice in Wonderland consolidates a type of character who physically travels to another world which is a complement to the real one, a world in which fantastic events closely related to the psychology of the main character can occur. Obviously, Lewis Carroll does not invent the idea of duality between worlds (this structure can even be seen in the Greek myth of the underworld). What is new is the treatment Carroll gives it, an individual parallel universe presented as only experienced by the main character, a universe in which he or she is lost (generally by accident). We can find the influence of the novel in other children's novels like The Wizard of Oz or Peter Pan, although its reach goes beyond the children's novel.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most discussed stories in history. As Martin Gardner says in the introduction to one of the best editions of the novel, Alice is not only forced to study lessons, but she teaches lessons to others. The levels on which you can read and interpret the novel are many. On one hand, the psychoanalytic interpretation, allthough psychoanalists could interpret a soup can if it were necessary. On the other hand, Carrol depicts British society in that period, portraying it with great realism without wonderland being able to prevent it. Furthermore, there are many scientific elements and maths and logic throughout the book, maths being the author's profession. In addition, we have the particular story Sir John Tenniel tells through his ilustrations, which are a very important part of the story. And we must not forget the key element of nonsense humour and the uniqueness it transmits. Thank goodness one hundred and fifty years ago Alice Lidell asked to be told a nonsense story, that little story invented only for her, which has reached every corner and inspired many other writers and artists.

I could cross my hands on my lap, as if I were reciting lessons, and recite the whole novel off by heart