Blooms Literary Themes - THE HEROS ... - ymerleksi - home

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 23proclamations of the Dodo, in the outrageous answerless riddlesof the Mad Hatter, in the shifting terms and rules of a capital-riskcroquet that renders the Queen of Hearts sure to win, and now in acourt that invents laws as it goes, and against Alice. If terms, rules, andwhole games are founded upon fiat—why not hers as well as theirs?Volition remains to Alice; she is not finally a Mouse.But the end of Wonderland is difficult to interpret. Does Alicesucceed in destroying the game? Or does it succeed in evicting her, byejecting her from her dream? She challenges the cards, but it is theywho fly at her (W, p. 161). I tend toward the former interpretation. AsPiaget points out, play and dream are related, as they are both the ego’sstrategies of incorporating reality. But more control is maintained inplay, for one remains aware of its voluntary status and the fact that onecan end it when one chooses. In a dream the nightmare might verywell continue indefinitely, for one cannot will to wake up. 5 However,one can will not to play, even in a dream, and thus end the nightmare,if it consists of a game world, by ending the game. This is what Alicedoes; hers is the initiative. I agree in a certain sense with Empson’sstatement that “the triumphant close of Wonderland is that she [Alice]has outgrown her fancies and can afford to wake and despise them,”except that I would add that it is the choosing not to play others’ madgames that wakes her. 6The end is a triumph insofar as Alice extricates herself from thegame world altogether. To a true spoilsport, none of the rules of thegame apply, even the rule, a common insurance of the inviolabilityof parlor games, which says that willful displacement of the piecesforfeits the game. 7 One must be very strong-minded to abolish thenagging compulsion of such a rule. But Alice has developed into avery strong-minded little girl.Notes1. Cf. Harry Levin, “Wonderland Revisited,” Kenyon Review,XXVII (Autumn 1965), 595: “No novelist has identified moreintimately with the point of view of his heroine.”. See also John Mackay Shaw, The Parodies of Lewis Carroll andTheir Originals, catalog of an exhibition with notes (FloridaState University, 1960).