CHAPTER III

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

3.1 Shape and Structure

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ( 1865 ) tells the story of a girl named Alice
who falls down a rabbit- hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and
anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is filled with allusions to Dodgson’s friends. It plays
with logic in ways that had given the story lasting popularity with adults as well as
children. It is considered to be one of the most characteristic examples of the genre of
literary nonsense, and its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential,
mainly in the fantasy genre.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland contains twelve chapters, each of them
concerned with particular kinds of rules and ways of breaking these rules. Lisa S. Ede
points out that the opening chapters of this book “focus primarily on Alice’s frequent and
confusing changes of size” ( Ede 91 ).
Chapter I is entitled “ Down“Down the Rabbit- Hole “ and is concerned with the
order of nature, and disruption of that nature
Chapter II is entitled “ The“The Pool of Tears “, and is concerned with how body
and size is affected by perceptions ( of a child ) and by eating and maturing. In Chapter II
Alice is nearly drowned in a pool of her own tears which she had wept when she was nine
feet tall.
Chapter III is entitled A Caucus- Race and a Long Tale “ and is concerned with the
breaking of the rules of games and sports, and the breaking of rules of language. In
Chapter III Alice is saved from drowning by a mouse which is swimming in the water.
Upon reaching shore, this mouse proposes to dry off Alice and the other creatures by
relating to them a piece of dry history. When this does not work, the Dodo bird comes up
with a remedy which does work. It proposes that everyone should become engaged in a
“caucus race”, in which prizes are to be awarded to everybody. Not only does everyone
win a prize, but everyone also gets dried off in the process as well.
Chapter IV is entitled “ The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill “ and is concerned with
habitation.
Chapter V is entitled “ Advice“Advice from a Caterpillar “ and is concerned with the
breaking of the rules of communication.
Chapter VI is entitled “ Pig“Pig and Pepper “ and is concerned with the breaking of
the rules of social conventions. In Chapter VI, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions.
When the Cat wants to know where she is going, she replies “I don’t much care where “.
The Cheshire Cat then replies, “ Then“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go “
Chapter VII’ “ A“A Mad Tea- Party” begins with what appears to be a normal tea-
party. Six o’ clock is the time of the tea party, but here it is always six o’ clock. Since it is
always time for tea, the only thing that changes is the position of the guests at the table.
Chapter VII is concerned with the breaking of the rules of time. At the end of this chapter,
so many rules are broken that Alice walks off in disgust. Here and elsewhere, Alice is
yearning for companionship, and she is disappointed when the March Hare and the Mad
Hatter do not call after her when she leaves, but rather occupy themselves by putting the
Dormouse into a Tea pot.
Chapter VIII is entitled “ The“The Queen’s Croquet- Ground “and is concerned with
the breaking of the rules pertaining to play, games, and sports. Throughout this chapter,
the Queen of Hearts is constantly shouting “ Off with his / her / its /their head(s) “, and
Wim Tigges suggests that Carroll is here taking the viewpoint of a child whose mother or
governess is constantly shouting “ Off to your bed “. Carroll is also taking the viewpoint
of the child in reference to the rules of the game. Why should adults be allowed to make
up all of the rules ? Justice is one of the main concerns of children- Alice included- and
Alice at one point remarks, “ I don’t think they play at all fairly “. In “ The Queen’s
Croquet- Ground “ Alice discovers that card games and croquet have different rules from
what she had been accustomed to. “ Alice thought she had never seen such a curious
croquet ground in her life… the croquet balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live
flamingos” ( Gardner ).
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when the Duchess tells Alice “ If everybody
minded their own business, the world would go around a deal faster than it does.” Alice
responds that she did not think that would be any advantage . “ Just think what work it
would make with the day and night! You see, the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn
round on its axis…” At this point, the Duchess raises her voice to say “ Talking of axes,
chop off her head ! “ What the Duchess say is not a non-sequitur, rather it illustrates
egocentric speech , which is usually associated with small children, but which is here the
property of an adult- the Duchess. Alice and the Duchess here have different mind sets,
and what is going on here is not a single dialogue, but rather two somewhat distinct
monologues .If this exchange were analyzed according to the rules of Script- Model
Grammar, we could say that what we have here is a double script, with “ axis“axis- axes “
being the trigger that takes the reader from one script to the other.
Chapter IX of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is entitled “The Mock- Turtle’s
Story” and is concerned with the breaking of rules relating to ethics and education.
Chapter IX discusses various ideas of ethics and education. “ The Mock Turtle’s Story “
is a story about morals and lessons. The Mock Turtle explains to Alice that a “real
tortoise” is educated in “reeling”, “writhing”, “ambition”, “distraction”, “uglification”and
“derision”. Carroll’s puns of reading, writing, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division are still another example of nonsensical methods used to infer to a particular
theme.
Chapter X is entitled “The Lobster- Quadrille “and is concerned with breaking the
rules of dance. There is an interesting kind of antithesis that goes on in Chapter X. In the
song that the Turtle dances to, the term “whiting’ is used. When Alice wants to know
what it means the Gryphon tells her that it is what is done to shoes and boots. Alice
corrects him saying that she thinks this is called “blacking”, but the Gryphon says that
under the sea, boots and shoes are done with “whiting”. He then extends the pun by
telling her that under the sea the shoes are made of “soles” and “eels”.
Chapter XI is entitled “Who Stole the Tarts?” and is concerned with the breaking of
the rules of justice. In this chapter many of the characters who have been met earlier in
the novel are reintroduced in various roles in the court room .The White Rabbit becomes
a herald or an usher, the Mad Hatter is a witness; Bill the Lizard is a juror, and so on.
Finally, Chapter XII is entitled “Alice’s Evidence” and is concerned with the
breaking of the rules of etiquette; it is also concerned with leaving the strange rules of
Wonderland and reestablishing the rules of the real world. Alice reestablishes her true
identity, her true size and her true judgement, and has an epiphany which shocks her into
the real world “You are nothing but a pack of cards”.

3.2 Significance of Alice’s journey

3.2 a Meanings of the Journey

One of the strengths of Lewis Carroll is that he can be appreciated on several

different levels, the weaver of children’s tales, the intertwining of nonsense and logic,
then there is a third level that few people see, the hidden, the cryptic, that which has to be
searched for. Many of the verses were parodies of the prevailing verse for children or
mocked their regimented rote learning, something his young audience would have
understood and appreciated. On a much deeper level still, the Alice tales can be read not
as fun at all but as a mournful loss of childhood and approaching old age.
The rapid changes in height Alice experiences, the mood changes, not being sure
of her own mind, or who she was, could be seen as the changes experienced in puberty.
And indeed, in later life, as Alice Liddell grew up and changed, she and Lewis Carroll
drifted apart, and towards the end of her life, Alice Liddell resented being the Alice.
Loss of innocence is often a theme in stories that center on a single, isolated child
who is struggling to grow up. However, a theme authors often overlook is the loss of
identity that accompanies such a lonely journey. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,
the author portrays the transition from childhood to adulthood as a lonely, traumatic
experience. Exaggerated growth and shrinking represent the changes Alice endures but
cannot come to terms with. Carroll intends to show that Alice’s suffering and isolation
leads to the loss of her understanding of her own identity.
Growing up for many children is a physically and emotionally taxing experience.
Alice’s size changes while in Wonderland are representative of the transformations that
are taking place within her. Alice feels lost, both figuratively and literally. In Wonderland
“she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright
flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the door”.
Carroll makes it impossible for Alice to reach the garden by fault of her size. After
drinking from the bottle, she is too small to reach the key, and growing taller makes it so
that she cannot fit through the door.
 Eddie Borey further explains, “children on the verge of adulthood find themselves
too small for adult privileges while being forced to take on the non-fun world of adult
responsibilities “. Alice ‘s feeling of helplessness at determining the right dimensions is
analogy to her feelings of failure to discover an age that is conducive to her happiness.
She resigns herself to a physical limbo-one that children, especially young girls, feel
when experiencing the changes during puberty. The situation becomes more hopeless at
than ever, so she sat down and began to cry . cry. Growing up at this point is so
overwhelming that Alice can do nothing to cope. She is content with neither being small,
nor being large-neither young nor old. Her identity has been lost in the transitions, and
she mourns this loss with tears.
Because Alice intertwines her identity with her height, the instability of her size
causes her to wonder whether she still is who she was before she fell into Wonderland.
Alice’s sense of identity was solid before she entered Wonderland, just as before the onset
of rapid physical growth. Children are more secure in their appearance as well as their
personality .Upon meeting the Caterpillar, he poses the question, “ Who are you ? “
Having the question she has been struggling to answer presented so bluntly, Alice replies
with trepidation, “ I hardly know, Sir, just at present- at least I know who I was when I
got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then ;being
so many different sizes in a day is very confusing” . How that her body has changed so
dramatically in such short periods, Alice concludes that she is not the person she was
before everything she was familiar with changed. “ I am so very tired of being all alone
here”. . Alice suddenly cries during one of her many debates concerning her own identity.
The emotional impact of the loss of her sense of self causes her to feel isolated in a
strange world where she knows no one-especially herself.
Puberty is an emotionally trying time for children, especially those whose bodies
are changing more rapidly than their mental capacity to comprehend these changes and
what they mean for his or her identity. In Alice in Wonderland, Carroll overemphasizes
Alice’s size changes and the emotional anguish that results from her loss of her sense of
self. Her distress is illustrative of the identity crisis that all children on the verge of
puberty undergo. Perhaps, if Alice could have access to someone who could reliably
direct her down the right path, she would have been able to effectively navigate through
Wonderland.
For some critics, Alice’s journey means running away from the Victorian world of
her sister because she feels unfulfilled, but she quickly discovers that Wonderland will
not fulfill any of her desires. Wonderland thwarts her expectations at every turn. The
Rabbit represents this motif of frustrated desire. His antics inspire Alice to follow him
down the hole and into Wonderland, but he constantly stays one step ahead of her. Led on
by curiosity, Alice follows the elusive rabbit even though she does not know what she
will do once she catches him. She pursues him out of pure curiosity but believes that
catching him will give her some new knowledge or satisfaction. Even when the outcome
is unknown, the act of chasing implies that a desired goal exists.
Alice cannot enter the garden even though she wants to, and her desire to enter the
garden represents the feelings of nostalgia that accompany growing up. Carroll
dramatizes the frustrations that occur with growing older as Alice finds herself either too
small or too large to enter the garden. Alice's growth reminds her that she is growing
away from the pleasures of childhood. The idealized garden is now off limits to Alice,
who can no more fit through the passageway than an infant could travel back to the safety
and security of the womb.
When Alice reaches the garden, she hopes that it will fulfill her desires, but her
experience in the garden proves to be as frustrating as the rest of Wonderland. Alice has
sought out the garden since she first glimpsed it in chapter one. The garden occupies a
central role not only in Alice's quest but also in Wonderland. The garden is the seat of
power for the King and Queen of Hearts, and the use of the card suit of hearts
underscores the idea that the garden is the heart of Wonderland. Alice quickly discovers
that the garden provides no great experience of enlightenment. The rules and practices of
the garden are just as idiosyncratic and maddening as the rest of the locales she has
visited.
The final scene with Alice's sister establishes narrative symmetry and changes the
tone of Alice's journey from harrowing quest to childhood fantasy. The reintroduction of
the calm scene at the riverbank allows the story to close as it began, transforming
Wonderland into an isolated episode of fancy. Alice's sister ends the novella by changing
the tone of Alice's story, discounting the nightmarish qualities and favoring a dreamy
nostalgia for “the simple and loving heart of her childhood.” The sister's interpretation
reduces Alice's experience of trauma and trivializes the journey as little more than a
“strange tale” that Alice may eventually recount to her own children.
At a deeper level Alice’s journey can stand for a birth metaphor. the embodiment of
female function. Alice falls down a rabbit hole, a long, dark tunnel which parallels the
journey of a baby from foetal symbiotic state of plenitude with the mother’s body, to
isolated individualism in the external world. In the process of giving birth, significantly
referred to as ‘confinement’ in the 19 th century, the baby’s head can only descend through the
cervix when it is dilated to approximately 10 centimetres: the stage at which the head and
shoulders can safely pass through. The description of the labour process is strikingly similar
to Alice’s concern with getting her head and shoulders through the doorway which leads
enticingly to a beautiful garden, and its promise of pre-sin paradise. Carroll’s relating of Alice
to Eve in the state of innocence is interesting. The promise of a heavenly state symbolised in
the unobtainable garden is subverted by Carroll, as it becomes instead a parody of power and
tyranny, and bureaucratic institutions, dominated by the psychotic Queen of Hearts, whose
sadistic desires are expressed in her repeated cry of ‘off with his head’.
It is also significant that the only two adult women which feature in Alice in
Wonderland , the Queen and the Duchess, are both violent, irrational and intimidating
figures. It is my contention that these represent one of Carroll’s most deep-seated
anxieties – mature, sexually demanding, or even menopausal women. The metamorphosis
from his assumed ‘innocent’ pre-pubescent stage of the female into the raging monsters
of adult women is conspicuous in its extremity. The distorted form of mature womanhood
in these two characters is hard to read as anything other than deeply entrenched
misogyny. The Duchess is encountered by Alice in her kitchen – the Victorian ideal of the
domestic sphere offering respite for the family, and the focal point
of the domain of the ‘angel in the house’.6 Here, as in earlier examples of the destabilising
of the parallel dream world, the ordinary expectations of middle class bourgeois society
becomes extraordinary. The Duchess is holding a baby who “‘sneezed occasionally; and
the baby was sneezing and howling alternately” ‘ (p.51). The cook throws a variety of
pots and pans at the Duchess and baby, as Alice looks on in amazement. One of the first
sentences she addresses to Alice is ‘“talking of axes … chop off her head!’” (p.52).
Carroll’s warped characterisation of motherhood is far removed from the Victorian chaste
Madonna ideal: the Duchess sings a lullaby to the baby, but gives it ‘a violent shake at the
end of every line’ (p.53) and eventually flings the baby at Alice, where it subsequently
changes into a pig. It is clear that Carroll’s view of adult females is very different to his
idealisation of pre-adolescent girls. Once those girls whom he considered to be friends
had reached puberty, they symbolically died to him. Carroll himself wrote that:

“About nine out of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get ship-wrecked at the critical
point, ‘where the stream and the river meet’ [i.e. the transition from child to sexually
mature woman] and the child-friends, once so affectionate, become uninteresting
acquaintances, whom I have no wish to set eyes on again”

3.2 b EDUCATION’S ROLE IN ALICE BOOKS

Education plays a large role in the Alice books, contributing both to Carroll's
characterization of Alice and to our perceptions of Victorian England. Throughout the
Alice books, as in this passage, Alice refers to her lessons and her education, usually very
proud of the learning that she has acquired. It seems, however, that the information that
she remembers from her lessons is usually either completely useless or wrong. For
example, although she can remember how many miles down until the center of the earth
are, she mistakenly believes that everything will be upside down when she passes through
to the other side.
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 —" (for, you see, Alice
had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this
was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to
listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) — yes, that's about the right
distance — but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the
slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice
grand words to say.)
There are many references in Alice’s Adventured in Wonderland to mathematical
concepts, since Lewis Carroll was a mathematician. These examples include:
 In chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit-Hole," in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes
philosophic concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps "going out
altogether, like a candle."; this pondering reflects the concept of a limit
  In chapter 2, "The Pool of Tears," Alice tries to perform multiplication but
produces some odd results: "Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times
six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that
rate!" This explores the representation of numbers using different bases and
positional numeral systems (4 x 5 = 12 in base 18 notation; 4 x 6 = 13 in base 21
notation. 4 x 7 could be 14 in base 24 notation, following the sequence).
 In chapter 5, "Advice from a Caterpillar," the Pigeon asserts that little girls are
some kind of serpent, for both little girls and serpents eat eggs. This general
concept of abstraction occurs widely in many fields of science; an example in
mathematics of employing this reasoning would be in the substitution of
variables.
 In chapter 7, "A Mad Tea-Party," the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the
Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is
not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as
well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic
and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship.
 Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when the changing of seats around
the circular table places them back at the beginning. This is an observation of
addition on a ring of the integers modulo N.
 The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin,
suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat
without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. Deep abstraction of concepts (non-
Euclidean geometry, abstract algebra, the beginnings of mathematical logic...) was
taking over mathematics at the time Dodgson was writing. Dodgson's delineation
of the relationship between cat and grin can be taken to represent the very concept
of mathematics and number itself. For example, instead of considering two or
three apples, one may easily consider the concept of 'apple,' upon which the
concepts of 'two' and 'three' may seem to depend. However, a far more
sophisticated jump is to consider the concepts of 'two' and 'three' by themselves,
just like a grin, originally seemingly dependent on the cat, separated conceptually
from its physical object
It has been suggested by several people including Martin Gardner and Selwyn Goodacre
that Dodgson had an interest in the French language, choosing to make references and
puns about it in the story. It is most likely that these are references to French lessons
which would have been a common feature of a Victorian middle-class girl's upbringing. A
sampling of these include:
 In chapter 2, Alice posits that the mouse may be French and chooses to speak the
first sentence of her French lesson-book to it: "Où est ma chatte?" ("Where is my
cat?").
 Chapter 7, "A Mad Tea Party," features the character of the Dormouse, who is
constantly asleep; the present, third-person conjugation of the French verb dormir,
to sleep, is 'dort,' pronounced 'dor'—hence, a dormouse is a sleeping mouse.
Alice’s conversations with the inhabitants of the Wonderland are also sprinkled with
references to classical languages. In chapter 2, Alice initially addresses the mouse as "O
Mouse," based on her vague memory of the noun declensions in her brother's textbook:
"A mouse (nominative)— of a mouse (genitive)— to a mouse (dative)— a mouse
(accusative)— O mouse! (vocative)." This corresponds to the traditional order that was
established by Byzantine grammarians (and is still in standard use, except in the United
Kingdom and some countries in Western Europe) for the five cases of Classical Greek;
because of the absence of the ablative case, which Greek does not have but is found in
Latin, the reference is apparently not to the latter as some have supposed.
There are also a few hints to history in the novel. For example, in chapter 8, three
cards are painting the roses on a rose tree red, for they accidentally planted a white-rose
tree which the Queen of Hearts hates. Red roses symbolized the English House of
Lancaster while white roses were the symbol for their rival House of York. Therefore, this
scene may contain a hidden allusion to the Wars of the Roses.
The traditional Victorian public schools emphasized Greek and Latin, house systems,
school spirit, improving character, and that the goal of education was to mold the student
into a young Christian gentleman. This approach can be seen in Alice, since her
knowledge seems to consist mainly of maxims and morals about obedience and safety.
Carroll seems to feel amusement at best, and utter contempt at worst, for this typically
Victorian penchant, especially in his satirical characterization of the Duchess in Alice in
Wonderland. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it" , says the Duchess. Alice's
experience with her, however, makes the reader laugh at the absurdity of such a character.
Kathy Szoke, in her discussion of the Victorian audience, explains how authors make
their audiences think about issues relative to their own lives. Carroll certainly made a
conscious decision to make morals and tales of obedience, a large part of Victorian
upbringing, nonsensical. This rejection of typical Victorian manners and education of
children supports one of the themes in his Alice books, the idea that a child's imagination
has value.

3.3 c VICTORIAN HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION

IN ALICE IN WONDERLAND

When Lewis Carroll dreamed up the world of Alice in Wonderland, he gave readers
one of the most familiar works inviting Victorian society to escape from its troubles. Yet
in contrast to his use of the story as a diversion from these problems, Carroll also created
Alice and her imagined world as a chance to comment and reflect upon them. In Alice ,
he mixed great wit and appropriate gravity to explore starvation and malnutrition,
paralleling his own society's effort to survive. For example, Alice continuously looked
towards eating to alter her size in this fantasy world. Carroll demonstrated an
understandable preoccupation with food in Wonderland as a way of sharing his thoughts
on hunger in Victorian society.
Alice expressed her wish to be larger to ensure her own safety in playing with a dog
she encountered:
"I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let me see — how is it to be
managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is
'What?'"
The great question certainly was "What?" Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the
blades of grass, but she could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink
under the circumstances.
This passage suggests Victorian society's preoccupation with food and drink. Many
articles discuss this subject as the social and political contexts of the work. Under the
heading of malnutrition, the discussion narrows and can be studied in more detail. During
the 1830s and 1840s, there was an enormous shortage of food, driving the prices much
higher than many could afford. Many found themselves scrounging for food, as Alice did,
or even going hungry. But in Carroll's fantasy world, Alice found something to eat in the
form of a gigantic mushroom. Nature, and its ability to provide food, sheds some light on
the author's search for possible ways of saving his starving society. But in Carroll's
reality, even nature could not save many from their intense and dire hunger. He escaped
from the starving Victorian world into the imaginative and childlike world of Alice, but
the reader can still see the strong traces of the food shortage in his work.
The scant supply of food dealt a devastating blow to the health of many people of
Carroll's time. Among the lower classes, women often grew to a much lower height and
weight, leading to many problems in childbirth. Contamination levels rose in both the
food market and in the water supply. The poorer classes became even more susceptible to
disease and malnutrition.
The plentiful supply of food in Wonderland blatantly contrasts the true situation in
the Victorian world at the time. Despite the vast quantity of sustenance in Wonderland,
many of the foods that satisfied Alice were unhealthy, such as cake — rarely thought of
as an important part of one's diet. Furthermore, many of the sources of food in
Wonderland are entirely imagined and could never prove as valuable rations for Victorian
society.
To Alice, eating and drinking does not mean nourishment just as growing up does not
mean maturing or getting old; it is only used for alteration. The use of food in this world
is not incidental. In Wonderland there are many distinguishing factors between eating and
drinking. The act of eating is not “ritual”, it is necessary for Alice’s metamorphosis, it is a
prize at the end of the Caucus race, and a never-ending punishment at the Mad Hatter’s
tea party. The food never becomes a real meal because it is broken into several snacks
Food categories are separated into liquid and solid (which share the same result: grow
shrink), raw and cooked, and sweet and salty. A fine example of this is during Alice’s first
size change in the hall. When Alice drinks the liquid marked appropriately “drink me”
she states, “ It had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast.”
Many of Wonderland's most memorable moments concern the consumption of food.
Alice is told "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" by mysterious food that changes her body in
ways she cannot predict. Food is a very important element in reading desire and
subjectivity within the Alice texts. Not only is food one of the most famous features of
the Alice texts, their author was also infamous in his own eating habits and attitudes
toward food Lewis Carroll was notoriously thrifty when it came to eating in his own life,
often only consuming a biscuit and some sherry for his main meal and never eating lunch.
In Morton N. Cohen's popular study of Carroll, it is noted that Carroll had odd eating
habits for both himself and his child guests, "surviving himself on simple food and small
portions" (Cohen, Biography 291), while meticulously planning the times and quantity of
his child guests food consumption, including treats like coca, jam, and sweets when
entertaining children.

He also seemed to bring a more encompassing picture to his society through his
fantasy writing, rather than simply recording the existence of starvation and
malnutrition in the Victorian world.
In his personal writings, there is much evidence of Carroll's uneasiness
surrounding appetite and consumption. He was known to be extremely controlling
with food, often bringing his own meals to friend's homes when invited for dinner. In
a letter declining a luncheon invitation, Carroll wrote: "I always decline luncheons. I
have no appetite for a meal at that time, and you will perhaps sympathise with my
dislike for sitting to watch others eat and drink" (Cohen, Volume 1 319). Carroll was
also notably disgusted by a ravenous appetite in his many female child friends, their
later reflections of the author indicating he would often berate them for being greedy
and encourage them to only eat modestly. Carroll had a confirmed and well-known
adoration of the little girl figure, and it wasn't unusual for him to present gifts and
lavish (excessive) attention on little girls, enjoying many such friendships.