Literary Theory: Eco-criticism & Alice in Wonderland

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Reconsidering the Animal World Through Anthropomorphism

The anthropomorphic characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland expose the hierarchical inequalities between humans and animals, as well as humans’ ideologically inaccurate beliefs about the animal world. Authors’ use of anthropomorphism is typically viewed negatively by ecocritics because it “falsely impos[es] a human frame of thought that blocks us from recognizing the specificity of the nonhuman” (Parker 357). However, Carroll uses anthropomorphic characters to highlight and explain to readers that while humans hold ideologies regarding animals that are essentialist, hierarchical, egocentric, and oppositional to the animal world, humans, in fact, have similarities to animals that they may not acknowledge. By bringing to light these concepts through the use of anthropomorphism in a children’s story, Carroll is challenging readers in a non-threatening manner to reconsider not only their ideologies as they pertain to the animal world, but also their ideologies pertaining to the relationship between humans and animals.

Carroll begins Alice’s journey into Wonderland with a curious encounter with an even curiouser rabbit. Although the White Rabbit has the physical appearance of a typical rabbit, it speaks as a human would speak. Carroll’s description of the rabbit as an average rabbit with “pink eyes” that is not “so very remarkable” makes Alice, and subsequently the reader, think the rabbit “seemed quite natural” (Carroll 11-12). Carroll’s use of the word natural to describe the rabbit indicates a connection to the ordinary look of the rabbit, as well as a connection to the natural world, and works to cement in the reader’s mind that the rabbit is an animal first, and its human characteristics are second. The illustrations of the White Rabbit further emphasize the fact that it looks like a typical rabbit with the exception of the coat it is wearing and the pocket watch it pulls out of its pocket with human-like hands. This physical representation of the White Rabbit that generally meets the human reader’s expectations and definitions of it as an animal, coupled with its human characteristics of speaking and engaging in human-specific activities, such as checking a pocket watch, simultaneously allows the reader to understand and categorize the White Rabbit as an animal, while also relating to it on a human level.

With this human relation to the White Rabbit established, the reader understands immediately that the White Rabbit, even though he’s an animal, is anxious and stressed—similar to any human—when he makes marked comments of, “‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!’” (Carroll 11). Carroll consistently describes the White Rabbit as “hurried” or “hurrying,” which emphasizes his anxiety-ridden and stress-filled state as he exclaims, “’Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’” (Carroll 12, 14). Later, the cause for the White Rabbit’s stress and anxiety is revealed to be that of the Duchess, a human, when the rabbit exclaims, “‘Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! Wo’n’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!’” (Carroll 25). The White Rabbit later further explains, “‘The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!’” (Carroll 43). Fearing for his life, which is held in the hands of the Duchess, the White Rabbit’s unenviable position represents the human and animal hierarchy and the power that humans hold to control and extinguish the lives of animals. Although many humans likely do not acknowledge or consider their power over animals or their essentialist and egocentric views that humans are naturally more important than animals, Carroll’s stress-filled and anxiety-ridden White Rabbit brings to light the acute apprehension that animals may feel while living in the “savage” human world and forces the reader to reconsider their destructive view of animals as inconsequential and disposable.

Alice’s conversation with the Mouse also illustrates the egocentric and essentialist views that humans hold in regard to animals. Alice first meets the Mouse while swimming in the pool of tears that she created. After becoming tired from swimming for so long, Alice requests the Mouse’s help to get out of the pool and unintentionally begins a conversation with the Mouse about cats. The Mouse tells Alice in no uncertain terms that he does “‘Not like cats!’” (Carroll 30). Alice seems to consider, albeit briefly, for the first time in her life that an animal may hold a perspective that differs from hers and not like cats; however, Alice loves her cat, Dinah, and believes that everyone should love cats as she loves her cat. Alice’s egocentric beliefs about Dinah, which can be representative of humans’ selfish beliefs that everyone and everything—even animals—should think as they think, return to the forefront of her mind as she tries to convince the Mouse that cats are not bad animals when she says, “‘…I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you’d take a fancy to cats, if you could only see her’” (Carroll 30). Alice thinks her cat is an exemplary creature that even the Mouse couldn’t resist. Her egocentric and essentialist views do not allow for her to consider the fact that Dinah as much as any other cat, as an instinctive act, would likely kill the Mouse, and therefore, the Mouse has a legitimate fear of all cats. In fact, after Alice continued talking about Dinah and described her as “‘such a capital one for catching mice,’” which left the Mouse “bristling all over, and she [Alice] felt certain it must really be offended,” the Mouse finally spoke up and told Alice that, “‘Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things!’” (Carroll 31-32). Although the Mouse spoke directly against Alice’s egocentric views, Alice’s beliefs were so strong and so ingrained that the Mouse’s objection was fleeting in Alice’s mind—so much so that she quickly offended the Mouse again as she spoke of a dog that “‘kills all the rats’” (Carroll 32). Alice’s egocentric and essentialist ideologies about animals and the belief that the Mouse should hold the same feelings about other animals as she, are so ingrained that it takes two instances of Alice misspeaking before she even begins to realize that the Mouse’s fearful feelings about cats (and dogs) are equally ingrained.

After demonstrating the power that humans hold over animals and the fact that animals are very likely acutely aware of this power, as well as bringing to light the idea that animals do not necessarily share the same beliefs as humans, Carroll creates a scene in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to show that humans and animals can be quite similar—another concept that humans do not likely consider. When Alice meets the Pigeon, Alice has once again grown in size and her neck “…was an immense length…which seemed to rise like a stalk out of the sea of green leaves that lay far below her” (Carroll 66). Alice’s neck was so long that the Pigeon mistook Alice for a serpent. “‘I’m not a serpent!’ said Alice indignantly” (Carroll 66). Based on the way Alice looks, the Pigeon insists that Alice is a serpent and states, “‘No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you’ve never tasted an egg!’” (Carroll 67). When Alice admits that “‘little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do,’” the Pigeon concludes that little girls are “‘a kind of serpent: that’s all I can say’” (Carroll 67). This conversation demonstrates that animals and humans are similar in the sense that they are both predators. While humans may not view themselves as predators, animals certainly take that stance, and the Pigeon demonstrated as much when she acknowledged the predatory similarities between serpents and little girls. Carroll’s positioning of Alice, a stereotypically innocent little girl, as a predator is an unlikely comparison, but holds enough thought-provoking shock value to work as an effective analogy to open the reader’s mind to other similarities between humans and animals.

Carroll’s use of anthropomorphic characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland exposes humans’ essentialist, hierarchical, egocentric, and oppositional ideologies to the animal world, as well as the fact that humans and animals have similarities that humans may not have considered. Although most ecocritics hold authors’ use of anthropomorphism in a negative light, Carroll’s use of it works in a positive manner to highlight some of the unacknowledged shortfalls of human ideologies related to the animal world. Further, through Alice’s interactions with the animals in Wonderland, Carroll’s anthropomorphism works to make readers reconsider their ideologies pertaining to the animal world and the human relationship with animals.

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis, and Mark Burstein. The Annotated Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass). Edited by Martin Gardner, 150th ed., The Martin Gardner Literary Partnership, GP, 2015.

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2015.