Class Blog

I am using Havelock Ellis’ “Sexual Inversion in Women” as a lens to view “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” because the text creates the atmosphere of defining what is “normal” in the developing female maturity and sexuality. For example, an “inverted woman” has “manly” qualities, wears masculine clothes, and spends a lot of time around other women. While this is not actually accurate to reality, it calls attention to an important perspective held about developing sexuality. Ellis’ attempt at trying to logicize and simplify female sexuality can very much highlight the confusions that Alice is confronted with in her journey in Wonderland. The lens allows observations on how Alice’s attempts at thinking logically about Wonderland, or ultimately her own developing identity, does not actually lead to clarity.

Inversions are abundant throughout the novel. The inversions of “Alice and Wonderland” though are less explicitly about sex, and more generally about Alice’s journey though childhood to womanhood. Wonderland constantly inverts Alice’s expectations of what the world should logically be. Riddles have no answers, animals hold authority over humans, and games do not have rules. Alice can’t remember multiplication problems or recitations, or even who she is. In fact, trying to use logic is actually maddening for Alice. Her reality and sense of self is shattered and confused. Even her body does not stay the same, and the changing size of her body and body parts is one of her central conflicts. These changes could of course represent the actual physical changes that occur during puberty, and the frustrations that occur when your identity is subsequently questioned. Alice’s conversation with the hookah smoking caterpillar is one instance where Alice is more directly confronted with the frustrations of identity.

His repeating question of “Who are you?” leads Alice to admit out loud that she no longer remembers, and that she is losing sight of who she was before she fell down the rabbit hole. More literally, the caterpillar can represent change because of his physical transformation into a butterfly that will inevitably occur in the future. The caterpillar denies feeling uncomfortable at this future, but Alice is able to see another creature who is similar to her. Alice seeing this potential for transformation in another being can be a further element of her growth.

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?”

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.

Alice attempts to explain her confusion in physical, logical terms of size. She tries to say that the concept is “clear,” but the caterpillar denies this repeatedly. He opposes having any understanding as a result of Alice’s attempts to maker her confusion comprehendible and categorical. Her visit with another creature that embodies change and growth lets Alice briefly stop trying to make sense of Wonderland and allows opportunity to focus inwardly into making sense of her own identity.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. Bantam Dell, 2006.

Ellis, Havelock. “Sexual Inversion in Women.” The Yellow Wallpaper, edited by David Bauer, Bedford Books, pp. 237–247.

I will be using Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to look at a book I read for another class this semester: Gulliver’s Travels by Johnathan Swift.  By comparing these two works, a pattern has emerged to me and I began thinking about the psychological implications of this pattern. Both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels illustrate an emphasis on the importance of the physical size of the protagonist, as well as how their size impacts their environment.  In Swift’s work, the protagonist, Gulliver, travels to many new islands where he is either much larger or much smaller than its inhabitants.  There were many instances when Gulliver was much larger than the people of Lilliput and he makes comments about being easily able to hurt them if he wanted to, or accidentally hurting them anyway due to his size.  Alice deals with this problem repeatedly when she becomes extremely large and overtakes the rabbit’s house, cries so extensively that she creates a large body of water that overtakes a bunch of animals, or even simply scaring a pigeon with her long neck, etc.  As this pattern holds such a prevalent role in these two works, I wondered about the implications of this recurring theme.

Whether it was the initial intention of the work at its publication, both books have become children’s stories, either through slightly altered narratives, animations, live action films, etc.  This affects the reading of these works because children often seek morals to understand these stories.  In a study called, “The Psychological Significance of Children’s Literature”, Jacquelyn Sanders writes, “Literature can be of value in helping the child cope with and master those problems of importance in his life” (15).  In terms of Carroll’s and Swift’s narratives, the emphasis on size and how the body rapidly changes can be indicative of puberty, which many children struggle through, but it also holds larger significance. As characters struggle to adapt to these physical changes, it seems to run parallel with fears about the uncontrollable factors of human nature.  We may unintentionally hurt or scare someone or something because we don’t grasp the severity of our actions, such as Gulliver does, or we may become overwhelmed with our emotions, similar to Alice’s experiences.  I also think these instances could perhaps shed light on the harmful ways humans seem to dominate over their natural environment.

There are many threads to follow in tracking the meaning of this pattern. However, I do not wish to become entirely absorbed in the psychological implications alone, because on their own, these works establish a comforting narrative for children.  Using a hyperbolic comparison of size allows children, and general audiences, to immediately identify these works as fantastical narratives and let go of the stress of real life, even if perhaps, they are still learning new messages about their own reality at the same time.

Sanders, Jacqueline. “Psychological Significance of Children’s Literature.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 37, no. 1, 1967, pp. 15-22.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4305730?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds (Carroll, Project Gutenberg).

I have watched the Disney film adaptation of Lewis Carrol’s 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland, but this is my first time reading the novel proper. Despite an abundance of surreal and absurd scenes, I am most interested in one that is grounded in reality; a sequence omitted from the Disney film: the final passage, where the older sister reflects on the contents of the dream that Alice has just awoken from and relayed. In Carrol’s novel, dreams are wonderlands that grant people an escape from their realities: from depression, dissatisfaction, and dullness. As I argue, dreams and novels in the nineteenth century are, like sex scandals, a means of escape for people; audiences encompassing “a wide range of class, gender, and geographical positions” (Cohen) that are dissatisfied with their dull and repressed lives.

Cohen writes, “Like the novel, the scandal story, which publicly broadcasts information ordinarily kept secret, supplies a rich vein of cultural material through which to investigate language about sexuality.” While I am not analyzing Alice to discover sexual undertones, I do note that Alice’s rêve happens once she gets too tired of “sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do” (Carrol). In her dream, Alice encounters talking animals, a nonsensical grand tea party with only three attendants, a twisted game of croquet, and a farcical courtroom trial. These examples are fun-house mirror inversions of the most ordinary aspects of life for most English people. Alice’s vivid imagination is infusing meaning and chaos into real world events and institutions that are (in my opinion) boring and conventional. She turns tea parties and trials into fun, zany events that demand the attention of her readers, whether they be children or adults.

Sexuality per se is neither common nor boring within the spectrum of most human civilizations. However, nineteenth century audiences are so sexually-repressed that they refrain from discussing sexuality in public unless it is in the form of a scandal story, where “the subjects of … stories [are distanced] from their audience enough to effect a divide between the exposed private life and the anonymous public reading about it” (Cohen). Sex scandals are an inversion of Victorian morality and sexual norms because they exist to be talked about by the public. Once the general population is detached enough from a sexual incident—there is no public personal connection—they may comment and critique, open up and indulge their internalized interests without fear of judgement or persecution. Likewise, Alice distances herself from normal life by retreating into her subconsciousness and explores the facets of adult life that might seem foreign to a child, such as playing croquet or the politics of being a British subject, and making them interesting.

Alice’s older sister, a “grown woman” detached from childhood and who must be close to marriage and motherhood, is swept away into Alice’s telling of Wonderland, and dreams about the pure state of childhood, because these thoughts provide her a nice sojourn from a reality where people must read books “without pictures and conversations” (Carroll). As people age, they feel more pressured to conform to the society they belong to; adults internalize the need to not stand out amongst a crowd, to fit in with others. In general, British rule and politics and industrialism, as well as gender-race-class hierarchies, prevent people from living beyond their work and homes, from diverging from the norm by stepping out of their position in life. However, dreams, like sex scandals, provide audiences with the unique opportunity to “formulate questions, discuss previously unimagined possibilities, and forge new alliances” (Cohen). While everyone is Wonderland is mad (Carroll), they are free in a sense because they are not bound to the same rules as Alice’s older sister, who recognizes that Alice will grow up soon but hopes that she will retain her imagination and spirit: the ability to dream and escape from conformity.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, produced by Arthur DiBianca and David Widger. Project Gutenberg EBook, 2020. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm

Cohen, William A. “Sex, Scandal, and the Novel.” Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction, Duke University Press, 1996. http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/wac.html

In Dickens’s preface to Oliver Twist, he describes one of his objectives to portray the outcasts of society in all their true form but also to show how Good can survive through adverse circumstances and ultimately triumph.  How can this text be used as a lens in reading Collins’s The Moonstone?  Dickins writes that he will spare none in describing details of the vilest outcasts of society.  Collins’s readers, rather, are exposed to villains as Dickins would describe like “meat, in delicate disguise.”  John Herncastle, would appear a gentleman though likely was a murderer in addition to being a thief.  Godfrey Ablewhite, likewise a thief, is described in Betteredge’s narrative as follows:  “he had a beautiful red and white colour; a smooth round face, shaved as bare as your hand; and a head of lovely long flaxen hair, falling negligently over the poll of his neck…He was a barrister by profession; a ladies’ man by temperament; and a good Samaritan by choice.”  More contrasting descriptions of these villains with Sikes and Fagan in Oliver Twist would be difficult to find.

But where this lens brings similarity and clarity are in two of their outcasts: Nancy and Ezra.  Both are social outcasts and degraded.  Both carry a heavy burden throughout their lives.  Collins’s description of Ezra repulses not only Betteridge but also the reader.  After receiving a clear description of his appearance, his demeanor, we as readers, also turn our heads and look the other way. He tries to make himself invisible and we also would rather hide him from view.  And yet, it is interesting to note that Ezra’s profession is as someone who heals and who eases pain.  Moreover he was the means of bringing about the healing of Dr. Candy as well as the riunion of Rachel and Franklin. Nancy, more than once, came to the aid of little Oliver and was fundamental in bringing about justice due him.

Both characters also loved and derived some alleviation from this. Dickins writes:  “It is emphatically God’s truth, for it is the truth He leaves in such depraved and miserable breasts, the hope yet lingering behind; the last fair drop of water at the bottom of the dried-up weed-choked well.”  Nancy clung to Sikes to her destruction.  Ezra has been separated from his love but has worked tirelessly to provide for her.  And in Ezra’s final weeks he was permitted to see “the sunny side of human life” and be reconciled with the world he was to leave. (p. 447). To that end, I think Dickins’s goal of “the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last” can be confirmed by Ezra Jennings as well.

Within the world of Wonderland, things are weird and normalcy is almost nonexistent. Even the dynamics of the characters, especially those perceived to be in authority, are odd and interesting to analyze. When looking at the royalty throughout the novel is we can see that the suit of hearts is the ones in the position of power. In card games, the suit spades are the most important suit, so it is odd that hearts are in charge. The novel could be maybe playing on the other associations with the word and imagery of the word heart. Another thing that doesn’t fit is the way that although visually the characters are closer in reference to cards, the power dynamics of the characters are much closer to those of the game chess. For example, the queen appears to have much more power than the king, as she is the one who sentences others to be beheaded for minor offenses.

The queen also uses her power to make the court do seemingly nonsensical activities such as croquet with live animals. There are no rules in the game that make sense to Alice and the others there are only playing to appease the queen. In the Novel and the Police, it states that “once a power of social control has been virtually raised to the status of an ontology, the action becomes so intimidating that is effectively discouraged”(31). Wonderland could be outlining how the concept of fear in those in power is one that is ridiculous, as the people in subjugation are the ones who place them in power. The queen of hearts is a figure everyone fears but as we can see, and hear from the Gryphon, “they never executes nobody, you know”(76). This outlines the way that the people of the kingdom are blinded by the appearance of punishment from the social norms.

I have used D.A. Miller’s “The Novel and the Police” as a lens to while reading Heather Willis’ article, “Creeping By Moonlight: A Look at Civil Commitment Laws or Sexually Violent Predators.” (below I have included a small slide by Chrystal Ford that gives a quick explanation on what civil commitment is) Miller’s article describes policing with a source of power that stems from the upholding of a social norm. This idea spreads through “an ideal of unseen but all-seeing surveillance, which, though partly realized in several, often interconnected institutions, is identified with none.” It also describes a “regime of the norm,” in which normalized societal practices and perspectives hold power and governance. The article “Creeping By Moonlight” argues that civil commitment for sexual offenders creates the same mental decline that Jane experiences in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The article starts by introducing and summarizing the main plot and messages of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and then goes into detail on the power dynamics behind civil commitment and it’s implementation.

The enforcement of discipline, according to Miller’s article, “entails a relative relaxation of policing power. No doubt this manner of passing off the regulation of every day life is the best manner of passing it on.” (Miller, 16) This idea can be seen when looking at the points of Willis’ article. There is a distinction within the text made between prison and civil commitment. Civil commitment is supposed to be treatment of mental disorders behind sexual assault. It is a step forward into returning to society as a “functional member.” The relaxing of restraints is supposed to allow opportunity for the convicts to learn to act as they should. They taken out of a highly controlled prison system and are placed into another one, where they given a false sense of freedom and choice. Their escape from civil commitment relies on whether society, or the assigned doctor, deems they are functioning up to societal/normalized standards.

Miller expands on the modes of discipline and the institutionalized ways that they can discretely emerge. “Disciplinary power constitutively mobilizes a tactic of tact: it is the policing power that never passes for such, but is either invisible or visible only under the cover of other, nobler or simply blander intentions (to educate, to cure, to produce, to defend.)” (Miller, 17) The civil commitment that Willis describes falls under this mode is discipline. According to Willis, the true intention in many (but not all) sentences of civi commitment is continued punishment, but it hides under the intention of curing the convicts and protecting society from harm. Therefore, it is actually a mode of discipline, not mental treatment. Willis draws back to “The Yellow Wallpaper” when explaining how there is no mandated medical treatment for these individuals and that credible proof of a “medical illness” is blurry to begin with. “Sexually violent predator laws also create a class of convicted criminals outside the criminal justice system who have been infantilized and told they cannot control or take care of themselves in society.” (Willis, 182) Willis suggests that convicts are convinced of the fact that they cannot control their own actions to fit society standards. Under the best of circumstances, being able to fit into societal norms is the main policing power and deciding factor of their freedom. Many more of Willis’ points could definitely be viewed though the lens of “The Novel and Police,” especially because both prioritize social standards as forms of power.

In The Moonstone, the titular stone’s origins are in India, where it is described as an object of great spiritual and monetary value. After the moonstone is violently stolen by Herncastle, it almost immediately brings paranoia and misfortune to anyone who possesses it. After it is gifted to Herncastle’s niece Rachel Veridner, three mysterious Indian jugglers start appearing in their town, even coming to their house the night the stone is stolen. Despite evidence that absolves the Indians from prosecution, the Veridner family has the societal power to arrest them anyway. Betteredge narrates, “when the police came to investigate the matter… he would contrive, by committing them as rogues and vagabonds, to keep them at our disposal, under lock and key, for a week. They had ignorantly done something (I forget what) in the town, which barely brought them within the operation of the law” (Collins 82).

This passage reveals the power dynamics related to policing in the novel. The adjectives “rouges and vagabonds” do not imply criminality necessarily, but rather that the jugglers are untrustworthy and suspicious. Their ‘crimes’ have “barely” brought them into custody, and are so trivial that Betteridge cannot even remember them, but the Veridners’ influence allows them to utilize this to arrest them. Betteridge’s language places him and the Veridners above the Indians; by describing them “at [the Veridners] disposal, under lock and key,” the Indians are completely dehumanized. The jugglers are at their disposal, revealing the Veridners’ absolute power over their fates. 

When Betteridge states that “every human institution (justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way” further emphasizes the power dynamics at play (Collins 82). The “you” in this statement is ultimately referring to upper class, white English individuals. Betteridge assumes the reader is part of this privileged group. The Veridners’ influence allows them to treat concepts like justice as malleable to their own interests, ultimately revealing the corruption of policing. 

The language utilized to describe the Indian jugglers is related to colonialism. India is portrayed as a threatening ‘other,’ associated with unknown magical powers. The Veridners have almost absolute societal power over the Indians due to their higher class, race, and nationality, reflecting England’s colonization of India. Their suspicion and fear of the Indians is, while not completely unreasonable, ultimately based in colonialist attitudes. They are able to wield their social influence to legitimize their baseless allegations. This portrays the police as not an ultimate moral authority, but a force swayed by who is in power. While the beginning of the novel is just beginning to explore these themes, I am curious to see how colonialist views of Indians and police corruption will influence the novel. 

In the country those men came from, they care just as much about killing a man, as you care about emptying the ashes out of your pipe. If a thousand lives stood between them and the getting back of their Diamond—and if they thought they could destroy those lives without discovery—they would take them all. The sacrifice of caste is a serious thing in India, if you like. The sacrifice of life is nothing at all (Collins 89).

In this passage taken from Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel, The Moonstone, Mr. Murthwaite warns Mr. Betteredge and Mr. Franklin of the three Brahmins (higher caste Hindu priests) that have been stalking the Verinder-Herncastle family in search of the famed Moonstone (a great yellow diamond). Colonel John Herncastle, who stole the sacred diamond during the Siege of Seringapatam (5 April – 4 May 1799), the final confrontation of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War between the British East India Company and the Kingdom of Mysore, recently died and bequeathed the diamond to his estranged niece, Rachel Verinder. By including this depiction of the Hindu priests as murderous thieves who value wealth and social status over human life, Betteredge perpetuates the Western discourse that demonizes the Indian population and strips blame from the real villains of history: the English colonialists.

In his 1978 book, Orientalism, Edward Said argues that Westerners created and reenforce a socio-political racial dialogue about the East (the Orient) that shapes how the West perceives the East and in turn influences the way the West perceives itself (Said 7). Said’s theory applied to The Moonstone reveals that Betteredge’s narration, and its inclusion of the racist dialogue from the people he encounters, is another contribution to a toxic discourse that teaches the English to be afraid or suspicious of Easterners. 

Early in the novel, Betteredge, the Verinder’s head servant, turns the three Indian jugglers and their young British companion away for fear that their offer to perform for Lady Verinder is an excuse to gain access to the estate’s material possessions. Later on, he mentions spotting them lurking about the estate, and grows more wary of them. Betteredge’s fixation on the Indian jugglers is fueled by his racist, colonialist mindset that assumes these foreign figures have a sinister purpose in mind. He discusses his suspicions with Mr. Franklin, a cousin to the Verinders, whose “opinion was, not only that the Indians had been lurking about after the Diamond, but also that they were actually foolish enough to believe in their own magic—meaning thereby the making of signs on a boy’s head, and the pouring of ink into a boy’s hand, and then expecting him to see persons and things beyond the reach of human vision” (Collins 64). Here, Mr. Franklin not only reenforces Betteredge’s prejudice, but paints this picture of the Indians being these supernatural figures that use their knowledge of occult, mysterious, foreign customs to manipulate an innocent British boy and exploit his clairvoyant talents for a seemingly greedy desire.

However, Betteredge does not include anything about how Colonel Herncastle was a corrupt British officer who stole the Moonstone from the Indian people. His conversation with Murthwaite and Franklin dismisses the religious significance of the gem and neglects to inform the reader that Brahmins are important Indian priests devoted to preserving Hindu culture and teachings. Instead, he records this assertion that their sacrifice of caste is for a superficial, material, colonialist in spirit reason. He selects what he wants to share, manipulating the facts to depict the Indian jugglers are thieves, murderers, and heathens. Considering The Moonstone‘s audience at the time of its original publication, Betteredge’s narration becomes another example of English revisionist writing and colonialist propaganda.

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Barnes and Nobles Classics, 2005.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.