Critical Essay | Critical Essay by James R. Kincaid

Critical Essay by James R. Kincaid

SOURCE: "Alice's Invasion of Wonderland," in PMLA, Vol. 88, No. 1, January, 1973, pp. 92-99.

In the following essay, Kincaid addresses the complex mix of innocence and aggression in Alice and argues that Carroll's books are, "above all, about growing up. "

In the fifth chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is alarmed to find that her neck has stretched to such "an immense length" that her head is above the trees. The narrator adds, however, that the alarm soon passes and that she "was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent." This simile, like other Wonderland similes, is more than ornamental; it suggests a critical and subversive perspective on Alice. Though this perspective is generally submerged, it is present in both of Lewis Carroll's great studies of the joys and dangers of human innocence, Alice in Wonderland and Through...
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