Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is book written by Lewis Carroll that provokes numerous discussions among literary critics and scholars. Many researchers see this literary work as a philosophical narration with sophisticated concepts and ideas. In his book, the author makes use of symbolism and allusions to bring out the expression of fantastic world where everything is subjected to the nonsensical perception having no logical explanation. However, a deeper consideration reveals the Carroll resorts to nonsensical reasoning, or symbolic logic, in order to explain and to detect nonsensical acts. In particular, nonsense here is unveiled through the inversed logic being a kind of parody engendering mathematical spaces. In this regard, Carroll’s work is a sophisticated interaction between nonsense and logic.
The book is written in a literary nonsense style defying logical reasoning at that. At this point, excess of meaning, but not its lack, is the sign of nonsensical perception of the plot. Therefore, all the scenes and descriptions can seem meaningless at a glance, but a in-depth consideration unveils sophisticated logical chains. In fact, scholars and intellectuals apply to this specific style to distort the existed principles and laws. Endowing the work with the elements of absurdity, Carroll intends to discover the fourth dimension of mathematical space. The concept of nonsense here is a kind of a loophole that distracts people from the established truth.
Apart from philosophical quests, the authors use literary nonsense to provide a humorous effect, and to mock at the established principles of logic reasoning. This is especially viewed on the example of Alice’s conversation with fictional creature of Wonderland. The fact that Alice can talk to animals and other weird inhabitants is not perceived as nonsense or as a shocking fact. On the contrary, Alice takes all those conversations seriously and tries to find the logics in the most irrational things. This particular absorption with logical state of affairs makes Alice confused and this is where Carroll intends to say that people often cannot cognate the unknown because it does not have a logical explanation. Being on the edge of two dimensions – real and fictional – tries to define how the logic can be applied to Wonderland, the world based on irrational principles and to what consequences it can lead.
Based on the above, one can state that Alice’s trusting disposition can be regarded as one of her intellectual virtues. The heroine believes that her attempts to understand reality make sense and she will be rewarded for such efforts. So, no matter how amazing and absurd the world is, she still consider Wonderland where logic and reason prevail. Her resolute belief in the power of sense never fails to be on guard of the events that often deviate from normal state of affaires. Interestingly, Alice desperately believes in what is going on this new dimension explaining “that one can’t believe impossible things” (Carroll, p. 47). At the same time, she pronounces, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” (Carroll, p. 47). Though being disguised under the mask of absurdity, the phrase discloses a general concept of observation.
The consideration of an alternative dimension where everything is subject to absurdity and chaos, nonsensical acts here are perceived as an inversed logic presented by provocative and explicit examples. In particular, this can be brightly illustrated by the Red Queen’s phrase: “Sentence first – verdict afterwards”. Being exasperated by the inversed court procedure, Alice cries out, “Stuff and nonsense!…The idea of having the sentence first” (Carroll, p. 83). In this case, nonsense plays an intrinsic technique presented the logic of the new mathematical science, the idea of the alternative dimension. Apparently, this kind of ‘nonsense’ is not predetermined by the lack of meaning; it serves as a presentation of alternative realities that are suitable for fantasy and for proliferation of fictional images. In this respect, the author still resorts logic to explain the meaningless concepts and makes sense of the fictional world described as a new reality. Thought the imaginary land is full of misconceptions and contradictions, it is still subjected to rules of reason and, therefore, Alice and the depicted creatures exist to explain different and even unknown dimensions of logics.
As it has been stated previously, the author makes use of symbolic logic to endow the presented nonsense with meaning. In that regard, Alice is conserved as a victim of this specious logic related to profound philosophical conceptions. In the books the White Queen applies to formal grammatical and logical framework within which she tries to explain the impossible and satisfy Alice interests of “jam day’” phrase: “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day…It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t other day, you know” (Carroll, p. 44). The point is that people have adversely treated the unexamined phenomena especially those that cannot be logically justified. In this respect, Wonderland’s inhabitants do not make use of logic a tool for the world perception. Rather, these creatures try to overthrow the reason and prove some arbitrary assumptions existing beyond it.
The logical perversion can be explicitly viewed in other examples from the novel. In particular, when the Cheshire Cat’s head separated from his body annoys the King and, so, the Queens decides to cut his head off. However, execution rejects to conduct beheading by explaining it quite reasonably: “you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from” (Carroll, p. 39). This is the brightest example when logical thinking is applied to absurd things justifying the universal ideas that even the impossible may become possible. In the light of the above explanation, one should admit that nonsense is still based on the disjunction of meaning and logic but not on the formation of opposite absurdities. With regard to an endless number of riddles which seem to be logical, they are still have no logical reference to the story itself. In particular, Alice’s involvement in dispute with Humpty Dumpty does not express any explicit information. Thus, the question “why do you sit out here along” followed by a logical, at a glance, answer: “because there’s nobody with me” does not sound quite informative and meaningful (Carroll, p. 53). These examples justify the presence of logic and its symbolic function in this novel.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland reveal the connection between logic and nonsense, both explicitly and implicitly. First of all, nonsense here is perceived as inversed logic necessary to cognate the unknown sides of the alternative dimension and new mathematical spaces. Secondly, though pure forms of logic are present in this literary work, they bear only formal and symbolic significance only but not contribute to understanding of the plot. One way or another, Carroll can be definitely called as the father of reason and logic because he manages to cognate the universal truth out of absurdities.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s adventures in wonderland and through the looking-glass. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2010.