Hadji Sana
Essay due 14 December The Language of Wonderland Language is a very important tool that persuades an audience. The writings do afford a very profoundness study into it. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the author Lewis Carroll explores skillfully the function of language in wonderland; he makes his own rules creating a rare artistic work. In this essay, I argue that through his nonsense conversations, Carroll succeeds to break language free of its standard rules. Conversations in wonderland are directed by a comical language that echoes much like English yet is guided by an uncommon, bizarre reasoning. Carroll inverts the norms of reasonable speech. Instead, she gives the words another shape and uses them into a different context. The usual function of words according to grammar rules is turned to have a new form and meaning. This abuse of language and transformation of English standard come off as nonsense. ‘Carroll’s frequent use of illogical conundrums and nonsense phraseology’ (Wilma cruise ‘a series of exhibitions’) invites the readers, just like Alice, into a new world of exploration. When Alice asks the cat about the way: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The cat responds ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ ‘I don’t much care where’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the cat. ‘Mas long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that.’ Said the cat, ‘If you only walk long enough’. (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland).These citations are evident because they call nonsense, and faulty logic. Though there is a conversation between Alice and the Cheshire-cat, the meaning here is confused. Rather like Alice who ‘is pushed and pulled hither and thither in a confusion of understanding’ (Cruise, Actions speak louder than words in The Alice Sequence), the reader is astonished with the confused use of language and reason: ‘The use of nonsense is even further questioned by the reader because it is something that cannot be understood if he or she is unable to step out of the normal realm of thinking’. ( Parody and Nonsense Poems in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Samantha Soder p24). Alice gets embarrassed because of her comment about her act of drinking tea: The March Hare invites Alice to drink more tea: ‘Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." "You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."(Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).Alice identifies her English with meaningful talk, but the Hatter’s answer, although voiced in English, viewed as worthless Conversation which ‘is the essential vehicle of nonsense in Alice, but it is a conversation of an unusual kind” (Flescher 1969: 137). Carroll uses the word ‘more’ in an unfamiliar atmosphere to confuse the reader as well as her protagonist. The Hatter confounds Alice’s comprehension of language: ‘The rules of conversation of Alice’s world are constantly ridiculed and their stereotyped nature becomes evident. The courtesy formulas and the phrases destined to establishing or keeping contact are voluntarily misinterpreted. The automatisms of language have no place in Wonderland’. (Yaguello 1991: 28, my translation). The artificial use of English as a language is apparent with ‘'curiouser and curiouser' . However Alice’s good English, she is trapped into confusion and meaningless. A similar but more disordered word composition arises when the Mock Turtle talks about schooling: ‘we had the best of educations – in fact, we went to school every day –’ ‘I’ve been to a day-school, too,’ said Alice; ‘you needn’t be so proud as all