What came before Alice?

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland shows the nonsense in the idea that children should be given purely factual or moral literature, as imagination could harmful their proper development.

Didacticism... ...versus Imagination

In early nineteenth-century Britain, a growing emphasis on utility led many to champion didacticism, or teaching children only factual information and accepted morality. They thought that encouraging imagination would harm their growing minds. In the words of Samuel Griswold Goodrich, author of the didactic Peter Parley books, the goal was...

"to cultivate a love of truth… and virtue, and… make these so attractive as to displace the… old monstrosities, [fairy tales and nursery rhymes." ¹

There was also a backlash to this disdain for “fancy.” A large group of authors, including William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens, believed that an exclusive focus on utility would stifle creativity. In her preface to Holiday House, Catherine Sinclair paraphrases Walter Scott’s opinion that...

“in the rising generation there would be no poets, wits, or orators, because all play of imagination is carefully discouraged, and books written for young people are generally a mere dry record of facts, unenlivened by any appeal to the heart...” ²

Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland during this debate, and throughout the story, the Wonderlanders make nonsensical statements intended to impart wisdom or manners onto Alice. These incidents mock informational and moral didacticism, and the most direct example of this is the Duchess, who constantly makes up nonsense morals.

"You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit."

"Perhaps it hasn't one," Alice ventured to remark.

"Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it." And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke. ³

At this time, "everything's got a moral" was true: the vast majority of children’s books were expected to include a clearly stated moral. However, the Duchess’s morals rarely apply to their context, and Alice is discomforted by her need to moralize everything. This makes fun of how didactic morals are often arbitrary, and being only fed conflicting messages about how they should and should not act can make all of it seem like nonsense to children. Carroll questions whether this ideology treats children as people or as receptacles for a lesson.

Also, Alice refuses to have any immediately apparent morals, instead focusing on Alice's reactions and the fantastical imagery. It prioritizes the thoughts and interests of a child rather than a "proper" way of teaching that discards the imagination. It challenges previous assumptions about what is important to include within a children's book, arguing that imagination is just as important as facts and morals.

Carroll's focus on the emotional reactions of children also forges a connection with the young readers, which creates that "appeal to the heart" that the critics of didacticism wanted. Click to the next page to see a brief analysis of how this works!