Bruna 03/09/2012
Carroll and his Alices
Alice lives the conflict of growing up, leaving the childhood behind, becoming an adult. She experiences many situations that make it clear, especially in Adventures in Wonderland. In this book she is constantly growing up and going small and cannot manage it, just like it happens in life: we cannot control time nor physical changes as maturation approaches. Her dreams are extremely ludic showing how attached she still is to infancy.
Just like any kid, her problems tend to disappear magically. Little kids wait until someone (an adult) comes and provides them with whatever they need. Their problems are ended magically. With Alice it is not different: whenever she is too big or too small something magic pops up right in front of her, like a cake or a bottle! On the other hand, she sees herself all alone in this new world she enters and finds it hard to understand who she is now. When the caterpillar asks her that, she seems confused. Later she recites "Your Old Father William", which is about this exact dichotomy between old and young. The caterpillar itself is a symbol of metamorphosis.
This conflict Alice lives is more explicit in Adventures in Wonderland than it is in Through the Looking-Glass, though it is possible to extract elements from there too. The second book's story in linked to chess. It is interesting to notice this game is commonly played with white and black pieces, not white and red. Alice plays with her white and red sides. There are passages the author says she is positioned between the red and the white queens. In occidental cultures white represents purity, new (infancy). Red is the color of blood, substance that transforms girls in women. Black is associated to death, what is believed to be far from the character at her age, explaining the pieces and why the night never really arrived in her dream.