Given the many biblical connotations within Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is there linguistic evidence to show the presence of Satan or the Devil in this narrative?
asked Mar 22, 2021 at 22:54
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1 Answer
There are several clues left by Carroll which point towards Bill the Lizard as a Wonderland Devil. First, there are the pre-Wonderland direct connections between a Lizard and the Devil (for example, see Brownings, Easter Day, Stanza 26). Next there is the fact that Carroll has Alice kick this Lizard up the chimney, as he makes his way towards the "fireplace,” and this causes his “fall,” recalling Satan’s “fall.” Once on the ground the creatures that succor him call Bill by a Victorian nickname applied to the Devil, “old fellow,” (see The Real Devil’s Walk, at the end of Chapter 1). The clincher, however, is found in Chapter 12 of Wonderland, when the Queen of Hearts throws an inkstand at Bill, just as Luther had done towards Satan a few hundred years earlier (for this latter, see https://www.luther.de/en/tintenfass.html ). As the King of Hearts is mulling over the “evidence,” he questions the Queen:
'Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. `Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again-- "Before she had this fit--" ‘you never had fits, my dear, I think?' he said to the Queen. 'Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke.
Because Luther’s throwing of an inkstand at the devil appears to be the only recorded case of such a particular event (previous to the writing of Wonderland), it is highly unlikely that the two incidents are unrelated, especially given the above, other, evidence Carroll provided earlier in Wonderland.
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answered Mar 22, 2021 at 22:54
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2Throwing an inkstand is indeed unusual in literature, making it quite likely that its use here was deliberate. It may be that Carroll was reversing the trope by having the "Devil" (Queen of Hearts) throw the inkstand at "Luther" (the innocent Lizard). Commented Mar 23, 2021 at 13:40
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1Yes, I am not aware of any other such case, other than these two. In a book which Carroll knew would be read and enjoyed by children, he had to play creatively with this type of thing to make it at least seem innocent. Carroll read and used Blake, and this latter had previously done something similar: many times he makes the Devil into a dunce in his works. Commented Mar 23, 2021 at 14:17