As a popular and much-loved novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; and, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, has been translated into over a hundred languages ​​and is a familiar tale that most people enjoyed during their childhoods. With a seemingly light-hearted plot full of imagination and adventure, the novel also intended to have depth and share author Lewis Carroll's thoughts on Victorian society. Carroll uses the picaresque aspect of Alice's narrative to produce an effective social commentary on the Victorian lifestyle through the playful use of words, rhyme, and even the characters themselves; these elements aid in Carroll's critique of the Victorian lifestyle and 19th-century English politics. The characters that Alice meets in her adventure along the way show different parts of the Victorian lifestyle that allow those faulty characteristics to be emphasized and highlighted. A picaresque novel is a novel that is usually a first-person narrative, recounting the adventures of a low-ranking or dishonest adventurer as he or she drifts from place to place and from one social setting to another in the attempt to survive. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Although Alice obviously does not come from a lower class family due to her somewhat educated responses, once Alice is down the rabbit hole her social background becomes irrelevant . Carroll uses Alice's upbringing to contribute to the perception of Victorian England. Throughout the novel Alice refers to her lessons and her education, usually taking pride in the knowledge she has gained during them. However, when Alice applies this knowledge, it is useless or wrong. For example, he may remember how many miles to the center of the earth, but mistakenly thinks that everything will be upside down when he passes to the other side. Down, down, down. Would the fall never end? “I wonder how many miles I have traveled by now?” he said aloud. "I must have arrived somewhere near the center of the earth. Let's see: it would be four thousand miles below, I think..." (for, you see, Alice had learned quite a lot of this kind of thing in her lessons at school... room , and even if it wasn't a very good opportunity to show off her knowledge, since there was no one to listen to her, it was still good practice to repeat it) - yes, that's about the right distance - but then I wonder to what latitude or longitude do I have to?" (Alice had no idea what latitude was, or even longitude, but she thought they were great, great words to say.) (Carrol 10-11). Carroll also makes fun of the tales that Victorian children were forced to read for educational purposes. Criticize these repetitive morality tales about the consequences of foolish actions, all because they didn't remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: for example, that a hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and he had never forgotten that, if you drink a lot from a bottle marked "poison", it is almost certain that sooner or later you will not agree with it. (Carroll 13) This also alludes to the fact that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its "thickly woven masterpieces" do not follow the same path as other children's books from that Victorian era (Hunt, 49). Carroll conveys “the challenge of realizing that understanding how different readers (even two very generalized groups) readlabeled “adults” and “children”) does not mean bringing them to the same understanding but appreciating (and valuing) their different understandings” (Hunt, 41). This ultimately highlights a flaw in his society. Another social commentary that Carroll makes concerns the importance of class in Victorian society through the Garden of Living Flowers in Through the Looking Glass. Alice encounters these flowers which attempt to represent plants as different levels within the British social class structure. In this world of miniature gardens created by Carroll, the most valuable and rare specimens (for example the tiger lily and the rose) belong to a higher class than the more common and simple daisies. The characteristics of each type of flower allude to its rank and class in the garden. And here [the daisies] all began to cry out together, until the air seemed full of little shrill voices. "Silence everyone!" - cried Tiger Lily, passionately waving from side to side and trembling with excitement. "They know I can't reach them!" he gasped, bowing his trembling head towards Alice, "otherwise they wouldn't dare do it!" "It doesn't matter!" said Alice reassuringly, and, leaning towards the daisies, which had just begun again, she whispered: 'If you don't hold your tongue, I'll get you!' There was a moment of silence, and many of the pink daisies turned white. "Exactly!" said the Tiger Lily. "Daisies are the worst of all. When you speak, they all start at once, and it's enough to make you wither to hear how they go on!" (Carroll, 137) When Alice first enters the garden, she first sees and speaks to the tiger lily, while the daisies interrupt and chat until Alice is threatened to stop. The rose assumes a sort of authority over Alice since it criticizes her from the beginning of the conversation while also showing traces of racism with reference to Alice's color. Since this relates to the question of class structure and how power is divided between classes, it also shows the stupidity of it. Normally in British society, power is divided unequally and the upper classes get most of the share. In the Garden of Living Flowers there appear to be class levels, but since all are planted in the ground and none can reach another, no flower can in fact take on more power than another. This makes Tiger Lily deluded into thinking that her "kind" is better than others and highlights the same problem in Victorian society. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private, for-profit owners, rather than the state. This was well practiced in the Victorian era which enriched the pockets of the elite while impoverishing the already less fortunate of England. In capitalism, as in Through the Looking Glass, this practice results in both the relentless pursuit of the unattainable and a lack of appreciation for the achieved. The image Carroll portrays here of someone seeking a desired object, obtaining it but continually seeing something else seemingly even more desirable just beyond the horizon of availability, represents the heart and soul of the capitalism that thrived in Victorian England while does today in the world. "The most beautiful are always further away!" he said at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes to grow so far away, as, with his cheeks flushed and his hair and hands dripping, he climbed back into his place and began to arrange his new treasures. her at that very moment when the rushes had begun to wither, and lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment she had picked them? Even true scented rushes, as we know, last very little - and these, being rushes>.