Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, has written many novels, poems, and short stories in his lifetime but his most famous for his children's “nonsense” novels: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the
Looking Glass. His works, especially the two mentioned, have influenced countless readers over the years, and references to his writings can be found in every type of media from the song
“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane to the the Matrix trilogy. While both books are intended for a child's entertainment, they are full of symbolism and hidden critique. His clever wordplay, use of logic and reasoning, and incredible imagination are all trademarks of his style of writing, which is often referred to as “literary nonsense.” To readers with little experience with Carroll's work, this term seems to perfectly describe Carroll's confusing and often rambling style, but when more thoroughly inspected, it becomes obvious that this “nonsense” has a far deeper meaning.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is about a young girl, Alice, who gets bored doing her multiplication tables one day and follows a white rabbit into a hole. Through this hole, she ends up falling into Wonderland, a place where there are potions and foods that can change the drinker's size, a tea party thrown by a Mad Hatter and a March Hare, and a Caucus­race that everybody wins. As Alice journeys through Wonderland she meets stranger and stranger, or, as she says, “'Curiouser and curiouser!'” (15), characters such as a hookah­smoking caterpillar sitting on a mushroom and a grinning Cheshire Cat who is not all there all the time: “'Well I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing
I ever saw in all my life!'” (94). She runs into three gardeners who are painting the Queen of