‘How queer everything is to-day!’: The untamed body of Alice, by Lewis Carroll

Abstract

This paper presents the famous character Alice, by Lewis Carroll, as an untamed body regarding patterns of the Victorian era. In the novels ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There’, the protagonist questions the logic and the rules of the places where she attends. In that sense, her actions are different and disruptive from what is expected from a child in the 19th century. We propose a queer analysis of the character, once the term can also designate bodies that break with social impositions, according to Morais (2020). In this article, we selected parts of the episodes in which Alice interacts with the following characters: Cheshire Cat; March Hare and Mad Hatter; Queen of Hearts; Red Queen; the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee; and Humpty Dumpty. We rely on the works of Butler (2003, 2019), Foucault (1987), Louro (2018), Six (2013) and Weeks (2018) in order to discuss how people are disciplined from an early age according to hegemonic interests, aiming at the control of the populations. Therefore, we verify the counter-hegemony presented in Alice when she challenges conventions and perceives paradox and arbitrariness in the norms established by the monarchy, which are still reproduced and renewed nowadays.