Paralleling Middlemarch and Alice in Wonderland

In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll creates a fantasy world in which his young heroine can wander after becoming tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do (Carroll 1715). In George Eliots Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke thirsts for mentally stimulating excitement beyond her sister Celias perceptions of happiness. While the younger Brooke sister only notices the older Mr. Casaubon for his external unattractiveness (Eliot 19), Dorothea becomes fascinated with his attractively labyrinthine mind (23) and his profound understanding of the higher inward life (22). Eliot explains that Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage (9), so it is appropriate to parallel Dorotheas story with a childrens nonsense novel, and to compare her abrupt fall for Casaubon with young Alices sudden fall through the rabbit hole. Both female characters were seeking the key to a wonderland, Alice to a physical place and Dorothea to a mental and spiritual state of being. Unfortunately, although Alice eventually enters Wonderland, Dorothea does not live in a childhood fantasy, and therefore must discover a disappointing reality. When Alice sees a whimsical talking rabbit, she is motivated to leave her sister to follow him, not knowing what adventures she might come upon: In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was going to get out again (Carroll 1715). Just as Alices fascination with the rabbits extraordinariness leads her to plunge down the rabbit hole, Dorothea deviates from her sisters opinion when her enchantment with Casaubon compels her to unthinkingly enter into a marriage which she believes will lead her to a wonderland of knowledge. In these passages from Alice, the rabbit apparently has something urgent on his mind, causing him to elude the little girl who is chasing after him. Casaubon, analogously, is

absorbed by his studies, a quality which Dorothea initially finds attractive. However, once she is down the hole, Casaubon disregards her desire to assist him in his work and to learn the secrets of living rightly. She finds that she is like Alice, hopelessly running after an object of fancy that shows no interest in stopping to have a conversation. While she is chasing the rabbit, Alice ends up in a hall in which she finds a tiny golden key, corresponding with the key to supreme wisdom that Dorothea thinks she will find by marrying Casaubon, writer of The Key to All Mythologies. Lewis describes, There were doors all around the hall, but they were all locked (1716). Matching Alices problem, Dorothea feels that she is missing the key to true happiness, and that perhaps all the doors through which she has tried to walk were not the right doors. Upon meeting Casaubon, she believes she has found the right door, just as Alice [comes] upon a low curtain she had not noticed before (1717), behind which she finds a passage that will lead her to a vibrant, enchanted world. Dorothea thinks that marrying Casaubon is the key to gaining entrance through that passage. In Alices story, the little girl knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains (1717). This fantastic image mirrors Dorotheas thought that her marriage to an intelligent man with whom there could be some spiritual communion (Eliot 22) will bring her out of the darkness of ignorance and into the colorful garden of supreme understanding. However, due to Casaubons aloofness in regards to sharing his scholarship, Dorothea could not even get her head through the doorway (1717). Dorothea views Casaubon as her lens through which to comprehend the universes deeper meaning, just as a telescope allows us to transcend our surroundings and study the vast, mysterious worlds beyond earth. The young woman sees herself as being valuable to Casaubons

study of the unfathomable, because she can join him in his work and perhaps even learn Latin and Greek so as to read to him since his eyes are failing due to an excess of studying (Eliot 66). Corresponding with Dorotheas longing to see things anew, Alice discovers that, upon drinking from the bottle and eating the cake, she either [shuts] up like a telescope or [opens] up like the largest telescope that ever was (1717). She goes through these transformations so that she might be able to retrieve the key in order to get through the passage, but she is frustrated to find that she is either far too small to reach it or far too large to fit through the passage. So too, Dorothea becomes frustrated that her efforts to assist her husband in looking through the telescope are failing. Although Lewis Carroll allows Alice to experience an adventure by wandering through a dream, George Eliot forces her character to wake up from her fantasy and recognize the bleakness of her marriage. Dorothea is brutally discouraged when, despite her strong desires to reach new understanding, she is unable to attain the key to enter into the garden she seeks. Eventually, just as Alice sat down and began to cry due to a feeling of hopelessness, Eliot describes that in Dorotheas mind there was a current into which all thought and feeling were apt sooner or later to flow (217). Disappointment over not finding a wonderland of intellect and spiritual elevation would eventually overcome her emotions until she too would begin to sob like a child.